Hellooooo guysss! I just wanna know which languages you guys would suggest for someone interested in business.

Which countries have many networking/connection opportunities?

I want to connect with people who understand the language of business, and I’d also like to learn their language.

I’m currently learning Chinese, but it’s challenging because my family speaks Japanese, Tagalog, and other languages.

And i’m not planning to learn Japanese, as I don’t think I can find many business connections there; I guess it’s fine for making friends, but I’m more interested in talking to business minded people. :)

Used to have lots of German friends, and I learned the language, but as I grew up, I moved away from it since I don’t think it would be useful for business.

I'm in accounting field and already created lot of small businesses but it's just good to find friends who likes what u do and maybe go to places where i can find connections like suppliers/business partner etch.

So do you guys have any suggestion?

Well, I live in the Iberian Peninsula, so I don't have any obligation to learn a Slavic language, but they attract my attention (especially because of their geographical extension)

I'm between Polish, Czech, Croatian, and Russian

🇷🇺🇵🇱🇨🇿🇭🇷

Which one would you recommend choosing?

With "exotic" I mean not so popular languages, such as Danish 🇩🇰, Finnish 🇫🇮, Hungarian 🇭🇺, Czech 🇨🇿, Dutch 🇳🇱, Estonian 🇪🇪, Swedish 🇸🇪, Norwegian 🇳🇴, Polish 🇵🇱, so on...

?which (reading) language should I learn?

I want to learn a third language to (read books) in it, so which language should I learn? I am already reading in Arabic and English

hi! i’m a native english speaker from australia 🇦🇺 and i’m around an a2 level (ish) in french (from high school). i want to learn another language but i’m not sure which!

my main options are russian (i love russian literature, and i’d love to be able to read it in the original language, but i’m a little unsure about the different alphabet and it’s not spoken much here)

continue with french (i have some knowledge already, and it’s fairly easy to learn and widely spoken)

mandarin (i think it’s really cool & my boyfriend speaks it, but obviously super difficult)

or norwegian (super interesting & i love black metal & norse mythology, but seems difficult. makes it easier to understand swedish and danish though.)

perhaps spanish? (literally one of the most widely spoken languages in the world and super common in online spaces)

help!!! i’m too indecisive

So, my mother tongue is Spanish, I have a good level of English, and I'm currently studying German

But after that, I don't know which Nordic language choose (Norwegian🇳🇴, Swedish🇸🇪, Finnish🇫🇮, Danish🇩🇰). They all attract my attention because they are rich countries, and I also like black metal, tanzelcore, fantasy stories about trolls, elves, witches...

I’m torn between languages. I'm from Europe and speak English and Norwegian. I’ve tried learning Spanish many times but never stuck with it—I know about 100-200 words. I’ve traveled to Spain multiple times, so it’s practical, but I’m not really interested in the culture. I’d like to learn Korean because I watch a lot of Korean TV shows, movies, listen to K-pop, and read manwhas. I tried learning it before but only got as far as the alphabet; the formal/informal language distinctions felt overwhelming, making it seem like Korean would take three times longer to learn than Spanish.

I keep switching between the two languages, i need to commit to one, should i go with what is more useful or what im interested in?

what russian learning app would you recommend? not duolingo and I am not looking for a primary resource of learning

I know this has been probably asked before but I wanted to share my specific case and see if you guys can help me decide!

I'm Spanish, so that would be my mother tongue, and I can also speak Catalan, English and a bit of French. I'm struggling to decide whether I should go for Japanese or Korean. Some arguments I have for / against each of them would be::

Korean:

For:

• I'm more familiar with the language and the culture, since I used to be a hardcore BTS fan.
• I've heard it's easier than Japanese and I feel like I could quickly learn how to read.
• Since I've been more connected to this one in the past, I would know how to start finding new content like books, dramas etc that I might enjoy.

Against:

• I don't have a lot of money, so for me going to one of these countries is like a once in a lifetime experience, and if I had to choose which one I'd prefer to visit, that would be Japan, despite my previous connection to Kpop. If I could, I would even visit it more than once.
• I've heard that while the start of Korean  seems easier, it gets really hard afterwards and I'm a bit scared of the grammar and honorifics.
• There aren't many Koreans I could practice with where I live (Valencia, Spain).

