A second language for an English speaker

[Darkis]

With current geopolitical situation, chinese might be a good option.

[Azmaria]

I'm going to secretly learn Vietnamese so I can finally understand what my relatives are saying about me.

I'm doing about the same but with Hmong.

[Diraction]

So in short - don't bother with any oriental languages for anything other than interest, if you want an easy one do spanish, a useful and average difficulty one do french . . .

I'm not so sure that Spanish is an easier language than French to learn, for an English speaker.

According to this article:

http://french.about.com/cs/teachingr...shiseasier.htm

the things you start out learning about a language, like spelling and the alphabet, are easier in Spanish than in French, but when you get to more advanced subjects (e.g. subjunctive mood), Spanish is arguably more difficult than French.

[MerinPally]

I'm not so sure that Spanish is an easier language than French to learn, for an English speaker.

According to this article:

http://french.about.com/cs/teachingr...shiseasier.htm

the things you start out learning about a language, like spelling and the alphabet, are easier in Spanish than in French, but when you get to more advanced subjects (e.g. subjunctive mood), Spanish is arguably more difficult than French.

Possibly, I've heard the argument from both sides. I did French from age 9 until GCSE and granted I had an awful string of teachers but I always found that far harder than spanish which I only had 2 years to learn to a GCSE standard in. Granted, GCSE standard is... low, but it's probably still enough that you could converse to a pretty reasonable extent, just not about technical things. Having talked to my friends about this in the past, they seem to be split 50:50 so I just spoke from personal experience

[aztr0]

Mandarin Chinese.

[Drakoes]

Chinese as it stands. I was considering Spanish as well, but I decided to go with Mandarin Chinese. It seems harder than Cantonese though, what's up with that?

[Imhotep]

Pandaren language!

[Wikiy]

Besides my own language and English, i know a bit of German and Latin. Latin is very interesting, you can see the influence it has in a majority of the European branch of Indo-European languages. It also gives you an insight to the Classical and Antique culture.

[Diraction]

My sister studies anglistics (we're German) and told me modern English was roughly made up of 50% Latin roots (via French, mostly) and 50% Germanic (Anglo-Saxon).

In many cases, there are even two "parallel" ways of expressing something, let's say a "hearty welcome" - a "cordial reception". First uses the words rooted in German, the second in Latin, but basically they mean the same - just one of them sound a lot more formal, which is the case in many of those examples.

There are many examples in English of having two (or more) words to say the same thing, with the French origin words sounding more formal or more highbrow than the German origin words. E.g. "to lift up" = German (actually Norse) origin vs. "to elevate" = French origin or "to ask" = German origin vs. "to inquire" = French origin.

[Jakexe]

Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world although not the most widespread. Spanish is the most widespread after English and French or Japanese are great for business resumes.

I guess it all depends on the reasons behind wanting to be bi-lingual.

[Zao]

I'd say Latin. It's great to get some deeper insight in other languages.

For useability I'd say Spanish.

[bekilrwale]

I've been learning German because a majority of my family members on my mothers side were born in Germany and speak mainly German, and my great grandmother on my father's side ONLY speaks German, so now I can at least loosely understand her when she calls.

[eriseis]

The framework here seems to be centered on morphology and etymology.

Yes, French and Latin have influenced English or other languages, but etymology is not language. Arabic or Icelandic might be more interesting to study from the perspective of phonetics and phonology. Icelandic has many sounds that Germanic languages have lost as well as some quirky things like invisible vowels that only appear in some inflections of words. Arabic has an interesting prosody: classical arabic can have long strings of words with flat rhythm, for instance.

I feel these two would be more interesting since English is already in the rare category of phonetics with its very rich vowel inventory and use of not just consonants but syllable final consonant clusters. Furthermore, phonology tends to be ignored. Spanish language learners, for instance, never bother to learn that Spanish does intervocalic lenition of plosives rendering words like "baboso" with 5 sounds instead of the perceived 4 total phonemes.

French would not give a complete picture of a "deep understanding" of English besides some historical facts. One in language does not tend to question or acquire a deep perspective unless one compares the mother tongue with a highly contrastive language, I feel.

[Diraction]

French would not give a complete picture of a "deep understanding" of English besides some historical facts. One in language does not tend to question or acquire a deep perspective unless one compares the mother tongue with a highly contrastive language, I feel.

Alternatively, one could read about multiple other languages in general terms and thereby learn how what seems to be intuitively obvious in English is, in fact, actually pretty arbitrary.

In English, the opposite of "I went to the store" is "I did not go to the store" and to an English speaker, that seems completely intuitive and obvious. So I was surprised to learn recently that no other Germanic or Latin language has that extra "do" in the negative form. Even though English is the child of the ancestor of German and the ancestor of French, English is unique in having that pointless "do" in the negative form, unlike every other Germanic or Latin language.

[eriseis]

Alternatively, one could read about multiple other languages in general terms and thereby learn how what seems to be intuitively obvious in English is, in fact, actually pretty arbitrary.

In English, the opposite of "I went to the store" is "I did not go to the store" and to an English speaker, that seems completely intuitive and obvious. So I was surprised to learn recently that no other Germanic or Latin language has that extra "do" in the negative form. Even though English is the child of the ancestor of German and the ancestor of French, English is unique in having that pointless "do" in the negative form, unlike every other Germanic or Latin language.

I wouldn't call it arbitrary. I'm not too knowledgable regarding syntax or syntactic history, however, "arbitrary" may imply randomness and the use of "do" is not random at all.

It is intriguing to compare how languages deal with certain situations, though.

Here's the deal with languages. All are as nonsensical and as intuitive as any other. It's fine to be descriptive about the details of a language, such as the do particle in English, what is improper is to use adjectives such as "pointless" when making statements about languages.

[Anakso]

Unless you're Australian, British, or Canadian, then I don't know... maybe Spanish is less common there?

Yup, much less common. To the point of being about as common as say German is in the U.S. I've lived in the UK and Australia but never actually met someone who spoke Spanish. Can't speak for Canada, though I do know French is more prevalent than Spanish there.

[hellosaltygoodness]

esperanto. its easy, its extremely fast to learn, and nobody will be able to figure out if you're talking italian, spanish, portuguese, or french.

[damntree]

Well I speak Murican as a first language. I'm also fluent in Brit, Aussie and some Canadjin.

[Dyra]

Spanish is the second most common language in The United States, so.... I think that's the obvious choice for a 2nd language.

Unless you're Australian, British, or Canadian, then I don't know... maybe Spanish is less common there?

Same as what Anakso has said, except in Britain. ^_^
Spanish is incredibly rare here. I'm not even sure what a good second language would be. All the rest of our native languages are... well so native they're useless outside our shores. Sign language is useful however, and would be my first pick. Immigrant languages however are on the rise, so, Punjabi, Polish and Arabic would be good options too.

For business purposes, Mandarin Chinese, German, French, Japanese and Dutch are all good options.

[haxartus]

In Europe there are foreign companies everywhere, and they are more likely to hire you if you know their language.
I'm not sure what are the financial benefits of learning a second and a third language in America tho. You are rarely going to know it good enough to be an interpreter.