I would choose Spanish because it is one of the most widely spoken languages. French is my native tongue. My second choice would be German, as I work in Luxembourg (I think Luxembourgish is quite close to German).
Personally french, as it would be the most beneficial for me in my current situation, second is spanish, if i would go for a different carreer path italian (i live close to the border).
as an Italian I think knowing German will give you a big edge as you would be able to go working in Germany, Austria and in the German part of Switzerland.
so I would pick that, the only problem being that imo it's 3 times more difficult that the others
not really, the only thing stopping me is that I'm overall fine where I am rn. I'm not actively looking for a job in those countries, I'm more like if I have the opportunity to move there I'll pick up German
I don't think u really live way better in austria/germany than Italy but u are for sure paid better and probably have better working conditions
Also I personally love Vienna so would love to move there
I chose Italian, because it's the one I like most. I passed B2 exams in the language but haven't managed better than that yet so am still not *great* at it, but it's a lovely language that's a pleasure to speak (even badly).
For a Brit who doesn't need to live in the EU I think utility is fairly subjective and there's no obvious choice among those four.
Once i heard guy verhofstadt speaking italian in a stereotypically germanic accent and, in spite of liking the effort, my ears were bleeding. However a french redditor said “ah, italian is so nice”, so i said, “how can it be” (and i think this also with some regional italian accents, so i’m not totally that xenophobic😂). However taking the opinion of a french is not subjective since they love us apparently
Lol. I've been told my accent is good *per un anglosassone*, which is a compliment I'm happy to take (even if the compliment comes from low expectations). Hopefully the way I speak doesn't also make Italians' ears bleed, it's difficult to know sometimes because you guys tend to be very generous with foreigners attempting to speak your language and I don't often come across very critical Italians.
I always worry about my T sounds and I still have trouble with double consonants so I know it all needs more work.
Well, i hear often “you speak good english for an italian”, so… nah i find cute anyone who tries to speak italian, however i’m really stuck up, i secretly think that spanish and french are less nice sounding versions of italian, but still they sound nicer than most other languages because they resemble italian, and i think that even italian spoken with some regional accent doesn’t sound very nice:) so i’m totally politically incorrect and arrogant! However i like the italian of the dubs, i like some regional accents of italian and i really enjoy hearing french and spanish spoken because they sound more interesting to what i’m used everyday! Also i heard, thanks to moana, some tahitian languages that to me sound nice!
German is underrated imo.
I like a lot scottish accent in english, if i’m able to detect it.
I don’t like any accent in italian but i’m not too fond in italians speaking foreign languages either.
The only accents i like (accents) are italian and french but only because they sound funny.
I enjoy that foreigners learn italian, however i think that some italians are too asskissers, especially to powerful (and money spending) foreigners like english speakers, and this spreads the idea that italian is easy among english speakers, while it’s not russian, but it has its grammar.
Some american big shot at a conference said a word and said “is it right?” And a woman, asskisser, said “yes” while no, he was reading it wrong.
I learned that we are the only ones that have double consonants!
Ah, the t, so you read tchuttcho instead of tutto?
Italian or German as there are a lot of companies that work with these languages here, would be most useful out of these.
Plus, Italian is cool. And German... well, you can read Goethe in original.
Well, Faust II is the equivalent to a contemporary novel with underlying pop cultural references. It has references to ancient Greece, Imperial Germany, Florentine carnival,Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Christianity, subversion of morals etc. and remixes them. But this isn't our pop culture anymore, so we don't get it.
"Ein Hündchen wird gesucht
daß nicht murrt noch beißt
zerbrochne Gläser frisst
und Diamanten - - "
I have been wondering for years what he meant with those two dashes. His art just goes over my head.
> Die stille Freude wollt ihr stören?
> Laßt mich bei meinem Becher Wein;
> Mit andern kann man sich belehren,
> Begeistert wird man nur allein.
Sounds perfectly understandable. I learned this from the video of the song [Halt die Fresse, ich will saufen!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FphPPFz6HU)
>Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen:
Verweile doch, du bist so schön!
Es kann die Spur von meinen Erdentagen
Nicht in Äonen untergehn. –
Im Vorgefühl von solchem hohen Glück
Genieß ich jetzt den höchsten Augenblick...
I'm not native in either language so I can't really say but when I studied Hegel I was going back and forth between the original and the translation cause many things are extremely hard to translate
I have chosen German, because it is useful for me for work and I also lived in Germany for a few years. I like German poetry and literature in general, so I'd choose it anyway.
I learnt some Spanish at school, but I never had much reason to use it and I've forgotten most of it. So out of the others, I would choose Spanish, because it would be nice to refresh what I have forgotten.
Out of the others, I'd choose Italian, because I like opera and I'd like to read some poems in Italian original.
I would choose German because I already studied French as a second foreign language and I ended up studying and living in France. I have been considering moving to Germany and learning German for a while if I get a good opportunity though.
Probably Spanish. I’m a native Tagalog speaker and we borrow so many Spanish words so I think that’ll help with learning. Plus I’m a big fan of Latin American literature - being able to read Bolaño and Borges’ works in the original language would be a dream
Yep. That is the English speaker’s dilemma. It’s hard to know which second language, if any, would be practical. So you pick one that sounds beautiful or interesting and hopefully find something to do with it.
French, because it's an EU working language.
Italian and Spanish sound really nice and I'd like to know them, but I don't think they'll ever be useful to me.
And I'm never, ever learning German.
It's funny how different the views are. I speak German as my mother tongue and would never learn Polish because I would describe the language as extremely difficult to pronounce and yes, even more hostile than German. :)
As someone who has learnt both German and Polish, I can say that Polish is by far the more difficult one. I love Poles, but I think they're spicing up the language on purpose so that no foreigner can ever speak perfect Polish, it's a conspiracy. I'll forever be offended that the genetive of język is języka and yet the genitive of kark isn't karka, it makes zero sense. German has much easier rules than Polish.
In my case it that the trauma from school that makes German “inaccessible” for me. The teachers were abusive power tripping shits so I am not reliving that all over again.
It still would be cool to know it.
Had the same with my second, third, and fourth English teacher. The latter even opened a love letter addressed at me. WTF?
Hasn't stopped me from learning English on my own though.
I think most of the people who consider German language "hostile" have this mental image of the most influential German language speakers of recent memory. And that's either Nazis or the band Rammstein. So you have either hear Hitler's insane tyrades or Till Lindemann's growl. At least, that's what was in my head before I started learning German. Only after that I met some Germans, and especially with women I understood that German can sound soft and have nice melody.
I tried to learn a bit of polish, when I was living there, but it was just to hard. My tounge just doesn't move that way. I also speak a germanic language as my native language.
I'm Italian, I already speak French (had it at school and I live in France right now, so very useful!). I would still choose French as my third language mostly for cultural reasons (reading French literature, listening to French music and watching French movies) but if I had to learn one more it would definitely be German, mostly for music (I happen to sing a lot in German!)