Japanese:

For:

• Hiragana and katakana look pretty to me. Also the sound of the language sounds beautiful and I've heard the pronounciation might be easier as we have very similar sounding vowels in Spanish.
• I don't know this country as much as I know Korea, which could become a difficulty at some point but I like learning new things so I feel like I would be increasing my general knowledge more.
• I've heard I might find more resources for learning and might be more able to get to know native speakers.

Against:

• I'm TERRIBLY scared of the alphabets, especially kanjis. This is super new to me.
• I wouldn't know where to start when it comes to getting to know the culture more. I know nothing about music or books or cinema and I've liked some animes in the past like Shingeki but I'm not super passionate about anime (even tho I think I could learn to love it eventually).
• I've read that people find it extremely difficult to actually become fluent in this language. Like even if you study hard you could travel to Japan and still not be able to communicate decently. Some foreginers said that even having lived there for +3 years they still didn't get to master the language completely.

And this is it basically.... some more facts about me..

• I will really commit to the language I choose in the end but I have limited time as I have a full time job.
• I also want to choose the language that career-wise could also be helpful. However this is not my main objective as I feel like none of the languages could actually be useful for me living in Spain..
• Is Chinese an option for me???.. probably not..

So yeah!! Now that's it!!!!! Please tell me what you think and if you know any media I could enjoy in Japanese could you recommend it??? Just to see how much I like it :)) Kinda like the main dramas o movies.

Thank you!

Recently I developed an interest in French and while reading some texts it seems "easy" enough for me to get a grasp quickly. For context, I already speak Portuguese, English and some competent Spanish. Although, I've always been interested in Korean (soft power, sigh) and other asian languages, as I already learned hangul, katakana and hiragana. It's been sometime that I learned hangul so I feel like I'm finally getting used to reading and starting to "decode" and make the connections between words and sounds etc. So I'm like, a toddler ready to learn vocabulary lol On top of that, recently someone said something about learning an easy and a difficult language at the same time and I think I'll give it a try, I would just like tips and recommendations of media that I can consume, specially music (k-pop and Edith Piaf rule) and books/textbooks

This is a new twist I'm putting on my learning to make it fresh: learning monologues from drama.

So, I've just learned a monologue in Ukrainian, and I think I'm pretty good at it.

I was planning to switch, and I have a bucket list, but now I'm hesitating.

- Welsh: I studied it quite intensively for a few years, but have fallen off the wagon, and my oral and auditory skills are pretty weak. I've just come across a giant depository of Welsh drama though, so I'm itching to get into it.

- Latin: I'm significantly weaker and rustier at it, but I did complete Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata I (+ supplements) a couple years back, and I've been planning to come back. Plus I worked quite obsessively on my pronunciation, in contrast to Welsh.

- Ancient Greek: Even weaker (I've read a couple books from the Bible, which is a different dialect than the classical dramas), and while I researched the pronunciation, I still don't have the pitch accent down.

- Quechua: So, I studied just a little of this one, but by far the best known piece of literature in it is a drama called "Ollantay". Otherwise I didn't have a lot of luck with resources, but I really want to keep learning this language.

- Honorable mention: Spanish. I've studied it the longest by far, and I've bookmarked a couple classical dramatists, but for some reason I just can't muster the same level of enthusiasm. I've just never managed to get into Spanish culture. My current active relationship with it is completely dependent on my attempt at learning Quechua.

My issue with all of the primary candidates is my lack of skill. With Ukrainian I only had a few pronunciation kinks to iron out, which is no wonder since my native language is Russian.

The rest, I'm afraid, are going to be tongue-twisters or even just arduous to read through.

But it's my thing now, so I'm either eventually going to go through it, or just not study these languages.

In fact, I think it might be best if I pick a harder one now, so I have Ukrainian to go back to as a relief valve.

The reason why I wanted to learn chinese: I have Chinese descendant. My parents can speak chinese fluently. I find it embarassing as someone who doesn't speak chinese well, and that's the main reason why i wanted to learn chinese.

