European Language

Rexxar

Rexxar

Rexxar

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Joined
13 May 2010
Posts
1,638
First off, not sure if this is in the right place to post this...

I am Looking to learn a "useful" european language. German strikes me as one, purely because i travel there every other year and have yet to learn any of the language as the tourist areas speak such good english (better than some people here i should add! :p )

Is Russian viable to cover the likes of poland/bulgaria/czech , or has it faded out of previously occupied territories?

Any advice appreciated.

-R
 
How old are you and what do you want this for? Work or play?
Russian is only useful if you want to work in Russia. Remember they use the Cyrillic alphabet.

French or German would be my suggestion, although German is probably better considering the way their economy is at the moment.
But above all, Chinese would be the most useful if you want to boost your career prospects.

Alternatively, learn Norwegian and move to Norway and earn millions (relatively)
 
German is useful if you got there a lot, Spanish is widely spoken around the world so is always useful.
Depends what you want to gain from it ? For example business wise learning German would be a bonus for me and enhance employment opportunities.
Not sure about the spread of Russians but they do seem to get everywhere!
 
Forgot about Cryllic, that's gonna be a whole heap of fun to learn >.<

I want it for career prospects as to be honest, see the UK going downhill and my logic is, if we're being flooded, then i'll go the other way!

Is german understood well outside of Germany itself?
 
robz21 said:
Is Russian viable to cover the likes of poland/bulgaria/czech , or has it faded out of previously occupied territories?
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No. I can only speak for the Czech Republic but nobody here really speaks Russian apart from the Russians and Ukrainians, even back in the day not many spoke Russian. In fact a lot of Czechs really don't like Russians and their language due to 1968, I know quite a few Russians who have been shouted at in public and called scum etc. because a Czech person overheard them speaking Russian. The overwhelming majority of people speak English or German as a second language.

Bulgarians may speak a little more Russian as they use the Cyrillic alphabet too but I imagine the situation in PL is similar to CZ.
 
Generally the only people who speak Russian are the Russians...probably the two most useful European languages globally other than English are Spanish and French...but if you spend significant time in Germany, then German would be the obvious choice I would have thought.
 
robz21 said:
Forgot about Cryllic, that's gonna be a whole heap of fun to learn >.<

I want it for career prospects as to be honest, see the UK going downhill and my logic is, if we're being flooded, then i'll go the other way!

Is german understood well outside of Germany itself?
Click to expand...
German can come in handy anywhere really, but I would've thought mainly Scandinavia, Benelux and Eastern Europe.

And then there's Austria and Switzerland as well.

Do it properly and then you've got another card up your sleeve. What industry at you in?
 
Fashion or art? French
Finance or Investment? German
Food catering? Spanish (that's a joke)

Ex soviet block countries don't learn Russian anymore and the people who used to are going to disappear as time goes on, so Russian is pointless unless you want to work with Russian companies.
 
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robz21 said:
see the UK going downhill and my logic is, if we're being flooded, then i'll go the other way!
Click to expand...

So your plan for dealing with the problem of immigration is to emigrate? You realise how massively hypocritical that sounds right?

In general I wouldn't learn another language unless you were actually planning on using that language specifically. Learning a language you aren't planning on using regularly any time soon will make learning, and maintaining knowledge of, that language even more difficult.
 
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I was in Italy last week. All of the French/German/Russian tourists would ask the waiter "Parlez-vous français?" (or Deutsch etc), and then when told no they would order in English.
Made me feel superior :p. The frenchman on holiday speaking in English to the Italian!

Have to say though, all the Italians/French/Germans etc had eleventy million times better English than I have of their respective languages.

If I could just magically know another language overnight, I'd chose Latin or Chinese (Mandarin) or Arabic.
 
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J'ai appris le français depuis que j'ai bougé à Bruxelles. Je dirais son tout à fait adroit pour avoir. Pas mal de l'Afrique du Nord parle le français aussi.

Dépend qu'il est pour bien que. La mandarine serait une langue très utile pour apprendre ou l'arabe bien que j'imagine les deux d'entre ces étant assez difficile d'apprendre.

Writing french is harder... but otherwise in english :p

I've been learning french since I've moved to Brussels. I'd say its quite handy to have. Quite a lot of northern Africa speak french too.

Depends what it is for though. Mandarin would be a very useful language to learn or Arabic although I imagine both of those being fairly difficult to learn.
 
robz21 said:
Forgot about Cryllic, that's gonna be a whole heap of fun to learn >.<
Click to expand...

Honestly the alphabet is really easy, it took me about 2 weeks to be able to pronounce words slowly. The best thing about it is that you realise how many words are the same once you can read them.
 
Germans speak great English and German is not widely used as a business language elsewhere. Spanish opens up much of central and south america which is a growth market. French is gay sounding.
 
German is such an ugly language don't think I would ever want to learn it! My Aunt lives in Switzerland and she went to Germany for 6 months to learn it though...so it really depends where you want to go.

Personally I can speak very basic Portuguese having lived in Brazil for a few months as well as Croatian which is my mother tongue. In the future will definately be looking to learn proper Spanish/Italian as I want to live in a Latin flavoured country, UK just doesnt do it for me.
 
italian..then you get to wave your arms around as you speak

my missus took it few years ago (she already speaks german and french) and she just loves to speak in italian, she says its an expressive language and she cannot help but emphasise words with gestures! (also very useful on holiday..it definitely gets you better service!)
 
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