I know 5 languages, but English is the only Western one that I know. I want to learn another one. I have some criteria for deciding on my next target. Any input from those who know the following languages would be great:

Spanish, Italian, French, German, Dutch.

Rankings (best first) from different aspects:


Utilitarian (not based on number of speakers, but on how widely spoken a language is in the international arena):

French
Spanish
Italian
German
Dutch


Aesthetic:

Dutch
German
Italian
Spanish
French


Ease of learning:

Italian
Spanish
French
German
Dutch


Of course, the aesthetic rankings are subjective, but feel free to correct the other 2 rankings.

Italian and Spanish seem to be winners.


Any comments? Any other [Western] language that would be good to learn?

11/8/2006 9:01:30 PM

if doing international business of any kind, french has come in handy for me...spanish if you're working construction

11/8/2006 9:04:37 PM

As a native english speaker you would probably find Dutch or German a lot easier than romantic variants.

11/8/2006 9:04:50 PM

spanish and italian are much more similar than french...of course the pronunciations differ, but if you can speak fluent spanish or italian, someone speaking the other is going to be able to understand ~80% (if not more) of what you're saying.

11/8/2006 9:08:27 PM

^ This is very true. French is just as ROMANtic but goddamn that accent! Spanish has a much more concrete pronunciation guide.

[Edited on November 8, 2006 at 9:09 PM. Reason : .]

11/8/2006 9:09:06 PM

^^^^ nah, no international business. just travel as a tourist, but really like to interact with the locals.

^^^ that's peculiar. why do you think that? i would have thought the romance languages would have been a lot easier than german/dutch.

^^ wait, are you saying if i am speaking in say, italian, someone who speaks spanish but not italian would be able to understand most of what i am saying, and vice versa? if so, that's great!

^ from what i know, spanish is completely phonetic, right? what about italian?


[Edited on November 8, 2006 at 9:13 PM. Reason : ]

11/8/2006 9:10:17 PM

While English is a mixmatch of a lot of different languages, English is a lot more German than it is Romantic in structure. Vocabulary probably lean towards Romantic languages, but you can memorize vocabulary.

11/8/2006 9:11:58 PM

which of those languages are agglutinating?

11/8/2006 9:14:45 PM

^^^ I dated a native Spanish speaker for a while and she could "kind of" deciper Italian without having ever studied it, so I view them as somewhat close to each other, especially phonetically.

[Edited on November 8, 2006 at 9:15 PM. Reason : .]

11/8/2006 9:15:25 PM

yes that's exactly what i'm saying. from word of mouth from my Italian professor (who also taught Spanish) and from seeing it first hand when I was in Italy. While certain pronunciations differ, the vocab is very similar and you could easily learn one and be able to have basic communication with the other language. OR, learn one and then turn around and easily learn the other.

11/8/2006 9:15:59 PM

learn portuguese...it's the coolest romance language

11/8/2006 9:17:38 PM

^ how would that rank using my 3 criteria?

it sounds kind of like spanish, doesn't it? and ease of learning?

as far as utility, that's pretty limited.

11/8/2006 9:21:48 PM

don't learn portuguese.

french is fun to speak, but parisians are assholes. get outside of paris and your french ability is genuinely appreciated. it's very empowering to speak with locals, seeing as how much the french supposedbly hate us.

spanish is very useful, but I don't find it particularily fun to learn.

[Edited on November 8, 2006 at 9:26 PM. Reason : .]

11/8/2006 9:25:43 PM

If you're going to learn German and Dutch, learn German first.

However, having taken 7 years of German, a short course on Italian, and ad hoc conversational Spanish, I think you're probably going to excel faster at either Spanish or Italian because you'll have more opportunity to practice it. If your goal is to know a whole lot of languages I'd suggest:

Spanish
Italian
PORTUGUESE because it's the most beautiful language
French
German
Dutch

German is both easier and more difficult to learn because of the very specific language rules. For example, "to live"
"leben" ~ to live [a healthy lifestyle]
"wohnen" ~ to live [in an apartment] ~ closer to the English "to reside"

"essen" ~ to eat [human]
"fressen" ~ to eat [animal]. Don't insult someone by using this verb to invite them to dinner! Unless of course you meant it

So there's not all the "IFs, ANDs and BUTs" of English grammatical rules, which makes it easier...once you already know all the rules.

also, the ending on any adjective - as well as the indefinite or definite article, or quantifier (a, the, or "three") - changes based upon: the gender & case of the noun described, the preceding article, and I think possibly also the verb being used.

