What language would you learn?

Studied French and German for 8 years each, and combined with various trips and my family now living in Austria, both are pretty good (even if I have to work up to it a bit after not speaking for a while). Currently studying Mandarin, which is a pain to learn, but brings a feeling of immense satisfaction when you understand even a single new character or concept..

Other than that, I'd love to do Russian and Spanish - did 4 years of Latin in the past, which helped with European languages, so will certainly have a go at Spanish at some point and see if I can muddle through it.

I always try to learn some of wherever I'm going, even hopping round countries in South East Asia - or at least learn to say Cheers! I'm a languagey kind of person.
 
I need to relearn Norwegian(Used to be fluent, but ive completely forgotten it now) before my mates wedding next year.

I also wouldn't mind learning Spanish.
 
pyro said:
Well if you know French (or Spanish and even Romanian) it's pretty easy to pick up the language, I just love the way it sounds! What puts me off in Arabic is the writting, I mean it's impossible for me to distinguish different letters, it looks like an artist drawing in loops for me :o

Mia xara file mou, pos pernas sti Germania? :D
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The problem with Italian when you know french and spanish is that you get the lot confused - quite a lot too... well I do anyway :D

I like the arabic script, but yes it is confusing as hell. Futhermore they have no verb "to be" - so it's quite counter intuitive.

I Germani einai kourastiki ergasia, alla einai kala. Omos, poli boliasholos!
 
Currently trying to learn dutch to intergrate with mrs deejs family.

I have passable french and thanks to mini deej watching Dora, pre school spanish.

I would like to learn arabic also, and for purely self indulgent purposes, a North American Indian dialect.
 
Freefaller said:
I'd say probably German, closely followed by French.
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Thanks CBS and Freefaller - which of these two is "easiest" to learn? I fancy picking up a European language as it may prove useful workwise (currently working in IT), but not sure which of these two would be best/easiest.
 
Japanese, or possibly Chinese. Probably the former first I guess.

Latin would be good too.
 
For an englishman German is easier - or so I've been told by friends who have studied both and are very much linguists.

Obviously I can't state what it's like to learn French from my perspective ;)

Germany has a big IT industry but then again so does France - it's which ever appeals the most to you, having an additional European language is going to help you regardless. However with French and German you'd be pretty much sorted. :)
 
I'm preparing to learn another language, but I can't decide between French and German. I learnt a bit of French at GCSE, so I guess that would give me a head start.

If I could pick a language that I could wake up and be fluid in, it would have to be Latin or Japanese.
 
It would be Spanish for me. I have been to plenty of countries where I could have used it... I feel bad going over there and not even knowing the basics...although saying that I always get the lingo book out and have a bash in a terrible accent! :p

I often wondered why Spanish wasn't taught in schools rather than French... (sorry FF ;)) I have been to more Spanish speaking countries in my life than French. I know part of the reason is that they are in the same language group so it is easier to learn French then move on... but that rarely happens.

I also wish Mum had taught me Chinese (cantonese or mandarin) as a child - just because it would make life a lot easier when out in Malaysia.

Although saying that... most people seem to speak English nowadays.

BB x
 
At the moment I am learning German, Mandarin and Esperanto. German is a beautiful, expressive sounding language which can be very aggresive or very beautiful depending on your tone and sounds great when sung. China is very powerful and Mandarin could become a very important language in the future especially as apparantly, English education is not great over there. As for Esperanto, the idea of a constructed language is very interesting to me and it is certainly no less useful than Latin.

I also want to learn Swedish, Norweigen, Finnish, Arabic, Japanese and then maybe Italian and Spanish. I'm not asking for much.


As for which is easier out of German and French, I would say that German grammar rules are much more difficult but more regular than French. There seems to be slightly more vocab in German that is similar to English and German is fairly phonetic in that you can always pronounce a word if you know how it is spelt and words are always spelt how they sound (though one sound can be represented in more than one way). French is like English i.e. highly irregular with silent letters all over the place
 
I've been in belgium for 10 years so my french is very good (need it for work)

I'm learning dutch onto my 2nd year on a part-time course. It's a strange language as no-one speaks the dutch you learn in the class. I try to talk to my neighbours all the time but most times I can't understand a word they are saying yet on the phone with companies and such I can get by.

My neighbours don't make an effort to slow down or even understand that i'm a beginner I think. They are really friendly though. :D
 
french

i actually liked it at school in earlier years but due to a crap teacher while i was picking gcse options i picked other subjects

have a few french friends too so even though they probably speak better english than me it would be nice to be able to speak there language

will probably have a go learning in my spare time eventually
 
Vai said:
Japanese, because the culture seems quite nice, but more importantly I could import Japanese games and be able to understand what was going on.
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Same here also be able to import anime, manga, japanese films and be able to understand what was being said. I'd also love to go to japan one day and know what was being said around me and be able to read sign's etc.
 
I've started learning Ancient Greek and I wouldn't mind learning Latin too. They are fascinating languages for etymology and literature.

I speak quite fluent German and I hope that'll improve as I'm doing half of my degree in it. I would also like to learn either Spanish or Italian because they sound so beautiful.
 
I would like to learn Dutch in future, but right now I got my hands full with programming languages instead :p
 
neocon said:
Chinese, because they are obviously going to take over the world.
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Chinese is definately a good business language to learn

afraser2k said:
Japanese mostly due to the written script they have and would be a good employment oppertunity if I decided to move on from my current desktop support job.
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Not sure about that one m8, it does give you an edge when applying for some jobs, but won't give you a massive pay rise, most of the top jobs at Japanese companies are taken by ex-pats from Japan

monkeypants said:
Ancient Greek, just for the fun of it.
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I never know if you're joking or not

I'd like to learn Mandarin & Cantonese (sp), possibly Russian.

Though I'm not about to learn them soft welsh and irish accents are quite nice ;)

I would prefer to speak the local language when abroad, but have to realise that isn't practical to try to learn them all.

EDIT:
And whilst doing all this I want to get numerous IT certifications (primarily Cisco) and improve my photography skills
 
I've always wanted to learn Swedish, no idea why, but everything about the country has fascinated me as long as I remember. Planning to move there at some point, so thats always a good reason to learn, and my gf has promised to teach me. ^^
 
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