| darthdevidem01 said: I REALLY want to learn a new language!! My university offers evening courses which I think will be suitable for me...it's only 2 times a week I think. Shouldn't affect my studies really & I think I'll enjoy it! They have
What would be the most fun & useful language to learn?
Right now I'm keen on Spanish, Japanese or Mandarin Chinese. I just can't seem to decide...I've googled stuff but it's the usual people on Yahoo Answers saying random stuff!
|
Well when you think about it learning a new language 2 times a week will make it harder for you to learn it. Because you will not constantly be in touch with the new language. So I would go with a language that is related to a language you know. And then you can still learn other languages. My godlike perception allows me to see that you have knowledge of the english language. So I would either go with French or German.
German
because its the most spoken native language in Europe and will be understood in Germany, Austra, Liechtenstein, large parts of Switzerland the Netherlands and Luxembourg and some parts of France Belgium and Poland. The most learned language in Europe is English followed by German (I'm also including eastern Europe)
And because German is related to English the basic vocabulary will be easy to learn. And will help you quite a bit in learning the language.
Haus/house Maus/mouse habe/have Tanz/dance Finger/finger Butter/butter Knie/knee Fisch/fish Kinn/chin Arm/arm Haar/hair Nase/nose Ohr/ear Griff/grip Vater/father Mutter/mother Bruder/brother Schwester/sister Onkel/uncle Heim/home Nacht/night Schatten/shadow Schnee/snow etc etc etc etc.
Ich habe ein Haus/ I have a house
Also this! Thanks homer!
| homer said: German. Very much like English so it's easy to learn and it is the second most spoken language...on the net... |
French
More complicated words in the English language on the other hand are more often derived from Latin and not German. Latin is dead and directly derived from latin are Spanish Portuguese and to a lesser extend French. English also has alot of French vocabulary and some people say English is sort of a mix of German/Dutch and French. So French in terms of how easy it is to learn the vocabulary is easier than Spanish and Portuguese. Because its closer related to English than the other 2 languages.
Another nice thing is that when you know English and French Spanish will be quite easy to learn. And when you know Spanish you will most likely understand Portuguese even tho you might not be able to speak the language perfectly. (Spanish and Portoguese are somewhere between 2 different languages and 2 dialects of the same language)
The biggest problem with French is the pronounciation compared to how someone writes the word. Cháteau (meaning Castle in English. The ^ above the A shows that in the past there was a S behind the A) So again Châteu is pronounced "shut-oh." etc. French is harder to learn than Spanish.
P.S.
I myself am German thats why I mentioned so many similarities of German and English. I learned English and that helped me a lot in learning French. After I learned French I found it quite easy to learn Spanish because those 2 languages are related. The vocabulary of French and English helped me learn the vocabulary of Spanish and the Spanish pronounciation is quite similar to the German so thast also easy for me.
And btw the second language I learned was not French but Japanese. Its funny to see how many German words are in Japanese and of course the number of English words is even higher. The problem here is that I forgot 99% of the Japanese I learned because you have noone to talk to.
Its always good to learn a language and than based on that learn another language. Next I will learn polish because half of my family lives there and when I learned Polish I will it easier to learn Russian/Czech etc.
So even tho I am German I would say go with French when you plan on learning other languages after you "mastered" French.
EDIT: Whhoops I just saw there is no FRENCH lol so well then Go for German! :) And if you have no real interest in learning German def go for Spanish. Spanish has the biggest number of native speakers in the world even before English (where not all people are located in the same place like China. No Chinatown doesnt count!)
So if you want to travel alot Spanish is a good choice.
