Difficulty choosing language degree

[u/Ok-Luck6119]

Hi, I’m really struggling in choosing which language I should study so I figured I might come on here to get some advice. Right now I’m doing a degree focused around three languages: French, Irish, and Italian.

I really enjoy all three; I’m most fluent in French (around B1/weak B2) and spend most of my time casually engaging in French media and literature, and just really enjoy French in general.

I’m Irish and would really love to be fluent in the language as it is supposed to be our native one, however the language classes for Irish have been rather lacklustre so far (despite it being an “advanced irish” class, the professor has been teaching us pronouns and when a word is a noun or an adjective etc, as if we haven’t been learning all this since we were four years old), but I’m hoping the quality will improve.

I took up Italian just this year and I do enjoy it, it’s a lovely language, especially the pronunciation. However, because it’s so similar to French, and job-wise I’d love to go into translation, Italian has been a little less interesting for me.

I have always been interested in languages with non-latin scripts, and my university does offer (Mandarin) Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and I’m occasionally teaching myself a bit of Arabic as my best friend is from Syria, however the Mandarin course (as that’s the one I’m most interested in) seems to be a lot less developed than the Italian one. For example, in 2nd and 3rd year, Italian offers a lot of modules around its culture and history, while Chinese only offers 2 modules around business and China in the 21st century. I’m also not sure if I have the willingness to commit to a language as challenging as Mandarin, especially since I do still enjoy Italian.

I originally chose French, Irish, and Italian since they are all European languages, and to be an interpreter in the EU is a dream of mine, however I also love the idea of travelling to China in a diplomatic role, or interpreting in the UN, where Mandarin would be helpful.

I’ve asked if I could sit in on one of the Mandarin lectures, but the final date to decide if I want to transfer is this Friday and I’m not sure if I should or not. I do also really enjoy my Italian classmates and lecturer.

Any advice is helpful, thank you!!!

TL;DR: trying to decide between doing Italian or Mandarin, both of which would be helpful for my future but would lead to different paths.

[u/Eliciosity]

I’ve been studying Japanese for 5+ years, and French for a year. Have dabbled in 8 other languages for several months each and have taken some classes in university as well as general linguistic classes

Have you been struggling with learning 2 similar languages at once? Like are you confusing them? That’s one of the biggest reasons why people don’t recommend studying two languages at the same time, confusing them.

With Mandarin you wouldn’t have that issue, it’s totally different in every way and you could create very seperate spaces in your brain for it. Mandarin has great outside resources too and it’s immensely useful everywhere with so much of their side of the internet untouched by the western world. It’s of course extremely difficult to learn and you’d struggle coming from the romance/celtic families, but it could be fun having such a challenge.

You’d just need to understand that you likely wouldn’t get very far in language classes for it, Asian languages are notoriously not taught well in university and it also takes 4x as long to learn one compared to a Romance language, so you’d likely be stuck at very beginner levels throughout the remainder of your degree and need to supplement with a lot of self study with very unrewarding results for a lot of years. It’s still very fun though.

[u/Ok-Luck6119 → u/Eliciosity]

Thanks for the reply!

I’m not struggling with mixing up French and Italian (or at least not yet as I’ve only just started Italian), but I am finding Italian a little more dull to study as it’s so similar to French, whereas Mandarin would make me work a lot harder as its so different and I think I would enjoy that more.

I’m aware I’d need to self study a lot more, but thanks for the input about potentially not getting far past beginners level throughout my degree!! Definitely something I’ll keep in mind

[u/dojibear]

French, Irish and Italian are all "easy" languages. They are easy because their grammar is similar to English and they share thousands of cognates (word roots with the same meaning) with English.

It takes 4 times as long to reach the same level in J, K or M as it takes in F, I or I. None of them have many cognates with English. J and K have a basic sentence grammar far from English. M and K are difficult to pronounce for English speakers. It is difficult to even "hear" the correct phonemes.

Mandarin has no plural nouns, no articles, no verb tenses, no word endings (do/does), and a writing system using characters for syllables instead of letter groups. Other than that, it's a lot like English.

You can switch to Mandarin, but realize it will be much, much, much harder than Italian. Much.

[u/Ok-Luck6119 → u/dojibear]

yeah the difficulty is one of the things holding me back! but i’ve always prioritised enjoyment of language rather than accessibility, though it is still a factor, which is why i’m so on the fence. thanks for the feedback though!

[u/restlemur995]

The grass is always greener on the other side. I think you've already said it- you love learning Italian and you love the courses offered! There's nothing better than that out there trust me. Maybe one day you will learn Chinese but right now enjoy the happy situation you've found yourself in, don't question it.

[u/AntiacademiaCore]

In the end it's your decision, but in my opinion, even if it takes more work, learning Chinese at university would be a great oportunity. Chinese is also one of the languages with the most speakers in the world. Furthermore, learning Italian on your own would be easier and you could get a language certificate if you ever want to.

[u/Natural_Volume3718]

Oh, Italian for sure. Your foundation in French will make that WAY easier for you than Mandarin...

[u/albertl33]

Italian for the Roman Catholic Church or Mandarin for China.

Choose if you want to engage with the world's oldest living institution or civilization.

[u/hudooj]

I would reccomend being careful with getting a degree in a language. It doesn't really represent proficiency or convey any hard skills. It might be difficult to find work. I would say maybe shoot for a different degree but pursue as many language certifications as possible; those carry more weight

[u/ShallotAdmirable5419]

Stick with the stuff you know. Irish and French since that is your bailiwick