Need help selecting a 2nd language to learn.

[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.

[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.

[Papewaio]

If its revelent I plan to be a computer networker (high school right now) and they tend to travel around alot. I really want to do this just to prove to myself that I have discipline and im not the average ignorant american.

English. Most of Europe has English speakers particularly in business.
Chinese. Most of Asia bar Japan has Chinese speakers and they are often the business men too. Very hard to learn for a non-native speaker to become business fluent.
Spanish. This will cover a lot of South America and some parts of Africa.

If you can speak all those you will be able to communicate with probably 80% plus of humanity as a first or second language.

But if you want to work in Japan or France you will have to probably learn the local language...same for a lot of former Empire countries.

[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.

[CountArach]

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

Finally, someone who understands my needs.

[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...

[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...

[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.

[InsaneApache]

As an American you could always learn to speak English.

[Mooks]

Wow, I didnt think there was going to be this many posts. Thank you for all the feedback, even if I dont acknowledge it, I am reading every single post.

Im leaning towards german/spanish now.

I know a tad bit of spanish from my classes in school, which I chose to discontinue. I ended them because iv spoke with people who took 3-4 years of spanish at high school, and cant speak a word of it beyond "Ola!". Iv never met someone that actually learned the language at school, they just did tons and tons of worksheets. Though right now its seems the most practical for a american. I may have to get over my psychological abuse as a child

German because of its the 2nd most practical language. And it sounds pretty good. That and its right in the middle of europe, literally. Probaly better chance of europeans understanding english/german then english/spanish right?

As an American you could always learn to speak English.

ya, funny.

[Sarmatian]

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

Well, I counted only native speakers and yeah, I forgot about Cyprus

Where do they speak Greek as a second language?

[InsaneApache]

Where do they speak Greek as a second language?

My dads kitchen.

[Fragony]

German because of its the 2nd most practical language. And it sounds pretty good. That and its right in the middle of europe, literally. Probaly better chance of europeans understanding english/german then english/spanish right?.

You pretty much have europe covered with english, just get a travel guide for specifics. All young Germans can speak english. The Scandinavians as well, better at it then us dutch actually. Most French can speak it but they are French so you may have to de-French them by learning some basic french. You don't need any European language really it is just fun to speak them, it is cool to say you speak more then 5 languages without lying.

[rasoforos]

All young Germans can speak english.

And, following a fine franco-german tradition they will refuse to acknowledge that they really do... <--- maybe the only thing I hated in Germany.

By the way. How do you say in German 'If my steak has any blood inside or is pink in the middle I am gonna shove it up your ...' ? <--- They never got my steak right...

[Fisherking]

My wife is a Musical Artists’ Agent.

She speaks or reads more languages than I can remember.

This last weekend she had to make special arrangements for one of her clients with a major hotel in Strasburg, France. She started the conversation in French, tried English, and ended up concluding the conversation in German.

I am not saying this is typical. But while most students in Europe study English in school, not all can or will speak it. Most students in the US have studied Spanish, few can speak it. Europe as a whole seems to do a bit better job with English though.

Some times I think there must be something about native English speakers that inhibit them from learning other languages.

In larger Cities it is usually not a problem, but hop off a train at most stops along the way and you find a whole different world.

[TevashSzat]

Regarding learning Chinese as a second language:

I highly discourage trying to learn Chinese if your first language is a Latin based one.

There are just so many differences between Chinese and Latin based language that it would be nigh impossible for anyone to learn to speak it very well if they just take classes. I know alot of people who are just taking classes and I cringe everytime they speak because their pronounciation is just horrendous (lack of the accents in English is to blame.....)

You'd need to study by yourself and probably go to China or regularly converse with native Chinese speakers to even be decent. Writing, IMO, is much harder than speaking/listening/reading because syntax in Chinese is very different and there is alot of old Chinese proverbs that good writers use which you won't be able to learn very easily.

Long story short, Chinese, while a practical language to learn, is extremely hard to. I would discourage people from trying to learn it unless they are truly willing to dedicate ALOT of time to the language.

[Husar]

And, following a fine franco-german tradition they will refuse to acknowledge that they really do... <--- maybe the only thing I hated in Germany.

?

Never heard of that, except if they're lying to me as well, but some of them are really bad so they might be afraid or unable to properly communicate. Myself, well it helps if you ask but if you just start talking english to me I will usually respond in english as well. Some people at work just seem to mumble around in english, in that case I just reply in german.