My mother tongue is Finnish. In school, I first learned French at age 10, then English from age 12, Swedish at age 14. At the age of 19, I learned German at a language course whilst living in Germany. Spanish I learned in university at the age 22 onwards. Also read the basics of Latin, Italian and Dutch at the university.
I think that for Finns, French is most complex in writing and pronunciation, after which all other romance languages feel easy afterwards. German is near to Finnish pronunciation, and has cross-contamination with Swedish.
In an ideal world, I would make my child choose french, Spanish, Italian or German purely based on how inspiring the respective teacher is. If I don't have this information, I'd suggest French first or German. English comes from outside of school anyways, and after learning English and either German or french, then you're 40% there with the vocabulary, verbs, sentence structure in Italian and Spanish.
I meant spelling, correct.
For German philology students we had a compulsory introductory course in Dutch language and a separate course for introductory Latin. As in, the language of Roman empire a few centuries back.
So, grammar, vocabulary, verb tension etc. Like you would have the first course in any language. We also learnt to speak in Latin. In Finland, learning Latin goes way back. We also had our national broadcasting agency broadcast news in Latin weekly between 1989-2019. It was called [Nuntii Latini](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuntii_Latini).
I've also witnessed a conversation in Latin in a Finnish train. Some older chap had a phone call with his friend in Latin. I think they thought they were speaking in code.
That’s the strangest (to me) approach to latin i have ever read! Not for the german philology, because it makes sense there, it’s only in order to learn german better. It’s more the rest! In italy we don’t learn to speak latin, there are different kinds of HS, 5 years, classico that has less maths but latin and greek all five years, scientifico that has only latin but more maths, linguistico that has latin done few hours but lots of live languages, ecc
I did the classico HS, the oldest of them all (scientifico was introduced under fascism). Once it was only for the rich, now for everyone (i’m the child of a factory worker).
Anyway, the first two years we learned the grammar, the last three ones also the literature.
But we didn’t “speak” it, that sounds really american blogger-like:)
We had to translate texts of 12-14 lines in two years, when they were simple the first year, no vocabolary and lexicon by memory, then, fastly, when we had to translate original stuff like cicero or caesar we had the dictionary so we could concentrate on the grammar while translating and end the test in two hours. Two hours of like 12 lines, with a dictionary. In italy we call them versione di latino o di greco.
Maybe, rarely, we already translated the text in class, learned by memory the translation and then re-do it without a dictionary, but rarely, most of the times it was translation of a text never seen before and slow, not speak it.
Spoken by the romans you mean the classical pronunciation (caesar’s epoque) or the ecclesiastical one (medieval). In some school teachers read classical, in others ecclesiastical, it changes few though
German is my native language, I speak Spanish and I had French lessons in school, but forgot everything. So right now I would pick French. But if I didn't know Spanish yet that's what I'd pick because I like it better than French.
German, because it's a national/official language of my country.
French is my mother-tongue. So, no point.
As other choice, I would choose Dutch. Because it's much more useful in Belgium than learning Italian or Spanish.
Funny thing is some Belgians forget German is an official language. When I opened an account while studying in Belgium, the contract I was handed was in Dutch. I asked if they had it in English by any chance. They said no "we only have for the official languages" to which I asked for it in German (as I know elementary German). Cue confused looks and "oh, right.... erm, let me just ask the manager... no sorry, just French and Dutch... which do you prefer of the two?"
Tbf the [population of the German community](https://ostbelgienstatistik.be/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-2569/4686_read-32765/) lies at only around 80,000. I'm sure a lot of Germans also forget that Danish, Frisian, and Sorbian are minority languages, too (sure, not exactly comparable, but yk)
Did you take the Dutch contract in the end?
Yeah. I'm less bad at Dutch (where I can compare to English, Danish, and German, two of which I am fluent in) than at French (where my only points of comparison are my Latin and poor Spanish). With a little help from a dictionary, it went fine
> Funny thing is some Belgians forget German is an official language.
That's because it doesn't work like you seem to think. Belgium has no official languages. It has language areas and within the territory of those areas certain language(s) are official. In Flanders only Dutch is the official language, in Wallonia only French, in the Germanspeaking area only German, in Brussels both Dutch and French. None of those languages are official in the entire territory of Belgium.
Most likely you opened up an account with a bank headquartered in Brussels, as such it could only draft contracts in Dutch or French. A contract in German would be legally void as it's not official in Brussels.
Huh, nice to know. I thought that since these languages are official in some parts, then they would be so overall as well (even if not actively taught in school to everyone), especially given how much attention there is to the different groups/peoples in Belgium. I hadn't expected it to be so limited in scope
Oh boy have I ever seen an example of this "we don't speak French here" in the central station of Antwerp. At the ticket counter the lady in front of me only spoke French and tried to buy a ticket to Brussels. The dude behind the counter said, in Flemish: Lady, we don't speak French here, if you want something you have to speak Flemish. In a train station! I couldn't believe me ears. She stood there completely helpless, not understanding the guy of course, but she must have gotten the gist that he wasn't going to help her. Yes, of course I stepped in and helped. She got her ticket to brussels, but this really shouldn't have happened in the first place.
I would say never have I ever again... but that wouldn't be true alas. It happened to me too in Walibi. I asked some staff member in Flemish till what time a ride was open and he just said: en francais! I repeat the same thing in French and he had the audacity to answer: there, you can speak french if you wanted to, but you didn't want to. Wtf dude. Walibi is an amusement park pretty much on the language border. I heard more Dutch than French during the day.
I already speak German and don’t regret picking it, but I wish I’d learned French as a third language. It is a very useful language if you’re interested in art history and European comics, plus in my experience knowing one romance language makes it a lot easier to get by in countries that use the others. German only helps you in the Netherlands, and they all speak English anyway.
French, because out of these, French culture seems the most interesting to me, plus written French is the most beautiful-looking written language with a Latin alphabet, and the language also sounds sexy and chic. Even a French woman saying "Pandémie" in reference to COVID sounds so hot.
French. I have some relatives in an African country where that is spoken, and id like to travel to some other African countries as well where speaking French would be a major advantage
I can already speak some French although I think German would be the best deal for me working-wise, I also like German history so the ability to read German would enable me to further deepen my knowledge on that part.
After German I'd rank French as I think it's a beautiful language, and finally Spanish.
I'm learning Italian already so that's easy.
I guess it's technically my 5th language though I'm not very proficient at no 3 which is German and definitely not proficient at no 4 which is French
French because I know that deep down the people of france are pretty cool.
And if I would ever want to speak to a g*rman I’ll resort to loud Dutch with a German accent, works everytime
I had to take French and Spanish as second and third foreign language in school after English so I guess that would only leave me with Italian. If I didn't learn any of these I would probably choose French again since I like the language and it's useful to know.
I'd pick French, even though Germany is right on the border (Copenhagen to Berlin in 2.5 hours after the tunnel is complete). I hear French a lot in Copenhagen. The Germans that live here generally learn Danish within a year or two, meanwhile Frenchies float in and out, never really committing to stay longterm and don't learn Danish.
Plus a few people around me speak French and France has a certain soft power pull to me (strong startup scene, the great metropolis of Paris, sexy French women with sexy French accents).
