ARE you a linguist or someone who craves to know other languages? This holiday season, where will you spend two weeks of your time to study a second language. This article attempts to tell you or suggest to you where to go come December. First, let us bear in mind that in the Western world, Christianity dominates and December is the birth month of Christ. They sure celebrate the birthday of their Messiah, don’t they? Thus, it is an opportune time to visit Western countries and mingle with the celebration.

But there are affluent countries which do not celebrate Christmas. Think Japan for example. If you want to study Japanese, then go to Tokyo. Prices for Japanese language studies there are really exorbitant so you may as well go to other equally adorable cities such as Nagano and Kyoto. Next in line on our list of nice countries to study a second language is China. Forget Beijing, it’s reclusive. Forget Hong Kong and Macau, they’re boring. The in thing in China nowadays is Shanghai what with the many Hollywood movies associated with it like Stealth and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. So if you want to study Mandarin or Cantonese, Shanghai has the best of both worlds.

Next stop would be Cambodia. Whether you like it or not, Khmer is a beautiful language. How do you pronounce the name Bebe Pham? That is a Khmer name. And that name belongs to a wonderful lady who’s now the most popular Cambodian model in the world. Right now, she’s in the Philippines shooting a movie in Cebu courtesy of the Philippines’ very own Hollywood company, Bigfoot Entertainment.

Speaking of the Philippines, how about studying some Tagalog or any of its dialects this Christmas season. The Christmas season is one of the most enjoyable times of the year in the Philippines. It is where great parties, great dining and great fireworks take place. In fact, lots of expatriates take time off to study Philippine dialects during their two-week holiday breaks in preparation of wooing Filipino women. After all, lots of interracial marriages are occurring here in an almost daily basis.

Now we go to Spain. The Spanish language is one of the most romantic in Europe. It may not eclipse the beauty of the Italian or the French language but it is simply wonderful in its own right. Spain has its own dialects too like the Basques and the Catalans. To the north of the Iberian Peninsula, Spain shares a land border with the Portuguese. The Portuguese is another Romance language which has its own unique heritage. Try to study this language too. It’s not like studying something which is alien to the ears. All you need to do is grasp the basics and then manipulate your learning from there. Just like Spanish, Portuguese also comes from the Germanic and Frankish languages of old when these two pre-historic languages were later inserted into the Roman language. From South Korea to Tahiti, from Florida to Ontario, studying languages is here to stay.