What is a good second language to know?

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Biosophilogical

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Jul 8, 2009
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MirrorSweep said:
Sign language. =3
Also Spanish if you plan on living in America (at least that's what FBI/cop shows tell me), French if you plan on living in Canada (there are some areas of 'French Canada' where people won't serve you unless you speak french), I think Arabic is the language in Afghanistan/Iraq/that-general-area, so Arabic if you join the military, Chinese/Japanese if you want to be in large business or IT (because Japan and China would probably be related to you from a business/technological perspective at some point).

Oh, and Latin and/or Greek; becuause they both are strongly affective on English, it could, in theory, improve your understanding of your own lagnuage.
 

Yan007

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Jan 31, 2011
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I have a university degree in ESL (English as a 2nd language) teaching . My first language is French, 2nd is English.

I am currently working for a private English school in China. Mandarin (called hunan here - the language of the people) is difficult for me to learn for the following reason: vowels have up to 5 different tones so not only must you say the proper vowel, you must also use the proper tone. On the other hand, the Chinese learn pinyin at school which is how to transcribe Chinese to roman letters. Unfortunately, you would need to know the rules of pinyin to find it useful to begin with.

I am also learning Japanese and I have been doing so for a while. I know enough kanjis to keep myself out of trouble, but my focus is not on learning them but learning to talk and understand others fluently. Also: although the Chinese and Japanese writing systems differ, their use of "kanjis" makes it possible for you to read Chinese if you know enough Japanese and the reverse is also true. This puts you in situations where you can understand the meaning of a sentence without have an auditive representation of what you understand in your mind.

Another thing: I took some sign language classes at my university some years ago. Sign language is very territory-specific, meaning that your sign language may not be useful when talking to other signers in other countries.

Lastly, for those of you who like French because it is a romantic language, I present to you my performance for the Chinese new year party we had at my company. Keep in mind that I am NOT a singer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF6_ecVU8Tc

For those who may be interested: I know my employer is looking for 5 more foreigners for June to work here in China as English teachers. If you have any interest/questions, feel free to send me a PM and I'll see what can be done.
 

Imat

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Feb 21, 2009
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Judging by the presence of an Escapist account in your life, I'm gonna say Java. Easy to learn the basics, fun to speak (If rather monotonous), and if you learn it well enough you can start to do things you've been leaving to game devs for all these years, things you never would've pictured yourself doing otherwise.

Or you could learn Chinese, seeing as how even the Space Cowboys of tomorrow know a little Chinese.
 

Imat

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Feb 21, 2009
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crazypsyko666 said:
Depending on where you're moving in California, you may want to learn either Spanish, Redneck, or every variation of asian languages ever.
California isn't really a redneck state...American Liberals, Suburbanites, Rich Folk, and Surfer Dudes/Dudettes make up a large portion of the population.
 

Lucifron

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Dec 21, 2009
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Vendayn said:
The answer is quite simple:
Standard Chinese or Spanish, for everyone.
For you, Spanish would be an excellent idea, seeing as you're moving to the Midwest. Anything else would be inferior.
 

iseko

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Dec 4, 2008
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French, spanish and german. If you add those three to english. And you can go to any country in europe and people will understand you.
 

Zyxx

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Jan 25, 2010
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Pick a language and a culture that you're genuinely interested in (in order to speak any language properly, you really ought to understand or at least have studied the underlying culture.) Ideally, pick one from a country you'd actually like to visit and spend at least a semester there.
(Seriously, study abroad anyway, it's awesome.)
Me, I've got a degree in Japanese because I fell in love with the sound of the language many years ago thanks to anime music. (Oh, don't look at me like that. Anime's not a bad place to START getting interested in Japanese; it's just a bad place to confine your studies.)

Learning another language is a great idea. Just pick something you enjoy and can stick with, and you'll do fine.
 

ApeShapeDeity

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Dec 16, 2010
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Latin: it will help you understand your own language better and allow you to sound like a clever cock. Not terribly practical, though.
 
Sep 14, 2009
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Vendayn said:
So, I've been thinking the past few weeks...it sure would be useful to know at least one other language besides English. This won't happen for a few months, because I'm moving out of California...but after I move, I want to take a language class. I'm most likely moving somewhere in the mid-west, if that matters at all.

