Which new language should i learn?

hover

I, as of right now, know two languages. My first language is English (duh) and the other is German, which i am still learning. I am not the greatest German speaker by no means but i can read and speak some German. German is a neat language to speak and write but i feel it won't be a language that I'll use to often which defeats the point of learning a language. I really don't know to many people that speak German in my area.

I've been pondering this for some time. I want to learn a new language that will be beneficial for me. In my family, every ones Italian and everyone know how to speak at least some Italian. So it makes scenes that Italian would probably be my best choice. My other choice would be Latin. Although Latin isn't really a spoken language anymore, I have heard it does have uses. Many words come from the Latin language. Some which are everyday words and some are scientific. Latin is also, of course, where all romantic languages come from. French , Spanish, Italian. In this sense it could be useful if i learn some Latin and then learn some Italian. I want an opinion, though, from you people. You people are smart. What do you think i should do? ALL comments are welcome.

Thanks for your response!! It means a lot.

Greg Bernhardt

Absolutely learn what you are most interested in, it will make all the difference, even if relatively obscure. However, Spanish and French are prolly the most useful in the world.

vanesch

Invictious

Learn Finnish like I did for absolutely no reason.

Learn Spanish, then you you can learn Italian with great ease.
Then go on from there.

Tony11235

Russian, Spanish, or Chinese(Mandarin) are pretty helpful and useful. Those plus Italian have been my choices over the years.

symbolipoint

Your choice of language to learn depends on your purpose. You probably should learn a language which has at least one million speakers. Are you interested in exploring regional transitions among or between languages? Maybe Spanish, French, Catalan, Occitan are good choices (depending on where YOU are, you may need luck to learn some of them). In some places, Spanish is a very common language among some people who are not quite bilingual yet trying to become so. Are you interested in business or international trade? Try to pick something with at least one million speakers. Do you want to read or translate historical documents or literature? Maybe Russian, French, Greek, Latin, Hebrew(?)

There are far, far more choices than those languages mentioned here.

oldtobor

Learn Portuguese and travel through Brazil. Actually Six Languages practically cover five continents:

English
French
Spanish
Portuguese
German
Italian

North America - English, Spanish, French. Then you have about 30 million white americans who descend from either Italy (10 million ?) or Germany (20 million ?) so in a sense German and Italian. This is also valid for all of Latin America especially places like Uruguay and Argentina.

South America - Spanish and Portuguese

Western Europe - All six

Africa - English, French, Portuguese and some Spanish

Australia - English


This is very Euro-centric and most of these places would be critical of the above, but anyways...

(corrected some spelling, we are talking about languages !)

stewartcs

I agree with Greg. I once heard someone say that if you can speak English, Spanish, and French, you could communicate almost anywhere in the world. Make sense to me.

Chris

vanesch

Ok, just to add something constructive,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages
It seems that the Latin heritage is essentially spanish.

oldtobor

Yes very Euro-centric, this is not at all true, in fact 99% of the people of the world really only know their own local language (and not even well) and some very few only know some english. Wake up to reality, we in the west (EU, USA etc.) have a VERY DISTORTED VIEW of the world.

stewartcs

Well I've personally traveled to more countries than I can remember, and I have always found at least one person who I could communicate with, and I only speak English, and very little French and Spanish.

I doubt very seriously that 99% of the population only knows their own language let alone very well (depends on your definition of very well). The majority of people I have encountered spoke English as their secondary language.

wildman

The educated people in the World know English as a second language. It is the trade language and therefore it is required if one is going to operate internationally. If one is in a city or tourist location, then one can always find someone that speaks English. Therefore it is the most useful language to know. However, if one is in a remote location like a village in rural Colombia or China, it would be difficult to find someone who speaks English at all.

isabeau

English aside since it is the most widely spoken language followed by French , then Spanish.

you might want to concider learning a language that isn't as widely spoken by westerners.

Mandarin or Yue Chinese , Arabic , or Hindi Indian would come in handy in the changing political and financial world.

opus

For business, Russian, Spanish, or Mandarin. For politics, French and Spanish. For difficulty, Icelandic!

wildman

Viet is harder than Icelandic. It has (I believe) 78 vowels!!!!!

mgb_phys

No, you just need to speak English loudly - works everywhere.

Poseidon

mgb_phys,
I tend to disagree with you there. Most foreigners want to learn English as their second tongue , but not so with American citizens---they tend to think inversely.