

Ask YC: What (Natural) Language Should I Learn? - manvsmachine

I want to start learning a new language; ideally it should have the same qualities as a good programming language: useful (meaning that I'll actually find other people that speak it), fun to use, and not insanely difficult to learn.  For perspective, I am American, so my primary language is English. I can speak conversational (read: mediocre) Spanish, and I started looking at Russian a while ago, but felt like I wouldn't ever really get to use it. Suggestions?
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schtog
well i mean if you know english and spanish then the really useful ones are
tough i think.

i like spanish, it has a nice sound and is very easy to learn if you know
english(a lot of words are very similar) and grammar feels consistent and
easy. my impression at least. obv it has great use too.

the big economies of the future are speculated to be: china - mandarin india -
ok english we all know brazil - portugese, also some african countries have
portugese a s alanguage nigeria - english

if you dont want the tough ones(mandarin, russian) and spanish you are already
learning then i dont know how big the use is but: french, portugese, german

i would probably learn spanish really well instead of learning yet another one
with limited use.

i mean knowing to speak just the basics of a language doesnt really help you
with anything except when you travel.

but im hardly an expert on the matter.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_i would probably learn spanish really well instead of learning yet another
one with limited use._

+1 to that. The most "useful" thing you could do would be to seek depth, not
breadth: Keep working on your mediocre Spanish until it becomes fluent
Spanish. There's an absolute ton of Spanish speakers in the USA, to say
nothing of the rest of the hemisphere.

(By extension, another useful thing you could do is just continue practicing
ever-more-advanced English. :) But that presumably fails the "fun" test big
time...)

From there, if you've ruled out Chinese (native speakers everywhere!) and
Japanese (inspiring manga and anime everywhere!) as too hard (which is
probably wise), I think you're down to:

\- French (folks on the web rave about _French in Action_ ; lots of speakers
around the world; great movies and literature; and the _food_...)

\- a language spoken by some nearby foreign friends who will be pleased to
practice with you occasionally (in my case: Chinese, Polish, Hebrew)

\- a language spoken in a country you really want to spend time visiting
(hint: _Italian_ )

\- Latin. Intellectually interesting. Relatively easy to study without a
teacher: Your accent will almost certainly suck, but none of the native
speakers will ever care, because they're all dead! And you've got thousands of
years of classic literature to appreciate:

[http://www.amazon.com/Harrius-Potter-Philosophi-Lapis-
Philos...](http://www.amazon.com/Harrius-Potter-Philosophi-Lapis-
Philosophers/dp/1582348251)

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kennyroo
I took Mandarin classes while working on a project in Shanghai in 2005, but
made stunningly little progress and finally gave up. Then again, that might
say more about me than it does about Mandarin. You definitely need a teacher,
and consider focusing on the spoken language if most of your communication
will be verbal.

Korean is useful because very few Westerners speak it. (There's a reason it's
called the Hermit Kingdom). Very cool high-tech country with a too-low profile
IMHO.

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schof
I speak Spanish and English (native English speaker) and was thinking of
adding Chinese, until I read this:
<http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html>

Now I'm thinking about French.

~~~
manvsmachine
I read that too... That's why I included the qualification of "not insanely
difficult". I do want to learn Chinese eventually, but self-taught is not the
way to go with that language.

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simianstyle
Chinese

~~~
osipov
to be more precise, Mandarin