I think Arabic would be a nice language to know, my mom took Arabic classes for about half a year. Japanese or Chinese would be good too. But what about others? I have a little while to decide...but what do you guys/gals think?What are your reasons for that language?
spanish is the only damn thing thats useful in the midwest (take it from me, i live here)

no offense, but there are a ridiculous amounts of spanish immigrants here, especially when your not in big towns, who don't know a pinch of english, so spanish is by far the most useful.

(i myself took german,so i have that language down a bit, but i have a good 50 spanish phrases down due to hearing/having to use them)
 

bl4ckh4wk64

Walking Mass Effect Codex
Jun 11, 2010
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Mandarin or Arabic. Maybe Japanese, but that's really only if you want to go into business.
 

Deadlock Radium

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Mar 29, 2009
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In Norway: English.
Other than that, probably French or Mandarin. And Norwegian. Because Norway is going to rule the world in the not too distant future.
 

Alien Mole

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Oct 6, 2009
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HolKann said:
Living in Belgium, knowing Dutch & English fluently, French pretty well and having notions of German, Spanish, Latin, Italian and Greek, I'd suggest French. The language itself is beautiful, it has a rich history and culture closely interwoven with the English (and thus American) one, and it is spoken by a lot of people.

(snip)
Wow. That's pretty uncanny. I'm Belgian as well, and speak the same languages at roughly the same proficienct levels. I'd even go for an Asian language as an 'exotic' choice, being partial to Japanese. If you now tell me you're studying English and Dutch as a linguist-in-training I'm afraid I'll have to take out a hit on one of us as we may just be the same person.

OT: Well, uh... what HolKann said, really.
 

2fish

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Sep 10, 2008
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I vote for braille, as most things a required to have it! If a directory is unreadable you can still read it!
 

Jaime_Wolf

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Jul 17, 2009
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Languages are only useful if you have a use for them.

If you plan to travel extensively or live in a place with a language (Spanish in a lot of the United States certainly counts here), learn that language.

If you want economic opportunity, learn a language with a large developing market in whatever you're interested in getting into.

If you want to learn a language just because "it would be nice to know another language", you're going to have an awfully hard time finding any motivation to continue with it (I can pretty much guarantee that you've underestimated the time and effort involved in such an endeavour).

That said, you should also consider how easily you grasp grammar. Someone who has difficulty speaking metalinguistically or understanding grammatical systems of an unfamiliar language will probably want something with grammar closer to their native language. A lot of people have tremendous difficulty in these areas - you would not be alone. French, Spanish, Italian, and German are all pretty decent bets in such cases. Many Asian languages are radically different from English and many less-known European languages have extremely unfamiliar grammar like the case systems of Russian or many of the Scandinavian languages. If you're intested in Asian languages, you should consider writing systems: many Asian languages do not write using alphabets for publications intended for adults (it takes many years of devoted study to achieve competence in reading many of these languages). If grammar systems interest you, Slavic, Scandinavian, and Asian languages might be good. Otherwise, you'll want to think deeply before heading in that direction.

Also, you should be extremely wary of any instruction method that seeks to teach a language with no explicit instruction in grammar. These tend to sell themselves on the notion that children don't need to be taught grammar to learn a language. However, you are likely not a child who hasn't yet hit puberty (the so-called "critical period" for language acquisition). Adults, by and large, do considerably better with explicit instruction in grammar.

Finally, and this is just being nitpicky, you should completely ignore anyone telling you that a language is intrinsically "difficult" or "hard" compared to another language. The only metric here is similarity to your native language. While it may be quite hard for an English speaker to learn Hungarian (understatement, trust me), a speaker of Finnish would likely have a much easier time. Conversely, a Finnish speaker trying to learn Italian would likely have a harder time with it than an English speaker would.
 

GotMalkAvian

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Feb 4, 2009
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For practicality's sake, Spanish (go for the Mexican/South American dialects instead of the original Spanish dialects) is probably the most important one for the US right now, especially if you're moving out toward the west coast.

Also, Chinese will become increasingly important in the business world.

For fun, I don't think you can go wrong with Latin or Gaelic. Latin, although a dead language, still crops up in a lot of scientific terms, so it's cool to know where the names came from. As for Gaelic, I'm Irish so something about the language just fits right with me, and you'll be able to understand some of the greatest folk songs ever written.
 

Admiral Crunch

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Nov 25, 2010
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Julianking93 said:
I know a lot of German now, but personally, I'd like to learn Japanese.
Just... so... fucking... difficult >>
I'm acually learning Japanese right now, and I know what you mean.
It can be a real pain in the ass sometimes >.<