I should've taken Spanish!

11/8/2006 9:32:04 PM

spanish was in all 3 sections, and a good one if you visit or live in nc... perhaps more so down the road

11/8/2006 9:37:50 PM

Utilitarian:
French
Spanish
German
Italian
Dutch

Ease:
Spanish
French
Italian
German
Dutch

>>Spanish is more concrete than French and Italian; Spanish & Italian are more similar to eachother than French; Spanish & French are easier to pick up I think.

11/8/2006 9:38:59 PM

Quote :

"wait, are you saying if i am speaking in say, italian, someone who speaks spanish but not italian would be able to understand most of what i am saying, and vice versa? if so, that's great!"

I haven't read the whole thread, but I'll chime in:

I have a pretty solid knowledge of Spanish, and I find that I can pick up a fair amount of Italian and Portuguese when it is spoken slowly and clearly, or written. Also, just by number of speakers, I think Spanish is number 2 or 3 in the world. Depending on what you're going to do and where you're going to be, it seems like it could be quite useful. If I recall correctly, you're somewhere in the Middle East now, which would limit its utility somewhat, but it's still going to be more widely spoken than Dutch, and certainly German (given that the latter is only the national language of a couple of countries, all of which have very high numbers of English-speakers).

French would be more useful in much of Africa, if that's a place you see yourself being there...otherwise, I would say its only appeal is aesthetic, but you seem to rank it fairly low there, so fuck it.

Italian is of marginal utility. Only the Italians really speak it, and it's close enough to Spanish that you could get by with that language and a phrasebook in Italy but also have ready access to many other countries.

Portuguese...eh. It just doesn't seem as important, especially given the part of the world you seem to be mostly dealing with (if I recall correctly).

So I'd put your order as something like:

Spanish
French
Dutch
German
Portuguese
Italian

[Edited on November 8, 2006 at 9:49 PM. Reason : ]

11/8/2006 9:46:25 PM

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html

Maybe that will help.

11/8/2006 9:46:33 PM

Regardless of whatever language(s) you choose to pursue, please check this book out, it's incredibly encouraging:


http://www.amazon.com/How-Learn-Any-Language-Inexpensively/dp/0806512717

11/8/2006 9:47:52 PM

Thanks for all your comments.

I will have to reread them a few times to be able to digest it all in.

But, I found some more candidates:

Basque
Catalan
Irish
Scottish (Gaelic)
Welsh
Manx

11/8/2006 9:56:11 PM

Here is a good article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutually_intelligible


And how about:

Frisian:

Quote :

"The Frisian language is the closest living cousin to English (after Scots)"

11/8/2006 10:00:57 PM

How in the hell is German high on aesthetic. It's an awful sounding language.

11/8/2006 10:17:56 PM

Go with Irish Gaelic, and then teach me, mkthxu..


seriously.

11/8/2006 10:30:13 PM

C++

11/8/2006 10:31:07 PM

this past summer I worked in a factory in north Georgia
it was owned by a Swiss company

one of the Italian managers that came by easily conversed with one of the Guatemalan employees

it was fun hearing Swiss German, Spanish, Italian and a whole array of Southern US dialects on a regular basis

11/8/2006 10:36:11 PM

Perhaps one of them spoke the others' language. Let's not get too anecdotal here.

11/8/2006 10:47:09 PM

If you learn Gaelic, you will be able to talk to the inhabitants of the Aran Islands, and that's about it. Ireland is a bilingual country de jure, but de facto its all English.

11/8/2006 10:48:44 PM

how about esperanto?

it is easier than even spanish, which is the easiest of all.

