Huh. I tend to forget about this, but it may well be that English is actually my most valued skill. As a non-native speaker, I’m really glad that I invested a good number of skill points into English in my earlier life.
Your comment got me thinking—would I give up my current English skill for, say, high-level moneymaking (automated $3M/year and higher)? So far, I can’t say that my answer is a clear “Yes”.
Very good point. If I hadn’t learned English (and I learned it late, when I was about 14-15 -- am now 27), I probably wouldn’t know a fraction of what I now know.
This makes me wonder if I should start learning Chinese...
Chinese isn’t that bad to learn to speak. The tones are a little tricky, but the grammar is simplicity itself after you’ve learned a handful of quirks. It’s literacy that presents an enormous challenge: thousands and thousands of characters! However, literacy will also allow you to read things written by a speaker of any Chinese dialect, while the same is not true of learning only to speak Mandarin or Cantonese or what have you.
English! The world speaks English.
Huh. I tend to forget about this, but it may well be that English is actually my most valued skill. As a non-native speaker, I’m really glad that I invested a good number of skill points into English in my earlier life.
Your comment got me thinking—would I give up my current English skill for, say, high-level moneymaking (automated $3M/year and higher)? So far, I can’t say that my answer is a clear “Yes”.
Very good point. If I hadn’t learned English (and I learned it late, when I was about 14-15 -- am now 27), I probably wouldn’t know a fraction of what I now know.
This makes me wonder if I should start learning Chinese...
Chinese is a lot tougher I hear.
Chinese isn’t that bad to learn to speak. The tones are a little tricky, but the grammar is simplicity itself after you’ve learned a handful of quirks. It’s literacy that presents an enormous challenge: thousands and thousands of characters! However, literacy will also allow you to read things written by a speaker of any Chinese dialect, while the same is not true of learning only to speak Mandarin or Cantonese or what have you.
I already mentioned that. :P