What is the best language?

that can depend on where you want to work and who you want to help. here in the U.S., schools tell us that we should learn Spanish. our neighbors to the south speak it and since we have a lot of them that migrate here both legally and illegally, you know that most of the people you encounter here are going speak English or Spanish. That doesn’t mean that you won’t meet people from other regions, but the majority of the people here speak those two languages.

your profile tells me that you’ve lived in Turkey, so if that is where you live, then you have to look at your potential clients. are there neighboring countries that interact with Turkey? Is that where you would be working?

hope that helps.

yeah i live in Turkey and our law is from generally germany but german is such a rude language i think…i want to learn something else…when i graduate to the school i want to work at private corporation…i dont know what to do! what i know is i dont wanna learn german…basically i love learning a language but thinking of studying german makes me STRETCHED!

From the sounds of it, you have two choices – learn the language you personally want to learn (Italian or Spanish… or maybe something else?), or learn the language that will be most useful to you and your career (German).

Learning a language is not an easy thing. You have to be determined and want to learn it. If you don’t want to learn German and hate the language in the first place, then you will most likely not get anywhere and give up later on if you try.

I think that, unless it is highly important for your career to know German, learn the language that you want to learn as this will get you the best results.

Is English your first or second language?

General experience shows that once you learn one (romantic-ish) language, picking up others is much easier.

I have to agree, though…..German is not an attractive language.

Yeah four years of French in HS and in California spanish is practically the main language-make sure you take something you can use for your locale.

english is my first language…but basically i know German and italian( if you knew italian you can easily learn spanish you know..so i also know grounding spanish)
Learning german is the best for my career but i told you that firstly german is soo rude secondly i dont wanna learn this language…
What i wonder is if i learn another language will be useful for me?

HTML or maybe even C#. even though you’re not fluent in the languages you mentioned, maybe you can use that time to learn a computer language! It sounds like you have a base for the languages you would probably use, so learning those could be done in your free time.

but seriously, if you have to take some sort of language class in order to graduate, it all depends on the type of people you will be helping…if its German people, then i say learn German.

There isn’t really a best language…German might have been suggested from a law perspective because English is derived from German (mainly). Italian and Spanish are similar, so learning one would make the other far easier the pick up. Really you should just learn whichever you want to learn.

I’ve studied 6 languages at different times in my life and I have to say that by far the most important indicator of success in learning that language is your personal interest and enjoyment. I forced myself to study a couple languages that were “good for me” but I wasn’t that committed to learning them…and I never got really far. On the other hand, when I decided to learn Spanish, a language I was very interested in learning, I made great progress, very quickly. Out of the 6 that I’ve studied, I only ever became fluent in 3—and those were the ones that I was really interested in learning. Language study should be fun, not a chore. If you don’t really want to learn German, don’t study it—you won’t put in the effort you’ll need to become really fluent. Pick the language your heart wants you to study, and you will be more successful at learning it.

I wood chose Spanish because its easy 2 learn and it is a very common language in the u.s.

Khoison… definitely the COOOLEST language ever.

maybe esperanto
i would agree to take german as i heard quite a number of publications are in german
i’m taking latin in HS right now and i plan to learn german sometime in the future later on

in the end you really have to choose one to your interests, i agree with occ’s answer

“What i wonder is if i learn another language will be useful for me?”

I can’t really know for your situation, but in general any language is useful. Personally, I think German is more useful than Spanish and Italian on a global scale, but knowing German won’t help you much in Italy. German, Italian, Spanish… they are all useful languages depending on the situation.

It’s all to do with your situation – and besides, knowing any extra language will help with most careers. When you try for a job your chances of getting employed are a lot better if you know more than one language.

i want to learn spanish because it has much more fun:) on the other hand, i have to learn german:( i suppose that if i learn german ,especially if i knew the basically, it will be more useful for me…

My favorite language is eye contact, but ya I prefer Italian and Spanish to German. Depends on where you want to live, too. Some people (including myself) find it a little confusing learning both Italian and Spanish, since they’re similar but different.

Oh, and if you do end up studying German, you might try Austrian German, which is the same language but you might find the style less rude and more musical and attractive. That’s what many people (who might often happen to be Austrian) think about it, anyway. Just a thought.

thx you=) i’ll search it

German is kind of interesting. It follows a rather rigid set of spelling and grammar rules… and compared to English, is easy to get along in. Once you know the pronunciation rules, you can say any word, even if you don’t know what it means or haven’t heard anyone else say it.

The part many find difficult is that German has three forms of the word “the”: der, die, and das, referred to as the masculine, feminine, and neuter forms. Problem is, those are just convenient three-way labels… and have nothing to do with the supposed gender of the noun in question. And they’re randomly assigned.

The only way to know which the to use is to memorize it per noun. For all of them. All tens of thousands of them.

Example: the girl == das Mädchen. (neuter form of “the”)

The problem is compounded by akkusitive and dative forms of article and adjectives. In other words, depending on the placement of the noun in a sentence (as subject, direct object, or indirect object), you might use a variation on the spelling of “the” or on the ending of a descriptive adjective.

At the end of all this, there are therefore nine (9) different forms of “the” that might be used in any given circumstance (many spelled the same). So, in written form, German can be tricky for the non-native speaker to author grammatically correct.

As far as I know, those two things (random assignment of “the” and learning to intuitively handle subject vs. direct object vs. indirect object) are the only hard parts.

I think objectively English is the “best language.” In terms of its utility, I think it wins hands down. Its simply the lingua franca of our time. I would also argue that it is one of the most expressive languages on earth – I believe its adaptability and vast amount of words make it quite unique.

In terms of “foreign” languages I would say: Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, German, Spanish.