Summer Language Update

Here's another one of those posts...

• Chinese: Chinese here refers to Mandarin, or 'Standard Chinese'. It's been a pretty crazy adventure of discovery learning Chinese from scratch with never having stepped out of the Indo European safe zone that most (including me) usually stick to (ie Spanish, French, Persian, Italian, German, Hindi, etc, the usual 'safe' languages). Chinese is a Sinitic language, which is a unique language family unto itself. Most interestingly, it's an analytic language. Chinese is a beautiful language and the cultural traditions its preserved is truly massive. The pronunciation is hard to get used to, but is fairly regular and uniform. The tones will throw you off but they aren't too hard. Forming new, complex or technical vocabulary or even toponyms is extremely easy if you know the constituent ideas or characters - For example, Shànghǎi (上海) is formed from Shàng (上) which is on, and hǎi (海) which is sea. So, Shanghai literally means on the sea. I would say I am halfway at HSK 1 level, and with a knowledge of around ~250 characters with their readings (pronunciations) and meanings.
• Spanish: On hold for now, sadly. Reading practice now and then. I want to start preparing for B1 soon. Still at an A2 level, but will require refreshing and getting back in touch with.
• Portuguese: On a long hold. No changes. I've decided to forget about learning this for now, since being another Latin language it clashes with Spanish, so there won't be much progress for a long, long time.
• Persian: On and off learning. I've started using some online sources, and I'm finding the language is much easier than earlier thought, especially since I'm not looking to learn to speak it. However, the sources I have won't be useful for intermediate and above. Grammar, word formation is not too hard, but verb conjugation is extremely odd and difficult. Mid beginner level now.
• Urdu: To be honest, I'm fast losing my interest in this language and I find I can barely relate to it. It seems to exist in an exclusive cultural bubble and isn't practical or useful at all. Nevertheless, listening to Sufi/semi-classical Hindustani music, reading practice, more Persian knowledge and comments on Reddit India are contributing a lot to my enhanced understanding of the language and the culture behind it. It really doesn't take much effort though, if I start getting to speak Hindi/Urdu I'll get better at it quickly. The harder vocab gets memorized after you encounter it a few times. Early intermediate level now.

I'm considering trying to learn a language from a totally new language family, either the Turkic one (Turkish) or Semitic (Arabic/ancient languages like Aramaic, etc) but for now that would be too much to juggle around and too high a target with my limited materials.

 I also somehow feel a nagging need to learn at least one major classical language - Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Classical Chinese or a Classical Semitic language - to give myself a 'cultural, classical rooted-ness', which I did not have the opportunity to get earlier. There's so much one misses out on without knowing a classical language and being able to read texts in it. 

Maybe someday?