Reason why i wanted to learn japanese: I've revolved around Japanese media since childhood, and i liked japanese content more than chinese. I think learning japanese has more "benefits" on me because of this

My job is creative-related so both of them are beneficial to me. I've tried to learn chinese and japanese in the past- when I was a kid to be precise, but due to some reason, I didn't managed to succeed, though both of them are already on basic-elementary level.

Now i wanted to take both of them seriously, though I wanted to learn one of them first until intermediate level or at least, able to hear some daily sentences. Which one should be?

Between Finnish, Basque, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Czech, Hungarian and Polish?

hi all! I’ve been at a conversational/following native speaker level in Spanish for almost a year and as my learning is now mostly practice/immersion and less study time, I’d love to pick up a third language. This would mostly be for fun/brain exercise/enjoyment of media- for context, I’m in the Southern US and spanish and english are really the only languages I encounter with an frequency in the real world.

I’ve looked into each of these languages a little bit, but I was wondering if someone has studied them and can help me decide which would be the most fun/enjoyable to learn, based on the things I liked about learning Spanish.

Some of the main things I liked about learning Spanish: -tons of media, tons of learning materials where I could find what suited me best, fantastic and diverse cultures, amazing experiences with friendly and helpful native speakers, learned a LOT of food -alphabet and pronunciation, sounds pretty, got a decent accent down after a time, but I was understandable from the beginning. huge emphasis on understandable from the beginning- it made practicing a lot less stressful and motivated me to improve a lot faster. -picking up on so many patterns, being able to understand new words really quickly- listening took more time because it’s fast, but especially written

didn’t particularly mind learning the verb conjugations. learning new sounds to understand and speak better was a bit of a learning curve for me but i feel more confident with that skill now- just not the most enjoyable.

arabic is gorgeous, useful, huge amounts of media, heard some overlap with spanish. worried about the script and cases. I don’t 100% understand what cases are yet but that’s a concern for all of these 😅 also concerned about the transfer between dialects. there’s a lot of speakers but if i have to learn 5 different dialects to have a chance of a real conversation it would be hugely discouraging. I’ve learned so much regional dialect/wording in spanish, the idea of learning 5 words for one thing is less fun to me.

hindi is gorgeous, huge amounts of media, less useful but I’m very close with my boss who speaks it and would love to practice with me.

swahili would likely be the least useful to me, but it seems like from what i’ve read about the structure of the language, it would be fun to learn and not tooooo hard. there’s plenty of learning materials it seems, not too sure about media I would enjoy.

german would be the most useful and I wouldn’t have to learn a new script; considered this as a buffer before any more romance languages.

I’d love most a language I could learn conversationally with moderate studying in about 5 years; my partner is a native spanish speaker and I’d love to raise my children trilingual. I understand if that takes arabic off the table. it took me about a year to be conversationally comfortable in spanish for context.

anyyyyyy opinions about these languages would be so appreciated!! thank you all 🫶

I have decided to learn multiple languages at once as I currently know 3 and I want to speed up the learning process by taking on multiple at a time. I’ve decided to pair easy with hard (in my eyes) and so my question is which should be the easy and which should be the hard language.

The options for easy languages are either Italian or German. I don’t know which one to learn first: for context, i already speak Spanish, Portuguese and i am learning French currently so I guess you could say that Italian is the easiest of the easy options. However, I’ve recently added German to my list of languages that I want to learn (after I said I’d never learn it 😂) and now, I don’t know why but, I have this eagerness to learn it and I feel that Italian could wait since I already know a good portion of Romance languages. By the way, I feel like I would stick to German once I start learning it because I’ve never quit a language once I’ve began learning it and I also said I would never learn French and here I am at a B1 level in under a year.

Next up are the harder languages. My options are Russian or Japanese. On one hand, I had looked into Russian a few months back and I loved it and really wanna learn it cause it seems so cool to me. However, recently, I’ve been heard about how it’s quite difficult due to all the different cases (I have absolutely no idea what a case it) and that the sentence structure is super weird and confusing. Listen, I don’t wanna walk into something and be bamboozled from the jump. My passion for Russian is ok but it’s not that strong. Japanese on the other hand, like German, came onto my radar quite recently and I’ve been dying to learn it cause it seems like such an intriguing and rich language. Not to mention, I love Japanese culture and I would love to visit Japan someday. Japanese would also be a gateway to Mandarin (and maybe Korean - I’m not too sure) which are two other languages I really want to learn in future. I also want to wider my horizons and learn an Asian language since all the ones I know currently are European so I feel as though Russian could wait but not sure as of yet.