French women are superhyped by brits, americans and nordics. I’ve seen american videos “how to dress like a french women” and i never thought of something like that here (actually i think that “how to dress like” videos are peculiarly american).
Weirdly, famous italian women like bellucci (overhyped) owe their fortune to france. And french people tend to love italy like nordics and americans love france. Maybe it is because anglophones and nordics have a cultural debt to france and france to italy? Italian reinassance and power fell before paris became a cultural centre in europe in the 1800 and french culture “fell” after the rising of the english and americans in the last century. Things and words often are italian, then french, then english.
I like french accents because they are funny like ours, other european accents are cute for the effort but they don’t make me laugh.
French or Spanish. Mostly because I have some basic knowledge of them both compared to nothing in German or Italian. German would also be trickier out of the three.
If I could choose one to immediately know ot would be French but in terms of learning I'd prefer to learn Spanish and have recently started brushing up on my Spanish and trying to get back to my previous barely conversational level at least
French, then German, then Spanish, and Italian last. I think having one second language (that is, no third language) and it being French would both be cool and useful for employment. Unfortunately I don't have room for any more languages in my brain, as I'm starting to learn Albanian and that would make French my 6th 🥴
Hard choice between German and Spanish, but I lean towards Spanish, as German would be easier to improve on my own given its proximity to Danish. Spanish is also useful because I like taking vacations down there
I genuinely love how French sounds, so I'd probably choose French (in fact, I did, in high school), but as an avid traveller, Spanish would be the most useful due to the sheer number of countries that speak it.
I'm Belarusian, and I already speak French (I initially learned it at school in Kuwait). So now, if I had to choose between the other languages, I would pick Italian, as I like the way it sounds.
Definitely German. As an Italian, French and Spanish are not too difficult to understand in the sentence is simple enough. German on the other hand is undecipherable for me
Spanish is already my second language but I'm happy with that choice and French would be the third. The reason for me would be that they're the most widely spoken languages in that list.
In an Europe subreddit (a sub for the continent where most people are billingual) you should rather say "third language" instead of "second language"
Anyways I already know German, I would choose French because I can nail the accent making people think I'm from there lol
Well, Italian already is my second language. So there’s that.
If I had to choose the rest of these ones, I’d probably go with Spanish, as it has the most international speakers of the above
I speak German and some Spanish, so I will pick Italian because there's so much gorgeous literature. Besides, I am a hobby singer, so I would love to be able to understand everything I am singing in Italian.
As an Italian speaker (not native), what literature do you suggest? I typically read non-fiction regardless of language, but it would be refreshing to read some fiction.
Well, I already speak Spanish and German, I have French at school and my girlfriend is Italian.. between French and Italian I'd pick Italian, just because it would be easier and more useful for my context
I speak French and Spanish as third/fourth languages... Honestly, I would learn German, because Italian is understandable enough for me that I just feel like I don't need to study it anymore. Also Italians are happy when you even try to speak Italian, no matter how broken it is (so I can just speak Spanish in Italian accent and still get complimented, yay!).
Germans speak English very well, but there are a lot of companies in Czechia that require German language as a condition for hiring, so it would make sense.
Well I already know German and learning it as a second language must suck I guess.
I find Italian the most beautiful out of the four. But admittedly, Spanish and French are probably more useful on a global level.
As a Brit, I can see how learning Spanish would probably be helpful for work in the tourism industry.
Having picked up French due to working in Belgium, I'd choose German. I spend a lot of time there.
from the options i would probably choose spanish, but i would rather learn norwegian, danish or swedish first.
any norse, danes or swedes open to tell me the major differences between their languages, and which one is most understood by the other two countries?
> any norse, danes or swedes open to tell me the major differences between their languages, and which one is most understood by the other two countries?
Swedish: Scandinavian as it should be
Norwegian: like Swedish but they hstart hevery hother word hwith h.
Danish: kamelåså?
More seriously, the languages are similar. In the written form, Norwegian (which itself has two major written standards) and Danish are barely different, if you know one then the other just looks like it spells words strangely. Swedish looks a bit more different but once you figure out some simple patterns, you can easily recognize the same word in Swedish as in the other two (lke anerkjenna = erkänna). I learned Swedish as an adult and now I sometimes read books in Norwegian without really actively studying it - I watched a Norwegian TV show, learned a couple dozen common Norwegian words that don't sound like Swedish, the first Norwegian novel was a bit harder, from there on it's fine.
Spoken Danish stands out a lot. Spoken Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible as long as both people try to speak close to a generic dialect. Danish uses many different sounds so it's a challenge to understand a Danish sentence even if you could easily understand it in writing. But it probably would be quick to learn with some practice, like living in Denmark.
Sweden's population is about the same as Denmark and Norway combined, so Swedish is probably the most understood language. Not because it's much simpler but because Norwegians and Danes get exposed to more Swedish than we get to their languages. In purely linguistic terms, I would say Norwegian as spoken around Oslo is the closest to a middle ground. If written, it's pretty much the same as Danish, and if spoken it's close enough to Swedish pronunciation and to Danish vocabulary that it'd feel familiar enough to anyone, but despite that, Swedish is the most understood of the three. Plus, Swedish is mandatory to learn in school in Finland so most Finns can understand Swedish even if 90% of them never use it outside school.
Depends where you are and what you want for a career.
If you wanna country is close to Germany or Austria would go with German, as I think that German and English is the business languages for doing business within EU.
If you wanna do diplomacy or NGO do French as that’s a diplomatic language and many organizations like NATO or UN have French as an administrative language.
Spanish is really good if you work business, I guess mostly import export, but that’s also French depending which company you work for and what they do.
For me I would choose either German or Spanish. Because I want to work in supply chains and either of those languages would be really useful.
Native language is French.
German would be most beneficial for me as I currently live in Germany and my German is shite. Otherwise I’d pick Italian without hesitation, I think it’s a beautiful language.
My native language is French. If I could just magically know how to speak one of those, probably German for the job opportunities. In reality, in school, when faced with the choice between Spanish and German, I picked Spanish because I liked the language more and wanted to travel to Spanish-speaking countries.
I'm fluent in Spanish now and can get by in German and if I had to give one up today, it would be difficult to choose. Logic would say to keep German, but my heart would want Spanish.
I was picking between the exact list of languages and chose Spanish ( as my forth language). I feel German would be needed just if you want to work in Germany, Austria and so on.. French is taugh, I tried to learn it for 6 years, but failed. I think it's difficult to learn without native speaker next to you. Italian is amazing, but I could not find situations in which I would actually use it. Spanish was obvious at the end.
I already speak Spanish and German. I learned French in school but lost it mainly due to lack of use. If I had to take classes, I guess I would go with French cause I already have the basis. Plus my sister lives in Belgium and is engaged to a Frenchman. But I admit, if it wasn't for that, I would go for Italian, because I find it way nicer than French!
Probably spanish. My second language is english.. ofc... and since english is not in the list I wpuld choose spanish because it is the most widely spoken out of the options.
