Need help selecting a 2nd language to learn.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

No, as in english, a bread please. please = Bitte

I believe that the usage to which Pannonian is referring is to use "bitte" as a short form for "please excuse me." Not sure if this is more or less polite than the form you note. German specialists, what say you?

[Fragony]

I believe that the usage to which Pannonian is referring is to use "bitte" as a short form for "please excuse me." Not sure if this is more or less polite than the form you note. German specialists, what say you?

Well yes, but an apoligy and 'excuse me' are two different things, that is no different in english, excuse me/sorry

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Well yes, but an apoligy and 'excuse me' are two different things, that is no different in english, excuse me/sorry

In US English, there is quite a bit of conflation between the two usages. For example, "Excuse me" is often used in place of "I apologize for having bumped into you, please excuse the unintended offense." The long form contains both a classic apology as well as a request for expiation, but we usually use the shorter form to make that apology.

We do use the phrase "please excuse me from X" when trying to get out of school assignments and the like, but this rarely carries any note of apology.

Apologies are most often begun with the phrase "I'm sorry..." even though that is an expression of personal feelings without any automatic concommitant apology. I can say "I am sorry I wrecked your car" to most people and they will construe it AS an apology, when I might actually only mean that I'm sorry it happened.

....Ah the connotative joys of communicative interaction. Without it, as Habermas notes, we would be unable to construct a functioning society. Even with the best intentions, however, we are still often in a differend condition, as Lyotard would note.

[Devastatin Dave]

Make up your own and force people to learn it.

[Pannonian]

Make up your own and force people to learn it.

Was that what Dubya was doing?

[KukriKhan]

Was that what Dubya was doing?

I guess; and he's never saying: "Es tut mir Leid".

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Whatever will we do without Dubya's malapropisms? I cannot think of another President in the past century with as much flare for ruining the language. Does anyone know if he was equally adept in Spanish?

[Major Robert Dump]

Forget semantics and what sounds nice. Go for the money. If you plan on working in the US then Spanish is the obvious choice.

There is a huge demand for arabic speaking westerners in the new frontier of the middle east, however there is a new dialect every few hundred miles and, unlike Spanish, some speaking errors in those languages could very well get you killed. Not to mention the danger of just being a westerner over there to begin with.

If you are in the IT field, Korean would be a big plus because IT is pretty much the cornerstone of South Korean industry right now.

[rasoforos]

Greek of course!

i) Remarkably easy to learn http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learn-Greek-.../dp/9608639514

ii) It will help you understand proper english (Speech by Xenophon Zolotas: International Bank for Reconstruction and Developmen):

Kyrie, it is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonize the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia. It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic, but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies have to be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been anti-economic. In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists. Numismatic symmetry should not hyper-antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic archons is basic. Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The history of our didymus organizations in this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies. Therefore, I sympathize, although not without criticism on one or two themes, with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with them. I apologize for having tyrannized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous autochtons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you, Kyrie, and the stenographers.


iii) Your coolness factor will be greatly increased because you can utter a knowledgeable 'ooooh it all makes sense now...' when Dr. House says 'Rhabdomyolysis' or 'Neuromyotonia' or 'Idiopathic'



Seriously now, don't try to learn Greek...

[Fisherking]

I hate to burst too many bubbles here.

I am a native American, living in Europe.

When you live in America every other language is a leisure language.

Spanish helps you most if you never leave the country.

If you are going into government, the military, or something a bit more adventurous Arabic is fine.

If it is business, education, science, or technology then the next choice is German.

It is the most widely spoken language in Europe and next to English is your best bet almost anywhere, believe it or not.

German is spoken primarily in Germany Austria and Switzerland together with Liechtenstein, Luxembourg as the first language. Also in the east of Belgium and southern Denmark.

It is spoken by large minorities in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Siberia in Russia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia) Canada,( Yes even Canada), Mexico, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil and in Argentina. It is still spoken on the street in the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine.

If someone doesn’t speak English (and trust me, there are a lot of people who don’t ) chances are best that they will speak German. Ask anyone out side the US or UK and see if what I am telling you is true.

[Augustus Lucifer]

It depends on why you're learning a language.

Leisure

French - It's no secret that in America, French is considered the premier romance language. Having access to a French vocabulary could help you to woo that person you've been eying from the bushes(I kid, I kid).

