5 Foreign Languages that Will Help you Meet Interracial Singles
by kalyani10
Inter-racial relationships are no longer looked upon askance as they used to be in the days of apartheid and segregation. Increasingly now singles from all over the world are discovering love beneath the color of the skin and globalizing influences brought about by economy and technology as only made it all easier. However if you are keen to meet singles from other races, it may be a good idea to learn the most widely spoken foreign languages.
- Chinese
About one in five of the world’s population speaks a form of Chinese. Mandarin is the official language of the people’s republic of china and by far the most widely used version, with over 800 million speakers1. Chinese is also spoken by large communities around the world, from Singapore and London to Vancouver and New York City, all global cities where you have the greatest chances of meeting inter-racial singles. However before you sign up for a mandarin Chinese class, keep in mind that overseas Chinese are more likely to speak Cantonese or Hokkien, than Mandarin. If all this seems too complicated for English-speaking singles, take heart from the fact that you may be already using many Chinese-origin words in your daily life. For starters, your cup of cha in the morning comes from a Chinese word which in Mandarin, is pronounced chá, spoken with rising intonation when it’s pronounced correctly. Martial arts enthusiasts will know words such as gōngfu and tàijíquán, although they might be more familiar with the conventional English spellings like kung-fu and tai chi chuan, respectively. Chinese grammar is surprisingly straightforward, with none of the tenses, plurals, cases or genders that can make learning European languages difficult. The hard bit though is mastering the tones. Mandarin is a tonal language, which means the pitch or intonation in which a sound is spoken affects the meaning. But don’t worry if you get the tones wrong at first. Most Chinese-origin singles that you practice your new-found knowledge on, will be only too happy to know that you’ve attempted to learn their language, and besides, sometimes even they get the tones a bit wonky when, for example, a Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong talks mandarin to someone from Beijing.
- Spanish
Thanks to the spirit of enterprise and exploration, the Spanish were among the first people to venture to many parts of the world which were barely known in Europe. Even though their explorations led to policies such as colonialism and imperialism, one of the long-term positive consequences was the spread of Spanish language and culture in different parts of the world. Today Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world with an estimated 325 million speakers or 4.85% of the entire world population2. Also known as Castilian, due to its origins in the Castile region of Spain, Spanish is the official language of Spain which is why it is a good way to meet hot singles in Madrid and other Spanish cities on your holiday to this wonderful country. It's also spoken across central and South American countries which were former Spanish colonies, and more recently in the USA due to migration from its southern neighbours. For all these reasons, Spanish is one of the most common languages spoken in metropolitan centers like San Francisco, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Phoenix, Mexico City and Miami. In Africa, Spanish is spoken in Equatorial Guinea and the disputed territory of Western Sahara. In Asia, there are still remnants of the language in the Philippines. If you wish to impress singles with quotations in Spanish while you are yet to master the language, you can try la diligencia es madre de la buenaventura which translates into “diligence is the mother of good fortune”. This is a famous quote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, who is world renowned as the writer of Don Quixote, often considered the first modern novel and a western literature classic.
- French
Often described as a language embodying fine arts and all things cultured, French is another of the global languages spoken in many inter-racial cities of the world and especially in Europe. Though it does not figure as one of the most common languages in terms of the percentage of world population speaking it, French nevertheless is one of the six UN languages which are the mother tongue or second language of about half of the world's population, and are the official languages in more than half the states in the world. While knowledge of French can be essential if you wish to meet singles in cities like Paris, Quebec city, Brussels, London and Zurich, it may also come in handy some communities of French origin in the USA, in Maine and Louisiana. This is because French is only the official language of France but also one of the many in Monaco, Luxembourg, Belgium and Switzerland, in the Canadian province of Quebec as well as in some countries of north and central Africa like democratic republic of Congo and Ivory Coast. In fact France is also one of the official languages of Caribbean country like Haiti. Apart from these, the language is still widely spoken in former colonies of France like Vietnam, Cambodia, Madagascar and the French overseas departments and territories. Learning French is a particular good idea if you wish to meet singles of African origin apart from those who speak English and Arabic. As one of the romance languages, French grammar has certain similarities to Italian and Spanish so if you are already acquainted with the latter, you can quickly pick up French though you may have to brush up the pronunciations particularly those of nasal sounds as well as difficult bits like genders and verb conjugation.
- Arabic
This is one of the most useful languages to pick up if you are keen on meeting singles of Arabic origin or practicing the Islamic faith. Arabic is the official language of the 22 countries which form the Arab league; it is the native language of over 200 million3 people residing in this geographical region, which stretches from southwest Asia to northwest Africa and is also known as the Arab world. Apart from this Arabic is also the liturgical language of over a billion Muslims around the world, as it’s the language in which the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, was revealed so even if Islamic Indonesians and Indians may not have Arabic as their mother tongue, they may still be familiar with the languages because of their religion. However before you sign up for and Arabic class, keep in mind the difference between classical Arabic and modern standard Arabic; the former is considered today more of a written language than a spoken one and is usually restricted to the language of educational instruction and religious discourse. The latter on the other hand is understood across the Arab world and used in the popular media besides being the medium of instruction in Arabic as a foreign language. Even more importantly it helps bring together Arabic speakers from different geographical regions like Algeria and Iraq who may be incomprehensible to each other because of different dialects.
- Portuguese
Though less spread across the planet than Spanish, Portuguese nevertheless remains the language spoken by many people in the multi-racial cities of the world like New York City, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Sydney and so on. Formally, though there are eight members in the community of Portuguese speaking countries, Comunidade Dos Países De Língua Portuguesa or the CPLP and these include Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and East Timor. However the language also shares official language status with mandarin Chinese in Macau, a former Portuguese territory which was handed over to China in 1999. Portuguese is another of those languages which are spoken by people of different races, White, Black and Asian too so knowledge of this language is especially suitable for those seeking to meet multi-racial singles. According to the CIA world factbook, Portuguese is spoken by around 2.62% of the entire world population.
References:
- Log in to post comments