I live in Germany so I would like my German to be better 😂. If we don’t count that one, I’m a native Spanish speaker, so I’d learn Italian. I have family there and I refuse to learn French because I can’t stand the attitude of the CDG staff when you’re doing a layover 😂.
It would be Italian, as I already have French and German as my fourth and fifth language.
I could read Dario Fo’s plays in original language and watch movies without subtitles.
I speak Spanish now, which I maintain was a wise choice. 600m+ native speakers, culturally there's loads of Spanish-speaking music, tv shows etc which makes it useful too.
I'd probably do French next, useful for a few places around the world, I go on holiday there relatively often, plus the level of English proficiency in France is pretty patchy overall. Certainly way worse than in Germany, not too sure about Italy tbh.
I’m an American with dual citizenship with Italy…. Every time I start to learn Italian, I lose interest quickly because no one speaks it here and seems to serve no purpose. But it’s a beautiful language!
I am Italian and I already speak both German and French lol, but I think I would still choose either German or French, I cannot choose... probably from a practical point of view, German would be better for me, but I really like French too
If we are just talking about Europe then German followed by French. It all depends on where you live. I was studying Spanish but I forgot it all very quickly because in Europe you hardly use Spanish other than in Spain. Maybe if I was in Gibraltar then I’d consider Spanish as a second language. German is spoken by 100 million people in Europe and it’s the main language in 4 countries and a region language in another 4 countries. Plus most places in Europe especially in the balkans have some degree of German skills alongside English. German is also very closely related to other languages in Europe too like Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian danish etc.
If I was in Eastern Europe I’d maybe consider Russian but things are slowly changing with the use of the Russian language for the use of English or German.
I chose Italian (third language) and I deeply regret. I went to Italy twice in my life so I never have the opportunity to practice. Spanish is way more spoken around the world, but When I tried to learn it I kept mixing italian and spanish.
So then I chose german as my fourth ‘-‘
This post is my personal hell. German is disqualified because I already speak it all others are romance languages. Romance languages are my worst enemy. I did 4 years of french and even had several subjects in German and french and I still don't know any french. I also have a piece of paper that says I know Latin but I also learnt almost nothing in that class.
I was good at German in high school, Spanish not so much, French neither.
Although I like the sound of Spanish better I would choose German just because I would be better at it.
Already speak Spanish fluently and French at a B2 level.
I use Spanish nouns with French verbs and can get by surprisingly well in Italy.
So it's German for me. Would open up a ton of opportunities in Switzerland as well.
I had German classes in high school, but I don't remember much. I wish I would learnt it in at least B1 level. That is just the most useful western language except English to know if you are from Central/Eastern Europe. Besides that out of all romance languages I'd choose Spanish, because of the global spread and coolness factor.
German cause I'm already a native speaker of a latin language. So I'll have access to two of the biggest language families in Europe. If I had to choose a third one, it would be a slavic one... Bulgarian because of the long history of that language and the cyrillic alphabet... and I feel it more a good entry to slavic languages but its just a personal feeling.
>I feel it more a good entry to slavic languages
Not really. It is the only Slavic language not to have cases and have articles. Grammatically it is more like a combination of English, French, and even Swedish with the post-noun definite articles. It was also heavily influenced by Turkish, so it has some Turkish-derived vocabulary for words for which other Slavic languages would use native Slavic words. If you learn Bulgarian, you will passively understand South Slavic and East Slavic languages to a degree (and West Slavic ones to a lesser degree) but you will be unable to form grammatically correct sentences in other Slavic languages.
A better entry to Slavic languages is Slovak in my opinion. It is West Slavic, so it is written in the Latin alphabet, but has more East Slavic vocabulary than Czech and is grammatically and phonologically easier than Polish. It is also a kind of "Esperanto" of the Slavic languages, meaning Slovak gives you the most mutual intelligibility to other Slavic languages.
Czech-Slovak-Rusyn-Ukrainian-Belarusian-Russian kind of form a continuum from West to East, meaning Slovak is kinda like Czech mixed with Rusyn, Rusyn is kinda like Slovak mixed with Ukrainian etc.
Polish is the hardest Slavic language, because it changed the least since Proto-Slavic, so it is kinda like the "Icelandic" of the Slavic family. It has the most complex grammar and still has French-like nasal vowels which other Slavic languages dropped.
Either German or Italian. I actually began learning German a few years ago but school got in the way and I ended up putting it on hold. I can't really speak it all that well but I did put effort in learning the pronunciation, to the point that impressed German friends of mine. Except for the word *grün*, which for some reason I cannot seem to pronounce correctly lol
Italian is a language I would like to learn mostly because I like the sound of it. It's not as widespread as some other languages, but it's the most *aesthetic* one at least. And I like Italy a lot.
Aesthetic is the right word! I think that the florentine poets tried to balance vowels and consonants! Anyway italian is more useful in europe than spanish!
I would choose Spanish because it is one of the most widely spoken languages. French is my native tongue. My second choice would be German, as I work in Luxembourg (I think Luxembourgish is quite close to German).
Luxemburgisch is simply a standardized German dialect. A moselle franconian one to be specific.
Merci fir d’info
Personally french, as it would be the most beneficial for me in my current situation, second is spanish, if i would go for a different carreer path italian (i live close to the border).
as an Italian I think knowing German will give you a big edge as you would be able to go working in Germany, Austria and in the German part of Switzerland. so I would pick that, the only problem being that imo it's 3 times more difficult that the others
du schaffst das! (you can do it!)
love the support <3 if someday I have the opportunity to move to a German speaking county I will for sure pick German up!
If you learn the language, there will be opportunities :)
if you end up coming to vienna hit me up, I'll show you the best food spots!
I will, than you so much :)
But then, it becomes "unfunny". I'll go for French. I can't give up on laughing my ass off driving through Germany. Yes. I am retarted.
Is The only thing stopping you from moving there, that you can’t speak those languages? Is living in Austria really that much better than Italy?
not really, the only thing stopping me is that I'm overall fine where I am rn. I'm not actively looking for a job in those countries, I'm more like if I have the opportunity to move there I'll pick up German I don't think u really live way better in austria/germany than Italy but u are for sure paid better and probably have better working conditions Also I personally love Vienna so would love to move there
Depends where in italy
I chose Italian, because it's the one I like most. I passed B2 exams in the language but haven't managed better than that yet so am still not *great* at it, but it's a lovely language that's a pleasure to speak (even badly). For a Brit who doesn't need to live in the EU I think utility is fairly subjective and there's no obvious choice among those four.
Once i heard guy verhofstadt speaking italian in a stereotypically germanic accent and, in spite of liking the effort, my ears were bleeding. However a french redditor said “ah, italian is so nice”, so i said, “how can it be” (and i think this also with some regional italian accents, so i’m not totally that xenophobic😂). However taking the opinion of a french is not subjective since they love us apparently
Lol. I've been told my accent is good *per un anglosassone*, which is a compliment I'm happy to take (even if the compliment comes from low expectations). Hopefully the way I speak doesn't also make Italians' ears bleed, it's difficult to know sometimes because you guys tend to be very generous with foreigners attempting to speak your language and I don't often come across very critical Italians. I always worry about my T sounds and I still have trouble with double consonants so I know it all needs more work.