German - German to the general population is pretty much the anti-thesis to French, a more burly/rough language. Overall there isn't a hugely prevalent German speaking German-American demographic, nor a lot of jobs that will open up, so it's a leisure language for Americans.

Academia

Latin - If you're going into history, most of the European languages have some root in Latin, and many Latin phrases are becoming an increasingly sophisticated form of expression since they have gone more and more out of use.

Chinese - An understanding of Chinese opens up the historical records of the other side of the world. Japanese can also be much more easily learned for one with an understanding of Chinese, since the Japanese 'kanji' is Chinese characters, and the 'hiragana' shorthand chinese characters, it is the spoken version that differs.

Job

Chinese / Japanese - A lot of American industry is moving to China or is already there, and a lot of it also exists in Japan. If you're looking to enter the field of business, the next best language to English will probably be Chinese for the future, followed by Japanese.

Arabic - It's no secret that we don't exactly have an abundance of people here in America who know about the people we're fighting, much less can understand them. Middle East relations will be tense for many years to come, so the need for interpreters in the government and in private functions will remain high.

Spanish - By and large the largest demographic of non-native English speakers on the West Coast of the US is Hispanic people. It could help you get a job managing places where workers speak Spanish, and may also have its casual conversation usages.

Other - Dutch, Italian, and Russian are probably the big three others you could learn for various applications. The next tier would be Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Finnish, etc.), Balkan languages (Romanian, Greek, etc.), or other East Asian languages (Korean, Vietnamese, etc.). The last tier of Afrikaan and other African languages, or other less widely used ones, won't serve you particularly well unless you have an eclectic job path.

[Sarmatian]

Job

Chinese / Japanese - A lot of American industry is moving to China or is already there, and a lot of it also exists in Japan. If you're looking to enter the field of business, the next best language to English will probably be Chinese for the future, followed by Japanese.

Arabic - It's no secret that we don't exactly have an abundance of people here in America who know about the people we're fighting, much less can understand them. Middle East relations will be tense for many years to come, so the need for interpreters in the government and in private functions will remain high.

Spanish - By and large the largest demographic of non-native English speakers on the West Coast of the US is Hispanic people. It could help you get a job managing places where workers speak Spanish, and may also have its casual conversation usages.

Other - Dutch, Italian, and Russian are probably the big three others you could learn for various applications. The next tier would be Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Finnish, etc.), Balkan languages (Romanian, Greek, etc.), or other East Asian languages (Korean, Vietnamese, etc.). The last tier of Afrikaan and other African languages, or other less widely used ones, won't serve you particularly well unless you have an eclectic job path.

Serbian would be better choice than Greek. Greek is spoken by around 11 million people, Serbian by more than 20 million.

Actually, from a business point of view, learning those small eastern European languages could open up some opportunities. As more and more western companies start to appear here, they always send some of their people, for the know-how, training purposes, communication etc... Although there aren't many of those opportunities, virtually nobody in the west speaks those languages so there's almost no competition for the job. Of course, you'd have to be willing to travel and work abroad. So, languages like Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Serbian, Romanian could offer some unique job opportunities.

[Husar]

Just to clear that up a bit (or possibly confuse everybody even more ):

Entschuldigen Sie mich - excuse me
Entschuldigung - sorry
Es tut mir Leid - I'm sorry (this can also have your evil meaning in german, Seamus)

and to flesh it out a bit:

Bitte entschuldigen Sie mich für die heutige Sportstunde.
Please excuse me for today's sport lesson.

Entschuldigung, ich wollte Ihnen nicht auf die Füsse treten.
Sorry, I didn't want to step on your feet.

Es tut mir Leid, ich wollte deinen Hasen nicht erschiessen.
I'm sorry, I didn't want to shoot your bunny.

Ich liebe dich.
I love you.

Ich hab dich lieb.
I love you.

Ich hab dich ganz doll lieb.
I love you a lot.

Ich spreche Deutsch.
I speak german.

Du bist ein Schatz.
You're a treasure.

Worüber denkst Du nach?
What are you sinking about?

Well, that's it for today.

[rasoforos]

Serbian would be better choice than Greek. Greek is spoken by around 11 million people, Serbian by more than 20 million.

Sorry my friend but this is wrong. 12 Million in Greece and Cyprus and about 5 million as a second language...

[Strike For The South]

Learn what you want. The "need" for spanish is way overblown anyway.