Please help me!! I want to know genuine options on what would be best and most suitable (maybe easier too) so that I can be prepared for other languages in the future and benefit off of the language I pick to learn first. I also wanna know the highlights of whichever language would be more suitable to get that motivation to learn it!!

Oh and one more thing: I honestly do not need any of these languages in my day-to-day life nor for the foreseeable future. I’m just a human being who has a passion for languages and wants to learn as many as possible - it’s my hobby!

I have a great amount of time on my hands and a lot of interest in both.

I want to learn brazillian Portuguese because of how much I love Brazil and the language.

But on the other hand I want to learn norwegian because of my heritage and general love of Scandinavia.

I've started learning both at some point in my life, i got to a very basic level of norwegian before switching to Portuguese but now I'm not entirely sure which one i want to dedicate myself towards.

They are pretty different languages from pretty different places so if I wanted to learn both it may be pretty difficult, so maybe i should just look into a different language all together? Though there aren't really any others I feel like i could actually connect myself with.

if anybody has some advice on how to decide I would be incredibly grateful. 🙏

Hi, I am an enthusiast of languages and aim to become a polyglot at a certain point in my life. However, at this precise moment, I am looking for a second bachelor's degree or a master's abroad. That being said, from years ago I thought about French first (because I was planning on going to Canada). I ended up changing it for German given that education is expensive for my pockets in Canada.

I did this because Germany has free education but these are taught in German, so, that's the barrier. I also thought of a master's but even so, the amount of programs taught in English is just a few probably.

I knew back then that other countries in Europe offered free programs for international students (the other countries I was thinking of was Norway/Sweden or even Denmark.

Things have changed now for some of those countries as is not free anymore and as an international student, you need to pay tuition now. Germany as far as I know is still offering free education.

I was studying Norwegian but thought about it and probably German is better if I wanna study there or even apply to a job who knows? Just to give more context here my native language is Spanish.

What language do you think I should study first for my purposes?

hello, l've been wanting to learn russian for years but always gave up on it at some point, mostly due to my own inefficient approaches to studying. I've switched to polish half a year ago and really enjoyed learning it so far. But now that l've figured out some better methods for learning I wanted to try russian again. I thought about doing both at the same time but most people say that'd be a bad idea for there will be much confusion. so now I'm wondering which I should focus on learning first? I've heard that russian is easier, so should I try russian first and then learn polish based off it, can anyone tell me about their experiences with learning the two? by the way according to babbel my progress is the same for both, but of course polish is more recent. in case this impacts it, l'm german (which also means I live closer to poland and have way more frequent encounters with polish people) thanks in advance

TLDR; wanting to learn both but not at the same time, which should I start with?

I have achieved basic mastery of Japanese, almost completed b3 but couldn't attend exams due to COVID. My skills have also gone kind of rusty, I doubt I could remember a lot of kanjis I had leaned prior to that.

I'm thinking of brushing up my skills and practicing Japanese again, relearning the kanjis and increasing my vocab.

I'm also considering learning basics of another language alongside. I'm confused between Chinese and Korean I'm more inclined towards mandarin chinese since it's easier to source texts in that language to practice translation skills but Korean is also considered to be relatively compared to mandarin. What are your thoughts?

I'm currently deciding if I should learn Korean or Japanese. Both are for pure interest and I don't need either of them for my daily life. The thing is I wanna learn Japanese with my brother because we both like it and it's a goal we've had for a few years now (it's been a bit difficult to focus on it before) but I already know some basic Korean like reading and writing hangeul, and making some basic sentences. I've tried making this decision for a while but anytime I decide on one I end up watching media in the other language and my interest becomes stronger so l end up going back to the same dilemma. What should I do? How should I decide?