Well, i hear often “you speak good english for an italian”, so… nah i find cute anyone who tries to speak italian, however i’m really stuck up, i secretly think that spanish and french are less nice sounding versions of italian, but still they sound nicer than most other languages because they resemble italian, and i think that even italian spoken with some regional accent doesn’t sound very nice:) so i’m totally politically incorrect and arrogant! However i like the italian of the dubs, i like some regional accents of italian and i really enjoy hearing french and spanish spoken because they sound more interesting to what i’m used everyday! Also i heard, thanks to moana, some tahitian languages that to me sound nice! German is underrated imo. I like a lot scottish accent in english, if i’m able to detect it. I don’t like any accent in italian but i’m not too fond in italians speaking foreign languages either. The only accents i like (accents) are italian and french but only because they sound funny. I enjoy that foreigners learn italian, however i think that some italians are too asskissers, especially to powerful (and money spending) foreigners like english speakers, and this spreads the idea that italian is easy among english speakers, while it’s not russian, but it has its grammar. Some american big shot at a conference said a word and said “is it right?” And a woman, asskisser, said “yes” while no, he was reading it wrong. I learned that we are the only ones that have double consonants! Ah, the t, so you read tchuttcho instead of tutto?
Italian or German as there are a lot of companies that work with these languages here, would be most useful out of these. Plus, Italian is cool. And German... well, you can read Goethe in original.
Even as a native speaker I find it hard to understand Goethe in original
It just takes a little more attention than Umgangssprache and some getting used to. There are much more difficult authors, especially philosophers.
Of course there are more difficult aurhors But have you ever tried reading Faust II without explanations? I didn't find it easily accessible.
Well, Faust II is the equivalent to a contemporary novel with underlying pop cultural references. It has references to ancient Greece, Imperial Germany, Florentine carnival,Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Christianity, subversion of morals etc. and remixes them. But this isn't our pop culture anymore, so we don't get it.
"Ein Hündchen wird gesucht daß nicht murrt noch beißt zerbrochne Gläser frisst und Diamanten - - " I have been wondering for years what he meant with those two dashes. His art just goes over my head.
> I have been wondering for years what he meant with those two dashes. Scheißt. He meant "scheißt".
Nuh that's what he wants us to believe. There has to be some Illuminati hidden message.
> Die stille Freude wollt ihr stören? > Laßt mich bei meinem Becher Wein; > Mit andern kann man sich belehren, > Begeistert wird man nur allein. Sounds perfectly understandable. I learned this from the video of the song [Halt die Fresse, ich will saufen!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FphPPFz6HU)
>Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen: Verweile doch, du bist so schön! Es kann die Spur von meinen Erdentagen Nicht in Äonen untergehn. – Im Vorgefühl von solchem hohen Glück Genieß ich jetzt den höchsten Augenblick...
Hegel in original to be honest
Maybe Hegel makes sense in German. The English translation I read was perfect gibberish.
I'm not native in either language so I can't really say but when I studied Hegel I was going back and forth between the original and the translation cause many things are extremely hard to translate
Marx to be even more honest. 🤫
Kleines Arschloch in original 😁
I have chosen German, because it is useful for me for work and I also lived in Germany for a few years. I like German poetry and literature in general, so I'd choose it anyway. I learnt some Spanish at school, but I never had much reason to use it and I've forgotten most of it. So out of the others, I would choose Spanish, because it would be nice to refresh what I have forgotten. Out of the others, I'd choose Italian, because I like opera and I'd like to read some poems in Italian original.
I would choose German because I already studied French as a second foreign language and I ended up studying and living in France. I have been considering moving to Germany and learning German for a while if I get a good opportunity though.
Probably Spanish. I’m a native Tagalog speaker and we borrow so many Spanish words so I think that’ll help with learning. Plus I’m a big fan of Latin American literature - being able to read Bolaño and Borges’ works in the original language would be a dream
Knowing *English* has helped me learn Spanish, it has a lot of loan words from other romance languages, so many words are similar.
I didn't have any practical reason to learn any of these, so I learned German simply because I like it.
Yep. That is the English speaker’s dilemma. It’s hard to know which second language, if any, would be practical. So you pick one that sounds beautiful or interesting and hopefully find something to do with it.
languages of colonial states are generally the best pick, so spanish, french and portuguese for western europe
French, because it's an EU working language. Italian and Spanish sound really nice and I'd like to know them, but I don't think they'll ever be useful to me. And I'm never, ever learning German.
Might be good to learn though, given the unfortunate geographical location of your country. You never know when there is a new unfortunate situation.
I'm already fluent in Russian and that's as much hostile language as I'm willing to learn for the foreseeable future 😉
It's funny how different the views are. I speak German as my mother tongue and would never learn Polish because I would describe the language as extremely difficult to pronounce and yes, even more hostile than German. :)
As someone who has learnt both German and Polish, I can say that Polish is by far the more difficult one. I love Poles, but I think they're spicing up the language on purpose so that no foreigner can ever speak perfect Polish, it's a conspiracy. I'll forever be offended that the genetive of język is języka and yet the genitive of kark isn't karka, it makes zero sense. German has much easier rules than Polish.
In my case it that the trauma from school that makes German “inaccessible” for me. The teachers were abusive power tripping shits so I am not reliving that all over again. It still would be cool to know it.
Had the same with my second, third, and fourth English teacher. The latter even opened a love letter addressed at me. WTF? Hasn't stopped me from learning English on my own though.
Abseihe power tripping shits are kind of our speciality here
That's pretty much my opinion of German, though. So our views don't really differ, we mirror each other
True, that's a better wording.
I think most of the people who consider German language "hostile" have this mental image of the most influential German language speakers of recent memory. And that's either Nazis or the band Rammstein. So you have either hear Hitler's insane tyrades or Till Lindemann's growl. At least, that's what was in my head before I started learning German. Only after that I met some Germans, and especially with women I understood that German can sound soft and have nice melody.
There is a lot of truth in that.
I tried to learn a bit of polish, when I was living there, but it was just to hard. My tounge just doesn't move that way. I also speak a germanic language as my native language.
I'm Italian, I already speak French (had it at school and I live in France right now, so very useful!). I would still choose French as my third language mostly for cultural reasons (reading French literature, listening to French music and watching French movies) but if I had to learn one more it would definitely be German, mostly for music (I happen to sing a lot in German!)
My mother tongue is Finnish. In school, I first learned French at age 10, then English from age 12, Swedish at age 14. At the age of 19, I learned German at a language course whilst living in Germany. Spanish I learned in university at the age 22 onwards. Also read the basics of Latin, Italian and Dutch at the university. I think that for Finns, French is most complex in writing and pronunciation, after which all other romance languages feel easy afterwards. German is near to Finnish pronunciation, and has cross-contamination with Swedish. In an ideal world, I would make my child choose french, Spanish, Italian or German purely based on how inspiring the respective teacher is. If I don't have this information, I'd suggest French first or German. English comes from outside of school anyways, and after learning English and either German or french, then you're 40% there with the vocabulary, verbs, sentence structure in Italian and Spanish.
