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I'm still decades away from retirement, but it's never to early to get prepared.
Maybe retiring in Mexico or some other Hispanic country will make sense in the future, but I don't speak Spanish at all. Is it a worthwhile investment to spend half an hour everyday to learn Spanish?
Learning a new language opens up new ways to think and can only be an asset even in your career. If you become fluent you have many options open to you in retirement.
Learning a new language opens up new ways to think and can only be an asset even in your career. If you become fluent you have many options open to you in retirement.
Given that I'm fairly old, I don't think I can be fluent in Spanish. Also, my career doesn't require foreign language skills.
So, my sole purpose of learning a new language is for retirement. I have a hard time deciding between Spanish and Thai. I visited Thai two years ago and I absolutely loved it! But there are many Spanish speaking countries out there but only one Thai speaking country.
I'm still decades away from retirement, but it's never to early to get prepared.
Maybe retiring in Mexico or some other Hispanic country will make sense in the future, but I don't speak Spanish at all. Is it a worthwhile investment to spend half an hour everyday to learn Spanish?
Thai is also an option.
Any thought?
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoodHombre
Given that I'm fairly old, I don't think I can be fluent in Spanish. Also, my career doesn't require foreign language skills.
So, my sole purpose of learning a new language is for retirement. I have a hard time deciding between Spanish and Thai. I visited Thai two years ago and I absolutely loved it! But there are many Spanish speaking countries out there but only one Thai speaking country.
Given that you say you're still decades from retirement, you can't be that old. At least not old enough to say that you're too old to learn a second language. BTW, you seem to be contradicting yourself in your second post above wherein you state in your first paragraph that you're too old to become fluent in Spanish, but then say in your second paragraph that you want to learn to speak Spanish (or Thai). Regardless of the contradiction or the language that you choose to study, I think that learning a second language is a wonderful idea.
Given that you say you're still decades from retirement, you can't be that old. At least not old enough to say that you're too old to learn a second language. BTW, you seem to be contradicting yourself in your second post above wherein you state in your first paragraph that you're too old to become fluent in Spanish, but then say in your second paragraph that you want to learn to speak Spanish (or Thai). Regardless of the contradiction or the language that you choose to study, I think that learning a second language is a wonderful idea.
My expectation is sort of low. Basic proficiency that allows for simple communication will be good enough.
Being fluent doesn't seem very realistic. Anyway, starting right now is better than 30 years later.
Also, for Spanish, where you may want to retire is important. The language is somewhat different between Mexico and Spain. Not unintelligible to each other but FYI.
I’m in the process of learning other languages for fun. Speak two well, and understand two others somewhat, but would love to know a half dozen.
It's a lot easier to find people in the U.S. willing to let you practice your Spanish on them than Thai. And there are often times in the U.S. where being English/Spanish bilingual could come in handy. You could possibly communicate better with recently immigrated employees, or translate for someone else when a need arises. Also it's helpful if you think people are talking about you in Spanish when they think you don't understand. Usually they're not talking about you, but for some reason people get paranoid and think they are, especially if they laugh after making comments in a foreign language. Seems like many people assume it's a joke at their expense. It reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld where the manicurists were speaking Korean and making fun of Elaine.
Last edited by TheShadow; 11-20-2017 at 07:55 AM..
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