Hello I’m portuguese, from Portugal. Like the average European, I grew up learning english which comes pretty easily to me. At around twelve I started learning French at school. I was never even near to be fluent at it since I only took classes for three years. Although not fluent I can understand anything that is said or written in spanish but I do struggle to speak. I’m now quite a few years older and want to pick up again my love for learning languages. Right now I really want to learn japanese. I haven’t started it seriously yet but I have been keeping contact with the language through Duolingo for 100 days. As of now my goal is to keep learning and in a way that makes sense given my background. I would like to in some years be able to connect different languages and have a good understanding of how they work. So my question is, what are the fundamental languages that I should learn to one day achieve that?

Hi all,

So I have have dabbled in all of these languages at one time or another and I really want to just pick one and stick with it.

Italian: Before my grandmother passed she would speak Italian with me and try to teach me Italian when ever I saw her. It really holds a special place in my heart and I have family roots in Italy. I am going to visit and I may even stay there for a couple months with Italian friends I met in grad school.

German: I have had so much fun learning German and I love the way it flows. I don't have a personal connection to it but I am going to visit for business next year and I think that because it's so much fun for me it would make learning it easier. I may not ever live in Germany but I think that it would open the door to possibly make some German friends. If a very good job opportunity arose I would consider living in Germany.

Russian: I took Russian in undergrad and I got quite good at it. I haven't spoken it in 10 years and I have lost most of it but I still am very much interested in the language. It was a challenge but not impossible and it really is a beautiful language. But I really don't see myself using it later in life due to my travel opinions being limited (security clearance). I feel like I should get back to it because I already have some experience.

Korean: One of my best friends is from Korea and when in grad school he tried to teach me some Korean. It was fun and we were able to connect on a different level. There are quite a few job opportunities for me in Korea and I would consider moving there if the job is a good fit. I love the food and love the people.

I am just not sure what to do. I feel like they are all good options and I'd love to learn them all but I need to at least learn one before I choose another.

Thanks all!

Hi! I need to pick a language to study in university. My native language is Russian*, I've been learning English for a while, and I'm learning French (probably A2 now, or less lol).

I don't need any of these languages for the future career, I'm also not particularly interested in any of them. But I do love poetry A LOT, so I've been thinking German?.. It sounds beautiful.

The other languages, they also sound like a nice song. But I still can't choose one.

So, what language would you recommend to someone who mostly wants to experience a lot of poetry?

Thank you!

*I'm Russian, but I'm against the government. I'm a member of the opposition and have been in jail a few times because of this. Please don't send me death threats, they scare me a lot.

I am studying advanced German and beginners Portuguese in university and I can add a new beginners language next year. I have been studying Italian by myself for about a year and I love the language and the music but it’s not as widely spoken and I don’t know much about Italian history and culture. Also I don’t want to get too confused between Portuguese and Italian is they are too similar.

French is a widely spoken language and has nice music and my sister is learning it too so we could practice together. I am interested in French history but I don’t feel much connection to France as a country.

Mandarin is one of the most spoken languages and it’s unique compared to the other ones I’ve mentioned. I enjoy learning about Chinese culture and there are many Chinese students where I am but I don’t know if it would be too difficult.

Russian is an interesting language and I love Russian literature and history but again I don’t know if I’d really want to visit Russia in its current state and I know there is a lot of homophobia there but still could be an important language politically.

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As the title says I'm interested in learning either Spanish or Russian. Problem is unlike most of the redditors i see on here i don't live in the US and have never met a Spanish or Russian in person so I don't have any practical/real world use out of any of the two languages. That means that most of my use (unless I travel at some point in the future) will be communicating to people and consuming media in the language online.

Both sound like nice languages and have a large presence on the internet. Russian seems like it has a lot more to offer in terms of tech vids and that side of the internet while Spanish seems to offer more shows and overall media of higher quality. Genuinely don't know which to go with here

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I believe I’ve got quite the dilemma. I’m trying to find a language to learn. I have most passion for slavic cultures! I’ve heavily considered learning Polish, Russian, Serbian and even Ukrainian.

Where it gets tricky is just how much I’m interested in all of them! Hear me out, I’m more interested in visiting Poland than Russia but Polish doesn’t spread much outside Poland. With Russia, I have all the ex USSR countries to visit, with Serbian, I have the Balkans, which I’d also love to visit! But also, I come into contact with a good amount of Ukrainians for long periods and I’d love to converse with them without google one day, at least show them I’m trying and laugh about how awful I am at it.