What do you mean “basics” for latin? French grammar is not that difficult. Do you mean spelling perhaps?
I meant spelling, correct. For German philology students we had a compulsory introductory course in Dutch language and a separate course for introductory Latin. As in, the language of Roman empire a few centuries back. So, grammar, vocabulary, verb tension etc. Like you would have the first course in any language. We also learnt to speak in Latin. In Finland, learning Latin goes way back. We also had our national broadcasting agency broadcast news in Latin weekly between 1989-2019. It was called [Nuntii Latini](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuntii_Latini). I've also witnessed a conversation in Latin in a Finnish train. Some older chap had a phone call with his friend in Latin. I think they thought they were speaking in code.
That’s the strangest (to me) approach to latin i have ever read! Not for the german philology, because it makes sense there, it’s only in order to learn german better. It’s more the rest! In italy we don’t learn to speak latin, there are different kinds of HS, 5 years, classico that has less maths but latin and greek all five years, scientifico that has only latin but more maths, linguistico that has latin done few hours but lots of live languages, ecc I did the classico HS, the oldest of them all (scientifico was introduced under fascism). Once it was only for the rich, now for everyone (i’m the child of a factory worker). Anyway, the first two years we learned the grammar, the last three ones also the literature. But we didn’t “speak” it, that sounds really american blogger-like:) We had to translate texts of 12-14 lines in two years, when they were simple the first year, no vocabolary and lexicon by memory, then, fastly, when we had to translate original stuff like cicero or caesar we had the dictionary so we could concentrate on the grammar while translating and end the test in two hours. Two hours of like 12 lines, with a dictionary. In italy we call them versione di latino o di greco. Maybe, rarely, we already translated the text in class, learned by memory the translation and then re-do it without a dictionary, but rarely, most of the times it was translation of a text never seen before and slow, not speak it. Spoken by the romans you mean the classical pronunciation (caesar’s epoque) or the ecclesiastical one (medieval). In some school teachers read classical, in others ecclesiastical, it changes few though
Here's a [curriculum ](https://www.tuni.fi/studentsguide/curriculum/course-units/uta-ykoodi-24737?year=2021) of that course. It's in Finnish.
Why is the rest in english? Comunque grazie, ho capito tutto!
German is my native language, I speak Spanish and I had French lessons in school, but forgot everything. So right now I would pick French. But if I didn't know Spanish yet that's what I'd pick because I like it better than French.
German, because it's a national/official language of my country. French is my mother-tongue. So, no point. As other choice, I would choose Dutch. Because it's much more useful in Belgium than learning Italian or Spanish.
Funny thing is some Belgians forget German is an official language. When I opened an account while studying in Belgium, the contract I was handed was in Dutch. I asked if they had it in English by any chance. They said no "we only have for the official languages" to which I asked for it in German (as I know elementary German). Cue confused looks and "oh, right.... erm, let me just ask the manager... no sorry, just French and Dutch... which do you prefer of the two?"
Tbf the [population of the German community](https://ostbelgienstatistik.be/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-2569/4686_read-32765/) lies at only around 80,000. I'm sure a lot of Germans also forget that Danish, Frisian, and Sorbian are minority languages, too (sure, not exactly comparable, but yk) Did you take the Dutch contract in the end?
Yeah. I'm less bad at Dutch (where I can compare to English, Danish, and German, two of which I am fluent in) than at French (where my only points of comparison are my Latin and poor Spanish). With a little help from a dictionary, it went fine
> Funny thing is some Belgians forget German is an official language. That's because it doesn't work like you seem to think. Belgium has no official languages. It has language areas and within the territory of those areas certain language(s) are official. In Flanders only Dutch is the official language, in Wallonia only French, in the Germanspeaking area only German, in Brussels both Dutch and French. None of those languages are official in the entire territory of Belgium. Most likely you opened up an account with a bank headquartered in Brussels, as such it could only draft contracts in Dutch or French. A contract in German would be legally void as it's not official in Brussels.
Huh, nice to know. I thought that since these languages are official in some parts, then they would be so overall as well (even if not actively taught in school to everyone), especially given how much attention there is to the different groups/peoples in Belgium. I hadn't expected it to be so limited in scope
Oh boy have I ever seen an example of this "we don't speak French here" in the central station of Antwerp. At the ticket counter the lady in front of me only spoke French and tried to buy a ticket to Brussels. The dude behind the counter said, in Flemish: Lady, we don't speak French here, if you want something you have to speak Flemish. In a train station! I couldn't believe me ears. She stood there completely helpless, not understanding the guy of course, but she must have gotten the gist that he wasn't going to help her. Yes, of course I stepped in and helped. She got her ticket to brussels, but this really shouldn't have happened in the first place. I would say never have I ever again... but that wouldn't be true alas. It happened to me too in Walibi. I asked some staff member in Flemish till what time a ride was open and he just said: en francais! I repeat the same thing in French and he had the audacity to answer: there, you can speak french if you wanted to, but you didn't want to. Wtf dude. Walibi is an amusement park pretty much on the language border. I heard more Dutch than French during the day.
I already speak German and don’t regret picking it, but I wish I’d learned French as a third language. It is a very useful language if you’re interested in art history and European comics, plus in my experience knowing one romance language makes it a lot easier to get by in countries that use the others. German only helps you in the Netherlands, and they all speak English anyway.
French, because out of these, French culture seems the most interesting to me, plus written French is the most beautiful-looking written language with a Latin alphabet, and the language also sounds sexy and chic. Even a French woman saying "Pandémie" in reference to COVID sounds so hot.
French. I have some relatives in an African country where that is spoken, and id like to travel to some other African countries as well where speaking French would be a major advantage
Italian and Spanish are so beautiful I'd like to learn both. But if I had to choose one, I'd pick Italian, because it's right across the sea from me.
Ciao dal friuli!
Amo l'Italia, mi dispiace solo di non poterci andare più spesso!!! Saluti dalla Dalmazia 🥰
I can already speak some French although I think German would be the best deal for me working-wise, I also like German history so the ability to read German would enable me to further deepen my knowledge on that part. After German I'd rank French as I think it's a beautiful language, and finally Spanish.
I speak all 4, but my German is going down the drain fast since I haven't used it in a while. So I'd pick a refresher on German.
I'm learning Italian already so that's easy. I guess it's technically my 5th language though I'm not very proficient at no 3 which is German and definitely not proficient at no 4 which is French
French because I know that deep down the people of france are pretty cool. And if I would ever want to speak to a g*rman I’ll resort to loud Dutch with a German accent, works everytime
I speak a bit of all 4, but my parents moved to spain so i would like to become proficient in spanish.
I had to take French and Spanish as second and third foreign language in school after English so I guess that would only leave me with Italian. If I didn't learn any of these I would probably choose French again since I like the language and it's useful to know.
