What language should I learn?

[threebikesmcginty]

But consider Chinese if you know where your bread's going to be buttered!

If it isn't bad enough that everything's made in China these day now they're going to take over buttering bread!

I'd go for French if it could only be one of those three.
If I had the inclination I'd have a go at Italian, lovely sounding language.

 

[Sh4rkyBloke]

Spanish is very useful, but Sign Language (I'm learning at the moment) is very enjoyable... not so useful though, unless you happen to have a deaf community/friends near you.

 

[Yellow Fang]

If it isn't bad enough that everything's made in China these day now they're going to take over buttering bread!

I'd go for French if it could only be one of those three.
If I had the inclination I'd have a go at Italian, lovely sounding language.

Italian's a nice language. The grammar isn't as difficult as German, but the spelling is nearly as consistent. It sounds good, and the words are nice and distinct, unlike French. It's a shame only Italians speak it.

 

[XmisterIS]

How about something unusual ...

Manx?

Cornish?

Old English?

Or something really exotic and extinct like Ancient Sumerian. At least you'll be able to read the inscriptions on artefacts in the British Museum.




[gets tin hat]

 

[Dayvo]

Take the bracketed bits out of AiS's post... he's talking about yer German...

My mistake!

Should have known that Andy doesn't make them, what with being a wordsmith and all that!

 

[Plax]

Spanish seems to be narrowly leading the poll.
Ultimately I want to learn another language to keep my mind active, "Use it or loose it" as they say. I've gotten the touring bug and after Guatemala where it was very Spanish (definitely more so than Belize), I felt kind of ignorant that I relied on everyone else speaking English. One member of our group spoke enough Spanish to help us with those that spoke no English which helped a lot (obviously!).

What I might do as suggested is have a go at all three and decide from there. I was in top set for French but decided not to do the GCSE, but we had to take a language for 1 hr a week if we didn't do a language GCSE (other than Welsh). I did German as I wasn't allowed to do French as they said it would be too easy for me (and the headmaster taught the Spanish so that was a no no!). I sat part of the German GCSE anyway even though I wasn't supposed to (I pretend I didn't as I got a really bad grade!). I can remember more German than French hence my initial sway towards the German.

 

[XmisterIS]

Ich glaube dass Spanisch ist einer meist gesprochene Sprachen der Welt, aber kenne ich gar nichts ihrer!

 

[Auntie Helen]

I'd vote for German - it's what I'm learning myself.

Although Spanish is the second most widely spoken language worldwide, Germany has the most native speakers in Europe and is the second most spoken language in Europe (after English). Let's face it, if you go to Majorca they all speak German!

German turned out to be harder than I expected, and it's somehow not as easy to skim read a newspaper article and understand what's going on as it is in French or Spanish (more words seem to look similar to English words in those languages). However, as Andy in Sig said, now I know German I seem to be able to understand written Dutch (can't make head nor tail of spoken Dutch) and it makes reading old English like Chaucer easier too.

Plus, the Germans are nice, tidy people whose trains run on time and make fantastic cakes.

 

[Auntie Helen]

Ich glaube dass Spanisch ist einer meist gesprochene Sprachen der Welt, aber kenne ich gar nichts ihrer!

Google translated, presumably?

Ich glaube, dass Spanisch einer der meisten gesprochenen Sprachen der Welt ist, aber ich kenne sie gar nichts.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Plus, the Germans are nice, tidy people whose trains run on time and make fantastic cakes.

First rate beer too!

 

[Andy in Sig]

I don't know where you get that information from!

Spanish belongs to the Romance group of languages, which in turn is part of the Indo-European family, of which Germanic is also a member.

But it is wrong to say that Spanish is a Germanic language.

Are you taking the p1ss? The sentence starts with the word "German" and then the reference to Spanish etc is in brackets and then close brackets and it continues going on about German.


It is a very clumsily constructed sentence, I admit.

Edit: I see Fnaar has already resolved the matter.

 

[Andy in Sig]

Plus, the Germans are nice, tidy people whose trains run on time and make fantastic cakes.

I assume we can all agree that that has clinched the matter and that we can all go home and France and Spain can be closed down except for a small maintenance crew.

 

[rich p]

I learned Italian at a night class just to keep my brain working and I found that it leads you into a deeper attachment to the country than just speaking it. I have become an Italophile (neologism alert), so I would suggest you want to do a language of a country that you want to visit. If you have no desire to visit Germany, for instance, then rukle that one out.
It really is an ugly language anyway

 

[Andy in Sig]

Vot are you zayink?

Actually that is quite good advice. I think the easiest language to learn on the planet is Norwegian but decided not to get to grips with it because I realised that alas I'll probably never spend enough time in Norway to justify it. I'd like to learn Italian too.

 

[XmisterIS]

Google translated, presumably?

Ich glaube, dass Spanisch einer der meisten gesprochenen Sprachen der Welt ist, aber ich kenne sie gar nichts.

Not google, just my bad German