I fancy learning a language. Which foreign language would you like to be able to speak?

Oh – dont say I need to learn English 😉

Spanish.

Italian, bellisimo!

chinese

No. Portuguese. Brazil is a **** amazing coutry and one which is about to come onto the world’s radar, big time. Read up on it, you’ll be gobsmacked. Half of the youth of Portugal has already gone there to find work and that massive country full of clever people is just waiting for you.

Portuguese. Brazil

from a friend who is Brazilian, be aware put basically Portuguese is to Brazilian as UK English is to American English….

Almost the same, but not quite…

But yes it would be a good choice.

Portuguese. Brazil

Or P?t?nghuà (Mandarin).

Russian, Chinese (so probably mandarin) or Spanish are the most useful from a business / growth perspective.

Wherever you go on holidays or want to retire to the most is the one.

Or failing that….. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Larn-Yersel-Geordie-Scott-Dobson/dp/0946928010

Russian

I seem to work exclusively in fsu countries these days and russian may be a second language to most but it comes much further p the pecking order than english.

Spanish and french, i can read enough to get by and have basic conversations / get food and hotel rooms.

Cheers for the input.

I was thinking Mandarin, or Arabic. Russian is not a language I thought of, I think mainly due to the fact that Russia or the FSU, does not really captivate me.

Yeah it wouldnt all the places ive been are holes ….. People are nice though. Makes me want to speak their language as im the incomer not them.

Spanish is the most useful, Mandarin the most spoken in one place.

As above Brazil looks cool so Portugese.

Arabic is useful in any Islamic country.

I know some Korean (Hangul) not very useful, but easy for a language that does not use a latin alphabet.

Mandarin or Arabic for personal usefulness (tbh I’d love to be able to speak arabic if only to put the wind up all the students that use it to talk about us behind out backs). French for personal use as I always feel a right knob over there.

You need to pick a language where you will visit the country and practice iy otherwise you will do classes but never pregress for me it would be spanish

American ;o) then I could tell them just how dumb public gun ownership is. ;o)

Ive just started learning Estonian (and by christ its confusing!)

I would recommend Spanish or Russian.

Ive learned a few languages, mainly when chasing skirt abroad.

Spanish or Catalan for personal use, some sort of chinese if it was career related .

Spanish, it covers lots of countries. Then for Italian you can just speak Spanish in an Italian accent and wave your hands more.

Spanish, it covers lots of countries. Then for Italian you can just speak Spanish in an Italian accent and wave your hands more.

To me portuguese sounds like spanish with a dutch accent, but it doesn’t really work all that well in practice!

respect to euge for the estonian. those finno-ugrics are beyond me!

i think spanish is a good choice. if learnt well it makes it a whole lot easier to learn the other romance languages and, if you’re lucky. will elad you eventually to romanian which altho a bit niche, is rather lovely.