[asilv]

C++

[Fragony]

By the way. How do you say in German 'If my steak has any blood inside or is pink in the middle I am gonna shove it up your ...' ?

No won't do.That is bec ause non-pink steak just isn't right, medium is somewhat acceptable, welldone is animal abuse at it's worst, if I had to be butchered I would take comfort in being incredibly tasty. A proper steak is bloody and barely alive. I could translate it for you but I am not going to do so since some things just shouldn't be. It's dead. Get over it. It will never do the moo again.

[Jolt]

1st choice: Portuguese. Think of it like a much cooler Spanish. It is the language which enables its speakers to pronounce every sound of every language in the world (And Portuguese is the only known language who has a compatibility with every spoken language). It loosens your tongue. Futhermore, Portuguese is the most close language you find with Spanish. If you understand Portuguese. You surely understand Spanish. The other way around isn't true however.

2nd Choice: Spanish. But you don't want that. You prefer Portuguese.

3rd Choice: Chinese/Arabic. Extremely important. Chinese are becoming increasingly powerful and knowing their language puts you in a gigantically favorable position to gain a job in a company which has or is considering establishing their business on the world largest market. Arab is also most important due to petrodollars and all the business which has thereafter grown from it (Which has been basically everything)

4th Choice: French/German. These are losing importance, but can still be very valuable in the business world.

5th Choice: Interlingua, because if you don't want to learn Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian, just learn one language which imcorporates them all! Interlingua was created so that Romance speakers all understand the language. It basically merges all Latin-Based languages. I understand it perfectly, and I can't speak it, nor have I ever learned it.

6th Choice: 1337speak, j00 |\|33|) 2 134r|\| |)15 2 |20013!!!111!1eleven!1

[rasoforos]

?

Never heard of that, except if they're lying to me as well, but some of them are really bad so they might be afraid or unable to properly communicate. Myself, well it helps if you ask but if you just start talking english to me I will usually respond in english as well. Some people at work just seem to mumble around in english, in that case I just reply in german.

It was something I heard but I also actually experience last year in Dusseldorf...

We were visiting the Euroshop (it is a major trade fair for retail shops). Now, there is 100.000 people in Dusseldorf for it but 'Can you take us to the trade fair please' or 'Can you take us to Euroshop please' did not really do the trick with the taxi drivers... Just saying 'messe' did... ...I do not buy it that the didnt know what we were trying to say.

...the only taxi driver I had a decent conversation with was this Turkish chap who could speak really really good Greek he claimed he learnt at his favorite Greek cafe. Go figure...

[rasoforos]

It will never do the moo again.

It did the moo when I knifed it. Then it gave me a PETA pamphlet and crawled away...

[Husar]

By the way. How do you say in German 'If my steak has any blood inside or is pink in the middle I am gonna shove it up your ...' ? <--- They never got my steak right...

"Wenn mein Steak noch Blut enthält oder in der Mitte rosa ist, dann schiebe ich es Ihnen in den..."

Concerning the taxi drivers, maybe they really didn't know what fair means, but of course I cannot really know it, don't see why they would not want to take you there though.

[rasoforos]

Eh they got us there. We just had to say Messe :)

It's just that it was a bit of a struggle to communicate with people. English somehow did not seem to get very far.


But the food was great and the beer was not bad at all and we had a great time.

Considering that Lidl and Aldi are some of my best associates perhaps it is time I learn how to speak German...

[Strike For The South]

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

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Spanish, German or French.

You don't need to study Spanish and Italian or vice versa. Learning one becomes piece of cake after learning the other, I'm told.

That is, considering the career purposes. Mandarin Chinese gets an option in that regard too.

For pleasure I'd go Greek, Persian or Finnish.
.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

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'

Dr. House rocks!

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

Been there, done that. I'll resume it as soon as my teacher returns from Greece. Also I'm attending Classical Greek + Latin at the uni for the next year.
.

[Fisherking]

.

For pleasure I'd go Greek, Persian or Finnish.
.

Four pleasure? For the simple joy of speaking? Finnish?

Now I have nothing against the Finns…but learning the language is not a pleasant experience.

If you are going to take that approach then the oldest spoken language in Europe might be a good choice.

That would be Irish (Gaelic). Practically no one will understand you, not even the ones who speak it most likely…especially if you learn the northern dialect…

But hay! When you go to Ireland you get a whole other TV channel you can understand.

And lets face it, a trip to Ireland is a much more likely and pleasant sounding than Finland.

And Finns are not known for being exactly the friendliest or happiest people on the face of the earth…