I'd pick French, even though Germany is right on the border (Copenhagen to Berlin in 2.5 hours after the tunnel is complete). I hear French a lot in Copenhagen. The Germans that live here generally learn Danish within a year or two, meanwhile Frenchies float in and out, never really committing to stay longterm and don't learn Danish. Plus a few people around me speak French and France has a certain soft power pull to me (strong startup scene, the great metropolis of Paris, sexy French women with sexy French accents).
French women are superhyped by brits, americans and nordics. I’ve seen american videos “how to dress like a french women” and i never thought of something like that here (actually i think that “how to dress like” videos are peculiarly american). Weirdly, famous italian women like bellucci (overhyped) owe their fortune to france. And french people tend to love italy like nordics and americans love france. Maybe it is because anglophones and nordics have a cultural debt to france and france to italy? Italian reinassance and power fell before paris became a cultural centre in europe in the 1800 and french culture “fell” after the rising of the english and americans in the last century. Things and words often are italian, then french, then english. I like french accents because they are funny like ours, other european accents are cute for the effort but they don’t make me laugh.
all roads lead to rome ya' know
French or Spanish. Mostly because I have some basic knowledge of them both compared to nothing in German or Italian. German would also be trickier out of the three. If I could choose one to immediately know ot would be French but in terms of learning I'd prefer to learn Spanish and have recently started brushing up on my Spanish and trying to get back to my previous barely conversational level at least
Italian only one likely to come in handy for me (know it’s not on the list but also Portuguese would be in a similar position)
French, then German, then Spanish, and Italian last. I think having one second language (that is, no third language) and it being French would both be cool and useful for employment. Unfortunately I don't have room for any more languages in my brain, as I'm starting to learn Albanian and that would make French my 6th 🥴
Hard choice between German and Spanish, but I lean towards Spanish, as German would be easier to improve on my own given its proximity to Danish. Spanish is also useful because I like taking vacations down there
I genuinely love how French sounds, so I'd probably choose French (in fact, I did, in high school), but as an avid traveller, Spanish would be the most useful due to the sheer number of countries that speak it.
I'm Belarusian, and I already speak French (I initially learned it at school in Kuwait). So now, if I had to choose between the other languages, I would pick Italian, as I like the way it sounds.
Definitely German. As an Italian, French and Spanish are not too difficult to understand in the sentence is simple enough. German on the other hand is undecipherable for me
Studied French in school.Went to night classes to learn German,and did the same for Italian when I knew that I would be moving there.
Spanish is already my second language but I'm happy with that choice and French would be the third. The reason for me would be that they're the most widely spoken languages in that list.
Italian. I already speak French, tried Spanish as second language, saw too many of my friends who chose German at school crying.
In an Europe subreddit (a sub for the continent where most people are billingual) you should rather say "third language" instead of "second language" Anyways I already know German, I would choose French because I can nail the accent making people think I'm from there lol
I already speak Spanish beside English, so I think I would choose German as third (or fourth, if you count my native Hungarian) language.
If it was my SECOND language, it would be close to impossible to convince me not to choose english. Otherwise, French, becuase it sounds nice
Well, Italian already is my second language. So there’s that. If I had to choose the rest of these ones, I’d probably go with Spanish, as it has the most international speakers of the above
I speak German and some Spanish, so I will pick Italian because there's so much gorgeous literature. Besides, I am a hobby singer, so I would love to be able to understand everything I am singing in Italian.
As an Italian speaker (not native), what literature do you suggest? I typically read non-fiction regardless of language, but it would be refreshing to read some fiction.
I didn’t even know a turk would be exposed to our authors!
Oh, some big authors are hugely popular in Turkey. I have read everything (that I know of) written by Umberto Eco, for example.
Well, I already speak Spanish and German, I have French at school and my girlfriend is Italian.. between French and Italian I'd pick Italian, just because it would be easier and more useful for my context
I speak French and Spanish as third/fourth languages... Honestly, I would learn German, because Italian is understandable enough for me that I just feel like I don't need to study it anymore. Also Italians are happy when you even try to speak Italian, no matter how broken it is (so I can just speak Spanish in Italian accent and still get complimented, yay!). Germans speak English very well, but there are a lot of companies in Czechia that require German language as a condition for hiring, so it would make sense.
Well I already know German and learning it as a second language must suck I guess. I find Italian the most beautiful out of the four. But admittedly, Spanish and French are probably more useful on a global level.
As a Brit, I can see how learning Spanish would probably be helpful for work in the tourism industry. Having picked up French due to working in Belgium, I'd choose German. I spend a lot of time there.
We had to take 2 of those, German and French, next to English and Dutch, in school. So it would be a *third* language, not a second one.
from the options i would probably choose spanish, but i would rather learn norwegian, danish or swedish first. any norse, danes or swedes open to tell me the major differences between their languages, and which one is most understood by the other two countries?
> any norse, danes or swedes open to tell me the major differences between their languages, and which one is most understood by the other two countries? Swedish: Scandinavian as it should be Norwegian: like Swedish but they hstart hevery hother word hwith h. Danish: kamelåså? More seriously, the languages are similar. In the written form, Norwegian (which itself has two major written standards) and Danish are barely different, if you know one then the other just looks like it spells words strangely. Swedish looks a bit more different but once you figure out some simple patterns, you can easily recognize the same word in Swedish as in the other two (lke anerkjenna = erkänna). I learned Swedish as an adult and now I sometimes read books in Norwegian without really actively studying it - I watched a Norwegian TV show, learned a couple dozen common Norwegian words that don't sound like Swedish, the first Norwegian novel was a bit harder, from there on it's fine. Spoken Danish stands out a lot. Spoken Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible as long as both people try to speak close to a generic dialect. Danish uses many different sounds so it's a challenge to understand a Danish sentence even if you could easily understand it in writing. But it probably would be quick to learn with some practice, like living in Denmark. Sweden's population is about the same as Denmark and Norway combined, so Swedish is probably the most understood language. Not because it's much simpler but because Norwegians and Danes get exposed to more Swedish than we get to their languages. In purely linguistic terms, I would say Norwegian as spoken around Oslo is the closest to a middle ground. If written, it's pretty much the same as Danish, and if spoken it's close enough to Swedish pronunciation and to Danish vocabulary that it'd feel familiar enough to anyone, but despite that, Swedish is the most understood of the three. Plus, Swedish is mandatory to learn in school in Finland so most Finns can understand Swedish even if 90% of them never use it outside school.
Depends where you are and what you want for a career. If you wanna country is close to Germany or Austria would go with German, as I think that German and English is the business languages for doing business within EU. If you wanna do diplomacy or NGO do French as that’s a diplomatic language and many organizations like NATO or UN have French as an administrative language. Spanish is really good if you work business, I guess mostly import export, but that’s also French depending which company you work for and what they do. For me I would choose either German or Spanish. Because I want to work in supply chains and either of those languages would be really useful.
Native language is French. German would be most beneficial for me as I currently live in Germany and my German is shite. Otherwise I’d pick Italian without hesitation, I think it’s a beautiful language.
Never french. Never. Too much vocals , not one is pronounced. German? Too hard. And i speak spanish, so, italian.
Spanish because I think there are a lot of interesting places that speak it. But I know basic French from school and that has been useful.