11/8/2006 11:13:09 PM

i speak italian fluently, i lived there 4 years

Us Arabs can learn languages easily, so u will probably pick up italian in a matter of months. However from traveling and living all over, i think spanish is more practical. However as far as whats Sexy and interesting, i say italian, cause less people speak it.

11/8/2006 11:14:13 PM

Learning Basque or Catalan? You might as well just learn french or spanish. They're not that different.


I can read Catalan just fine because I know Spanish, and I'd never been exposed to it before this year.


and yeah, Spanish is going to be alot easier for you if you speak arabic, considering how it's partly based on arabic anyway.

[Edited on November 8, 2006 at 11:15 PM. Reason : the moors went to the iberian peninsula and taught their language to the latin speaking locals]

11/8/2006 11:14:28 PM

french or spanish for the win

11/9/2006 5:46:30 AM

Quote :

"nah, no international business. just travel as a tourist, but really like to interact with the locals."

Well in that case learn Spanish. Spanish would open up what, 24 countries to you? French on the other hand...

[Edited on November 9, 2006 at 7:37 AM. Reason : has what, 28? -I'd rather visit the Latin American countries myself.]

11/9/2006 7:30:52 AM

Quote :

"How in the hell is German high on aesthetic. It's an awful sounding language."

seriously, it sounds like grinding bricks together

you should learn Greek

11/9/2006 10:03:34 AM

i'm not seeing how spanish and arabic are related... i know most of spain was conquored under the moors but that didn't last that long....

i would say

Italian for french, spanish and to some extent portugese crossover

German (syntax is very similar to english as they are from the same language)

Russian/Chinese for 'wide spreadness' though they are highly difficult

11/9/2006 10:41:37 AM

Quote :

"i'm not seeing how spanish and arabic are related... i know most of spain was conquored under the moors but that didn't last that long...."

If you see seven hundred years as being "not that long," more power to you. But you're right, other than a few words in Spanish that come from Arabic (like the word for "pillow" of all things), they aren't related.

11/9/2006 12:37:25 PM

spanish and italian ARE close. i'm studying abroad right now, and i live in an international corridor, and my italian friend doesn't speak spanish, but he can understand when the spanish guy is speaking spanish.

11/9/2006 12:57:14 PM

not all of spain was under moorish rule for all 700 years (not 800) infact the reconquista 'began' in 712, and over half of spain was re-conquored by the 1000's

11/9/2006 1:08:08 PM

Let's also not forget that there was a major de-arabization program after the last of the Moors were kicked out.

Language usage, go with German. It is understood in more countries than any other language save English. Also, stay away from Portugesse, it is one of the hardest languages for a non-native speaker to learn.

11/9/2006 1:20:11 PM

learn French, chicks dig it

11/9/2006 1:25:14 PM

i wouldn't recommend learning Swedish. it's not too hard to learn to read and write, but speaking and hearing is on a whole 'nother level.

11/9/2006 1:33:03 PM

finnish

11/9/2006 2:29:31 PM

if you want to be practical, chinese

if you want to be awesome, french

11/9/2006 3:07:30 PM

arabic

11/9/2006 4:24:18 PM

French or German.

11/9/2006 4:50:03 PM

i start my spanish language traning december 6th....i cant wait

11/9/2006 4:52:43 PM

Quote :

"i'm not seeing how spanish and arabic are related... i know most of spain was conquored under the moors but that didn't last that long...."

a lot of spanish words have arabic roots because the moors were there from 711 to 1492. I'm not sure how much use that would be now though, since the related words are sort of sporadic.

11/9/2006 4:57:17 PM

OJALAR IS VERY ARABIC

11/9/2006 4:58:27 PM

spanish, we are being overTAKEN

11/9/2006 5:01:33 PM

Quote :

"a lot of spanish words have arabic roots because the moors were there from 711 to 1492. I'm not sure how much use that would be now though, since the related words are sort of sporadic."

The moors were there that long, but the Spanish Inquisition sought to purge their entire presence from the country.

11/9/2006 5:04:33 PM

i'm sorry, the who?

i think you mean moops...

11/9/2006 5:06:17 PM