Poll: If you could learn another language, which would you pick?

[MorganL4]

For me, first I'd like to finish learning Spanish ( had 4 years in High School, became semi fluent, and then stopped because education started costing money, and I needed to pay for classes that were applicable to my degree.) After that would be Japanese, just because I enjoy anime and would like to watch it an not need to worry about subtitles.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Took Spanish in college (which means that in a crowded discoteca while speaking to the partially deaf I sound passable) and learned Japanese from my mother, so those two are out.

I've always found German to be a pleasant language, so probably that. Preferably with a Berlin/east German accent so I can sound unintentionally threatening without being overt about it.

 

[Juan Regular]

Something scandinavian, probably swedish. I love the sound of the language, especially in some swedish folk songs. Plus I get a lot of scandinavians at work. Would be nice to speak their language.
I already speak three languages though, so I´m good for now.

I've always found German to be a pleasant language, so probably that. Preferably with a Berlin/east German accent so I can sound unintentionally threatening without being overt about it.

As a native german speaking person I honestly can not understand why anybody could like the sound of it. Maybe purely in literature but otherwise my own language kind of annoys me.

 

[Theminimanx]

Japanese, so I can critique anime subtitles.

This, extended to manga translations. I also want to go Japan one day, so it would be nice if I could actually talk to people.
Chinese could also be a useful language to learn for business reasons.
As for how I learned English, I just watched a lot of movies and played video games.

 

[O maestre]

voted for chinese but it would have been nice to have russian in the poll a close third would have been arabic or japanese

anyway i already know, most of the latin primary latin based languages- portuguese, italian and french(from high school though) as well as danish swedish(conversational) some german and english obviously.

so i feel pretty covered when it comes to european languages, except those with a slavic background... so i guess that means i only western european languages.

i would like to learn russian for a sense of completion, it would mean i could communicate with almost all of the european countries at some level.

chinese because it is going to be the financial capital of the world some day, and for someone like me studying electrical engineering no doubt a lot of the development i am going to make will be sent there to be made.

arabic because in some ways i would calssify it as a second language of europe, many loan words from arabic have become part of a lot of european languages, and the influence they have had on europe through out the ages has been profound. so chalk it up to that sense of completion.

and finally japanese, mostly to satisfy the otaku/weeaboo within myself

 

[SpAc3man]

Hmmm I guess C# would be the most useful to learn in terms of use for my own time but some sort of PLC language would be more useful in terms of the direction of my current university education and prospective career path.

 

[AnarchistFish]

it would have been nice to have russian in the poll

Yeah I wasn't sure where to fit it in, if there'd been 9 poll options I would've included it.


And yeah, you'd learn it instantly out of magic. I guess if I were to think tactically I'd pick mandarin then, and then teach myself the latin languages afterwards.

Should've known japanese would've been popular. Now that I think about it though, I might pick that instead of mandarin. Living in Japan, I could do that if I knew the language.. No interest in anime though.

 

[AnarchistFish]

I already studied Mandarin Chinese

How well can you speak it?

 

[O maestre]

it would have been nice to have russian in the poll

Should've known japanese would've been popular. Now that I think about it though, I might pick that instead of mandarin. Living in Japan, I could do that if I knew the language..

depends where in japan you would want to live some places they like gaijin(western foreigners) other places not so much at all. and although off topic and perhaps inflammatory, i have to mention that i got the impression from my visit that what race of gaijin you are matters a lot in your treatment, then again the same can be said for almost the entire world

 

[Cazza]

German

I have always been interested in Germany. I have gone there for a holiday. I want to learn it well and go back.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I already studied Mandarin Chinese

How well can you speak it?

Pretty well, but I might be a little skewed towards torpedos and weapons of mass destruction since I learned it while a linguist in the army.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Definitely Latin. I'm already learning Japanese, and that was the main one I wanted to learn because it was different. I was alright at French and German when I had to do them at school, but I hated the similarity, felt like wasted effort to me. Japanese is completely different and I love Japan, so no thinking required there.

But as I said, already learning, so I'd pick Latin because it sounds awesome and is also damn useful, not for conversation, but for all sorts of other things. However, Russian is a close second.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Well besides my mother-tongue I already speak two languages (English and German).

But Italian sounds awesome so if I'd have to learn a fourth language it'd be Italian.

 

[DugMachine]

Living on the border to Mexico I know enough spanish to get by but by no means am I fluent.

I'd like to learn either Arabic or French. Arabic just because and French cause it's sexy and I can seduce da ladies

 

[BlueberryMUNCH]

German, so I can communicate with my Austrian family better.
Also, I'm currently learning Latin. It's difficult.

 

[Fiad]

Well I am currently taking Japanese in college, so if I could just bypass that it would be awesome.

 

[Kekkonen1]

Already speak Swedish, English, Japanese and German. Swedish because I'm Swedish (big surprise), English because we all study it in school from when we are 7 years old (and I'm fine with that, good language to know), Japanese because I've studied it and live in Tokyo since a few years back and German because, when entering junior-high all Swedish students have to choose between German, French and Spanish as a third language.

The language I really wish I had studied is Italian. I LOVE Italian football and if I got to live twice I would have loved to move to Torino instead of Tokyo, learn fluent Italian, go to a university there and then find a good job, all the while having a season-pass with my beloved team Juventus.

There just isn't enough time =/

 

[BrotherRool]

German, because I'm living in Germany right now and it'd be really useful if I could understand what people were saying to me.


After that I want to learn Italian, British Sign Language and Welsh.

Italian because it's a lovely sounding language, by far my favourite of the romantic languages (Italian>Portugues>Spanish>French, seriously I don't understand why people like French, it sounds like they figured out a method of communciation through continuously spitting [which they were naturally good at because of all the garlic and snails and arrogance. I would like to point out at this point that as a British citizen it's my duty to be racist to the French and it's all in good jest. Maybe )


British Sign Language because it's so intuitive, I was stewarding at a christian festivaland I was stationed near the deaf area (because they need line of sight to 'hear' so someone needs to stop people from walking in front of them =D) And so I got to watch all the people singing in sign language and its such a beautiful form of expression I decided I wanted to learn it as my leisure thing.


Finally Welsh because its a fun language and I'm Welsh and so I really should be able to speak it at some point

 

[Zealous]

Spoiler: The poll results in a nutshell.

OT: Some Arabic or Hindi dialect . I'm already fluent in English (no way, really?) and French so I'd like to try something different. Italian sounds good too and it's pretty close to French so it wouldn't be too tricky to learn.

 

[Subatomic]

I've always found German to be a pleasant language, so probably that. Preferably with a Berlin/east German accent so I can sound unintentionally threatening without being overt about it.

To a German, most of the East German dialects sound more funny than threatening and even a bit dimwitted, especially Thuringian/Saxon. Berlinerisch (the dialect spoken around Berlin) has a lot of influences from Low German and northern dialects, so it's not very similar to the other eastern dialects.

German, mainly on the fact it sounds like such a evil language! >

Only if your sole exposure to the language are certain... older radio recordings and German Metal, both of which don't really represent the language as a whole very well.

As for me, I'd probably go with one of the sign languages (most likely the German Sign Language DGS), as it would actually be useful in my job, though Chinese or a scandinavic language would also be very interesting to learn.