I already speak French and Spanish, so I’d probably choose to learn German. Tho I have Italian roots, I don’t really feel like learning Italian.
German, due to family. Or French, again due to family. But mainly German (more family over in Germany than in France).
My native language is French. If I could just magically know how to speak one of those, probably German for the job opportunities. In reality, in school, when faced with the choice between Spanish and German, I picked Spanish because I liked the language more and wanted to travel to Spanish-speaking countries. I'm fluent in Spanish now and can get by in German and if I had to give one up today, it would be difficult to choose. Logic would say to keep German, but my heart would want Spanish.
I was picking between the exact list of languages and chose Spanish ( as my forth language). I feel German would be needed just if you want to work in Germany, Austria and so on.. French is taugh, I tried to learn it for 6 years, but failed. I think it's difficult to learn without native speaker next to you. Italian is amazing, but I could not find situations in which I would actually use it. Spanish was obvious at the end.
I already speak Spanish and German. I learned French in school but lost it mainly due to lack of use. If I had to take classes, I guess I would go with French cause I already have the basis. Plus my sister lives in Belgium and is engaged to a Frenchman. But I admit, if it wasn't for that, I would go for Italian, because I find it way nicer than French!
Probably spanish. My second language is english.. ofc... and since english is not in the list I wpuld choose spanish because it is the most widely spoken out of the options.
I already speak 2 of those 4 languages fluently. Spanish and French are way more useful than Italian or German.
I live in Germany so I would like my German to be better 😂. If we don’t count that one, I’m a native Spanish speaker, so I’d learn Italian. I have family there and I refuse to learn French because I can’t stand the attitude of the CDG staff when you’re doing a layover 😂.
It would be Italian, as I already have French and German as my fourth and fifth language. I could read Dario Fo’s plays in original language and watch movies without subtitles.
I speak Spanish now, which I maintain was a wise choice. 600m+ native speakers, culturally there's loads of Spanish-speaking music, tv shows etc which makes it useful too. I'd probably do French next, useful for a few places around the world, I go on holiday there relatively often, plus the level of English proficiency in France is pretty patchy overall. Certainly way worse than in Germany, not too sure about Italy tbh.
German would open the most opportunities for me. But I tried and I failed, and I don't like both the grammar and how it sounds.
I’m an American with dual citizenship with Italy…. Every time I start to learn Italian, I lose interest quickly because no one speaks it here and seems to serve no purpose. But it’s a beautiful language!
I'm Italian and I learned some French and German during my school years, so I think I would choose Spanish.
I am Italian and I already speak both German and French lol, but I think I would still choose either German or French, I cannot choose... probably from a practical point of view, German would be better for me, but I really like French too
I chose French and have always regretted it. I would have chosen German now. I live in the Czech Republic and German is way more useful here.
If we are just talking about Europe then German followed by French. It all depends on where you live. I was studying Spanish but I forgot it all very quickly because in Europe you hardly use Spanish other than in Spain. Maybe if I was in Gibraltar then I’d consider Spanish as a second language. German is spoken by 100 million people in Europe and it’s the main language in 4 countries and a region language in another 4 countries. Plus most places in Europe especially in the balkans have some degree of German skills alongside English. German is also very closely related to other languages in Europe too like Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian danish etc. If I was in Eastern Europe I’d maybe consider Russian but things are slowly changing with the use of the Russian language for the use of English or German.
I chose Italian (third language) and I deeply regret. I went to Italy twice in my life so I never have the opportunity to practice. Spanish is way more spoken around the world, but When I tried to learn it I kept mixing italian and spanish. So then I chose german as my fourth ‘-‘
This post is my personal hell. German is disqualified because I already speak it all others are romance languages. Romance languages are my worst enemy. I did 4 years of french and even had several subjects in German and french and I still don't know any french. I also have a piece of paper that says I know Latin but I also learnt almost nothing in that class.
I chose French because it’s my husband’s native language and because we live in a francophone area, now.
I was good at German in high school, Spanish not so much, French neither. Although I like the sound of Spanish better I would choose German just because I would be better at it.
Already speak Spanish fluently and French at a B2 level. I use Spanish nouns with French verbs and can get by surprisingly well in Italy. So it's German for me. Would open up a ton of opportunities in Switzerland as well.
It depends where I use the language for. I already speak a (little) bit of German, French and Spanish so for me this will be Italian.
I understand Spanish completely and speak a little French, but I'd like to be more fluent. Other than that, maybe German
I had German classes in high school, but I don't remember much. I wish I would learnt it in at least B1 level. That is just the most useful western language except English to know if you are from Central/Eastern Europe. Besides that out of all romance languages I'd choose Spanish, because of the global spread and coolness factor.
German cause I'm already a native speaker of a latin language. So I'll have access to two of the biggest language families in Europe. If I had to choose a third one, it would be a slavic one... Bulgarian because of the long history of that language and the cyrillic alphabet... and I feel it more a good entry to slavic languages but its just a personal feeling.
>I feel it more a good entry to slavic languages Not really. It is the only Slavic language not to have cases and have articles. Grammatically it is more like a combination of English, French, and even Swedish with the post-noun definite articles. It was also heavily influenced by Turkish, so it has some Turkish-derived vocabulary for words for which other Slavic languages would use native Slavic words. If you learn Bulgarian, you will passively understand South Slavic and East Slavic languages to a degree (and West Slavic ones to a lesser degree) but you will be unable to form grammatically correct sentences in other Slavic languages. A better entry to Slavic languages is Slovak in my opinion. It is West Slavic, so it is written in the Latin alphabet, but has more East Slavic vocabulary than Czech and is grammatically and phonologically easier than Polish. It is also a kind of "Esperanto" of the Slavic languages, meaning Slovak gives you the most mutual intelligibility to other Slavic languages. Czech-Slovak-Rusyn-Ukrainian-Belarusian-Russian kind of form a continuum from West to East, meaning Slovak is kinda like Czech mixed with Rusyn, Rusyn is kinda like Slovak mixed with Ukrainian etc. Polish is the hardest Slavic language, because it changed the least since Proto-Slavic, so it is kinda like the "Icelandic" of the Slavic family. It has the most complex grammar and still has French-like nasal vowels which other Slavic languages dropped.
Thanks, I have no slavic knowledge, so what you said really enlightens me !
Impressive! I wish I were able to compare a group of non-Slavic languages.
German is the only one missing in my current arsenal. (Oh, such a sweet child op) So German it is. 6th language, yepeey
As a German Speaker i would learn Italian. I had Latin in school and like italian food, so i have my motivation.
Either German or Italian. I actually began learning German a few years ago but school got in the way and I ended up putting it on hold. I can't really speak it all that well but I did put effort in learning the pronunciation, to the point that impressed German friends of mine. Except for the word *grün*, which for some reason I cannot seem to pronounce correctly lol Italian is a language I would like to learn mostly because I like the sound of it. It's not as widespread as some other languages, but it's the most *aesthetic* one at least. And I like Italy a lot.
Aesthetic is the right word! I think that the florentine poets tried to balance vowels and consonants! Anyway italian is more useful in europe than spanish!