Tl;dr: I have polish lineage and I enjoy speaking the language. I enjoy Russian culture and history and enjoy speaking the language. I enjoy Balkan culture and history, and have enjoyed speaking Serbian. What do?

Sorry yall, Im great at making huge decisions under pressure, but when it comes to small consequence-less decisions, I make my own pressure for some reason. Thank you for the help!

I am at B1/B2 level with Italian language and because of Its similarity I can understand a lot of Spanish and speak a little bit.. but based on my future I need to learn one of these 2 languages because these 2 languages would open me Belgium+Swiss doors and of course opportunities to work in France or Germany.. I have a grasp of German knowledge which I can say I am A2 but with French I haven't studied that much.. but as we all know how hard German is and how similar Italian and French is (apart from speaking part) I want to know If I should start to learn French.. It Is also my fav language but don't know how easy It will be to get the accent part but on the other side German grammar is a nightmare and I hate grammar.. what should I choose?

Basically, I loveee languages. I already speak Spanish and Portuguese along with English obviously cause it’s my native language and I’m learning French in and outside of school which I’m also quite good at cause of my prior knowledge of Romance languages. I have quite a loooong and intense list of languages that I desire to learn: Italian, Russian, German, Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

My question is, should I add Arabic to this list? I’m quite certain I will learn all these languages at least to a decent level - I don’t just take them up then quit later on. However, I’ve been hesitant to add Arabic since there are so many dialects and I wouldn’t want to get confused and not be able to understand much like I used to struggle speaking to Portuguese people having learn Brazilian Portuguese. I also hear that the alphabet is quite difficult along with some grammar rules and stuff. I’m honestly up for the challenge as long as I have motivation to learn the language the only thing is I’m undecided.

Yesterday got me thinking as I was with my Iraqi friend and his little sister and I used a couple Arabic phrases that I know to make a joke and they told me I should actually learn Arabic. I hear this a lot as well since everyone knows I love languages and I have a lot of Iraqi and Lebanese friends so I’m just not sure if I should make that commitment and add it to my list.

Obviously I know that I have time to think about it and I probably wouldn’t be learning it for a good amount of years however, I have this slight obsession with the DK bilingual visual dictionaries. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then just look them up. And so, I’ve literally collected them in all the languages I mentioned above: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, German and Korean. They are currently remodelling the books and will no longer be selling the version that I have collected so I’m hesitant to buy the Arabic one in case I decide not to learn it but I know that if I do decide to learn it and I did not purchase the current version of the book I’ll be super upset cause all the rest are identical in format.

I know this sounds a bit weird and obsessive and I shouldn’t let a book dictate if I learn a language or not but they are honestly my little collector items when it comes to language learning and they mean a lot to me so yeah… Anyways, the question still remains should I learn Arabic or not and if yes, what dialect should I be focused on or is best/ most useful to know??

Hello,   I am someone with a passion for linguistics and language learning.  I’ve learned the basics of multiple languages, and I often listen to anime theme song covers in my target language.  This makes me wonder if I should focus on Japanese instead.   I’ve spent several months learning Hungarian and Basque simply because they are non indo-european languages. I also learned some Greek because it uses a different writing system.  Japanese is both non indo-euro and doesn’t use the latin writing system. I sometimes feel that I was looking at Greek, Basque and Hungarian simply as a “easier substitutes” for Japanese.   I am also embarrassed to admit that despite my linguistics background I feel intimidated by Japanese. I’ve attempted to learn it several times but always ended up giving up.  So far I’ve done the first five chapters of Genki.  I think in frustration I tried learning substitute European languages instead.   I also want to add that I live in the USA but my parents immigrated from China.  As a Chinese-american I feel that it would be a bit easier for me to blend in or understand Japanese culture compared to people from a non east-asian background.   Anyway, I know my thoughts are disorganized but I’m not sure what to do.  I’d love to visit Japan one day.  Hungarian, Greek and Basque are definitely interesting languages in their own right but I always feel that Japanese is like a giant lurking above them at all times...