If you could instantly learn any one language, which would it be - and why?

I’ve tried learning several languages over the years, but quit each time. I’ve seriously tried Portuguese and Russian. But if i could choose one to know now, it would be Spanish, i think it’s a “pretty” langauge! :)

French… My mother is French and speaks it fluently(sp) I can only write it. The why part is that to me it is the most beautiful spoken languange.

Both French and Spanish are indeed beautiful languages.

Chinese (or Mandarin to be more specific).

because there are a billion people who use it. and because i think i could grasp European languages if i tried (we use the same alphabet and many similar sounds)... but Chinese uses characters, and uses totally different sounds to pronounce words.

So if i could learn a language instantly it would be Chinese, the other ones i could study for a few years to get a hang on them.

I think I’d like to know Arabic but only if I could know it instantly. I would like it for ease of travel and understanding as well as reading some fine old poetry.

ya, arabic would be my second choice i think… or a south african click language like “K-osa” (idk how to write it in english) but that would be more fun than practical

Arabic, or Hindi. I think they’re lovely.
And they’d be pretty useful to me, if I continue on with my chosen career path.

french
studied it for 3 years, still not fluent
workin’ on it

nice to see you back sccrowell

I’d choose Arabic, it seems to rich and interesting to me. Plus I like to travel in arab countries so that would be a bonus.

I agree with others on this thread; Arabic. I’d like to be able to talk directly to “our” adversaries.

German. Both of my sons are taking it in high school. My oldest son is in his third year and when he graduates he will be doing a student exchange in Bavaria. I think that it would be fun to talk with my sons in a different language, plus it would be helpful to know if they are plotting some type of revenge on their mother because I made them go pick up the dog poo.

It’d have to be Chinese. I speak english german and russian fluently, and I’m getting pretty good at italian and latin so I know I could grasp most romance or germanic languages if I wanted to, but the sheer volume of content in Chinese is pretty crazy. So either that or Icelandic.

Aramaic/Hebrew, just because it sounds cool to me a person of Polish origin, the Jews had a history in my motherland for some time and still do, and I’m a believer of the Holy Bible.

Russian. I tried before, and can read it a little but remembering what to say is hard.

Klingon, duh! It’d be so awesome…

Spanish. Because in Texas it would be extremely useful.

I already speak Spanishs and French pretty well. I’ve been learning languages for fun since I was 14, so the language I’d choose would be one I don’t want to go through the process of learning, since usually I LOVE the process. I think I would choose a language that’s useful but that I’m not all that interessted in and would struggle to stay motivated on my own. Japanese immediately comes to mind.

I would learn Italian so that when I spend that month sampling the Italian wines, I will be able to speak to people!

I’d choose Portuguese, the language of 50% of my heritage. Thusly, because I don’t speak it very well, I feel isolated from this 50%.

The language of love. Need I say why?

Icelandic! But that’s not very useful…

Some sort of Latin language would be useful (perhaps Latin itself). I have a basic grasp of Italian, but only just. If I could be fluent in that, I’d be able to also communicate in Spanish and Portuguese (I have many Portuguese friends) and perhaps even French. Romanian too.

Or I could go for something entirely different, such as Chinese. Might come in handy to be able to communicate with 25% of the world’s population overnight.

(btw I already speak fluent German and Greek, understant Dutch but cannot speak it, know some basic Czech, Russian and Polish, and also used to be fluent in Arabic, which I have completely forgotten now).

German, mainly because a number of my ancestors and distant relatives are German and I think it would be cool to read old family records in the original language. I also want to visit Germany and like to have at least a rudimentary understanding of the local language(s) when I travel to a foreign country.

Maybe an Elvish language or maybe Norwegian. I would definitely pick a language that doesn’t have much if any learning resources out there. I’m a bit gifted with languages which is why I wouldn’t pick one like Italian with a ton of resources out there.

And I would definitely disagree with those that picked Chinese because it is “totally different” from English. It’s really not. There are only two sounds that I can think of that aren’t really used in English but it is not that big of a hurdle to be able to make those sounds. The tones are also not as big a deal as everyone tends to make. It is important to try and use the correct tone but there are so many regional accents and foreigners that come to China that you can still be understood if you mispronounce a word. I’m talking about Mandarin, of course. I’m not so sure about Cantonese, it has nine tones (six standard tones). Learning Chinese characters is also not as difficult as people think. Most (by most I am referring to all my classmates from various Chinese classes) tend to at least be able to recognize them just from frequent use of them in writing or reading sentences. It’s hard for people to believe that though until they actually give it a shot. You do have to give it some effort, but I’ve not had to put forth more effort than I have for French or other languages.

Sanskrit, without a doubt.

Its roots permeate the Indo-European language families.
Its grammar is a thing of beauty.
It has words for things we don’t even have concepts for. To understand and truly comprehend Sanskrit would be a mind-opening experience in itself.
Great truths and deep wisdom can be expressed naturally and unambiguously in Sanskrit.