The International Schools Review Forum

I just got finished with a 4 year post in China - and one of the best parts (for me, at least) of life in China was getting to learn the language. I was forced to - as most locals don't speak English and for my survival Chinese was necessary. I also found out I really enjoy being close to fluent in a 2nd language. It made me think - I'd really like to make my next posting in a country like China - one where you are forced to speak the native tongue, English isn't everywhere, and the locals are friendly and willing to help a nascent speaker.
Thanks for all suggestions.....

Europe would be hard, since most european countries include english as part of their national curriculum. You wouldnt have as many opportunities to be FORCED to learn the language to survive.

If I had to pick one place Id pick Japan/Japanese. What really matters though is what language YOU WANT to learn next.

It doesn't matter...I just really enjoy the process of language acquisition. It's exciting....
Ill be going to the job fairs next year with an open mind, ready to add another language to my skill set. Japan sound fun...and seems like a challenging language.
Thanks for the tip...

If you learned characters, then Japan would be a good option, because once you learn katakana and hiragana (a fairly simple process) you would be able to read quite a lot of info (the downside to this is, if you can read, you don't have to speak to anyone - this is what happened to me in China). I learned Chinese characters when I was living in Japan (in preparation for moving to Taiwan). I was surprised how much I could understand in Japan, although didn't necessarily know how to pronounce what I understood.

Thai would be good, if you understand how tones work (although they are obviously different in Thailand). Thai would be a challenge. If you want to acquire a new language quickly, go with Indonesia.

I take it youve learned mandarin, but have you considered cantonese? Now that would be a challenge, 9 tones instead of 4 to start.

A fellow I taught with in China had learned quite a bit of Thai in Bangkok. He lived in a district that wasn't too popular with foreigners and learned a lot in 3 years.

I think it's an interesting language. It's tonal, but it uses a script alphabet with no breaks between words. The letters can be subscript, superscript or the vowels can come before the constants that they are pronounced after. The question form that gets used in Chinese (A not A?); yuan bu yuan (far not far), is also used in Thai.