Good language to start?

[Bwutty]

Heya!

So, since the start of my first semester in the university, I'll have to pick another language to study.
So far my only foreign language has been English (not counting my mother tongue). I tried a short course in Spanish few months ago, thinking it was a very good and fun to learn language, but the teacher was a total douche and kind of made me build up a bad attitude/feel towards the language.

I still don't have my study plan for my semester so I have no idea what's the list of languages I have to pick from, but I doubt we'll have Chinese or something as much as rare..

What can you guys suggest? Any experience with learning new languages? Any pros and cons of the most-used languages today that one can study?

Anything will help!
Thanks!

[dabs]

why though? english is the only language you need... and (imo) the best

[semaphore]

What about Japanese?

[Catta]

learn norwegian... Its the easiest of the the 3 nordic languages and that way you will understand all 3 of em :P

---------- Post added 2011-09-05 at 02:57 PM ----------

why though? english is the only language you need... and (imo) the best

Not sure if serious...

[Bwutty]

@dabs To broaden my language capabilities, maybe? And earn some extra credits!

@semaphore I don't think they'll list something that rare :P

[Catta]

@dabs To broaden my language capabilities, maybe? And earn some extra credits!

@semaphore I don't think they'll list something that rare :P

What about Russian? :P Or Greek

[DETdream]

why though? english is the only language you need... and (imo) the best

Well that right there is the attitude we need to progress! Way to go!

English is my second language and I'm working on Spanish as a third language, mainly because that's what's useful in North America.
If I had to pick purely out of preference, Japanese would be my first choice and Italian my second choice.

[Deleted]

go for either spanish, russian, mandarin or french.

[Bwutty]

Oh God, I hate Russian! So that's out of the list. Greek - I've been to Greece several times and the way it sounds.. It's awful (no offence to Greek people here!) unless it's in a song or something.. :P

I've heard Norwegian is hard to learn, is it true? I mean, people would go out of their way and study anything else (if forced to pick a second language), just to avoid Norwegian? Or they were just lazy?

Thanks for the replies so far guys!

[Deleted]

French or German, you already know English so get all 3 and you have the 3 biggest languages in Europe covered.

[Deleted]

I would go with French, German or perhaps Mandarin.

[Maharishi]

For some reason I thought this was going to be computer languages.

I leave sad.

[Wynnyelle]

French or German, you already know English so get all 3 and you have the 3 biggest languages in Europe covered.

Gotta agree here. I've taken a semester of both, and with the right attitude, it's really easy to start catching on to either one of these languages. And they will definitely have their uses later on in life. =)

[Sanguinesun]

You're sort of reducing the field of choices rather quickly. You seem to indicate that English isnt your native language. Why not choose a language closely related to your native one?

Other than the above mentioned choices, (Ive studied Spanish, Russian and Japanese btw in the past at University) if you're going into a medical, legal, or similar, you might want to consider Latin.

As far as teachers are concerned, thats part of the university game. The better you can adapt to such situations the more successful you'll be in your classes and with less stress.

[Samin]

German (yes that's a biased suggestions ), Mandarin...maybe try Spanish again because it's a pretty useful language too

[Fraise]

Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Latin are all good places to start.
Don't bother with japanese until later. it's full of weeaboos and idiots usually.
And there's not really a lot of jobs anymore in that area.
Chinese is big money.

Denegaar: Gimme some of yo roasted piggies and baby eel in olive oil. ;-; mhhh food. lol.

[denegaar]

learn norwegian... Its the easiest of the the 3 nordic languages and that way you will understand all 3 of em :P[COLOR="red"]

Do you understand finnish knowing norwegian/swedish? I thought finnish was way different :S

I'm spanish and I can talk/understand english pretty well... and now I'm studying Deutsch because you know, a lot of countries in Europe uses it as official language (Switzerland, Austria, Germany...). I think is the best option behind english. French is good too, but I don't like it... and spanish sucks, visiting Spain is only worth for vacation.

[Bwutty]

You're sort of reducing the field of choices rather quickly. You seem to indicate that English isnt your native language. Why not choose a language closely related to your native one?

Other than the above mentioned choices, (Ive studied Spanish, Russian and Japanese btw in the past at University) if you're going into a medical, legal, or similar, you might want to consider Latin.

As far as teachers are concerned, thats part of the university game. The better you can adapt to such situations the more successful you'll be in your classes and with less stress.

Well, it's not like I am doing it on purpose. :P My mother tongue is largely unknown for the rest of the world, mainly because my country is a very very small one, we don't get much attention.

Latin will be included in my program, I need to pick another language to study alongside it and English (refining).

About the teachers - I tried to adapt, but the whole course hated her, she was plainly racist, ignorant woman, who lived alone and hated everything.. Tired of her life I guess.. All she'd do in the first 15 minutes of each course was to badmouth minorities and curse the government, than for the rest - she would yell at us for acting "like little children" (mind you, the group was full of mature people, we sat quietly, didn't do ANYTHING) and asked of us to know every Grammar structure after just 3 courses.. Can't imagine how someone can handle that for very long.

[shise]

Heya!

So, since the start of my first semester in the university, I'll have to pick another language to study.
So far my only foreign language has been English (not counting my mother tongue). I tried a short course in Spanish few months ago, thinking it was a very good and fun to learn language, but the teacher was a total douche and kind of made me build up a bad attitude/feel towards the language.

I still don't have my study plan for my semester so I have no idea what's the list of languages I have to pick from, but I doubt we'll have Chinese or something as much as rare..

What can you guys suggest? Any experience with learning new languages? Any pros and cons of the most-used languages today that one can study?

Anything will help!
Thanks!

Hey! we spanish people are nice, don't let that douchebag screw it!

Anyways, spanish is really used in a lot of places but, if you ask me, i personally choose english and german, as it's spoken in the whole center of europe, and also because i consider it kinda usefull studing tourism.

Maeby you can check out the most used language depending on your studies, but for sure spanish is the most spoken language RIGHT now, and if it's not then it's the same as english.

So that's my recomendation, choose the one that fits your studies and you like/find easy

[Clame]

French or German, you already know English so get all 3 and you have the 3 biggest languages in Europe covered.

Were about to say this.