If you could learn any language, what would it be?

Spaish because it’s the second most commonly used in america.

Latin. So I could pass my exam. xD

I have often thought I should learn French to communicate with family members but then I thought better of it ;)

French, without a doubt. I think it’s the most beautiful language out there. I’ve tried learning it myself, but I’d be better off taking a class I think.

German, because I am of German decent and it’d be fun to speak it loudly with a strong German accent.

Chinese… Or Japanese. I would love to go to China or Japan. I am interested in the culture.

Do you mean I can only choose one?

I’m fluent in English. Je ne comprends qu’un tout petit peu le français. I can pick up a little Spanish, but I’m not at all confident in my ability to understand the language. I can say a few sentences in Japanese, but haven’t attempted to learn how to read any of it. I know a handful of German, too.

I don’t know that I could choose one language… maybe one that is further from a Romance or Germanic language. Maybe Russian or Arabic.

If I could, I’d stick a Babel fish in my ear so fast… I love languages.

Female speak.

Je ne sais pas! Maybe French ;¬}

Brazilian Portuguese… beautiful language

Aramaic…This is the language the original bible is written in…

I’m moderately obsessed with French.

Being fluent in Latin would be rather more bad-ass, though. Particularly because hardly anyone speaks it, yet it’s a natural language and it doesn’t have the same nerd stigma as Quenya or Klingon.

If I could instantly learn any language, though, I’d probably spend that ticket on Russian or Chinese, and learn French and Latin the hard way. They’re more difficult to learn for a European than anything European, and they’re important world languages.
It would also be useful for linguistic research to be familiar with at least one language that has no direct ties to the European families.

Either Japanese or Russian. Latin is my favorite language overall, but I’ve already learned it and I don’t need to be fluent in it (although that would be cool). But I’ve been obsessed with Japanese for a long time and I’m going to be taking it next year. Russian because a lot of my relatives speak it (including my mom) and I can already read and write it.

Maybe spanish, because i think it sounds nice. I think. Although it would be a useless language for me to know because nobody speaks it in this country and i know nobody who speaks it (save for 1 online friend who seems to know some spanish). Otherwise i’d learn portuguese, because i have a portuguese friend. I wanted to learn Russian and started doing so but then quit – i thought it would be fun to learn a language that doesn’t use the “english” alphabet.

Why, oh why do I have to choose only one? Can’t I have the whole cookie jar please?
I already speak three fluently. English, German, Greek. Done Latin and Ancient Greek.

Languages I have next to no exposure with are Asian. The most common one is Mandarin.
Therefore I’d choose Mandarin. For the additional reason that I like orientals, the cultures and the women.

I’m going to go with Korean.
I would love to get some Asian language, and I think given that e-sports are so popular in Korea, that’d be the most relevant one for me.

But I love languages so much. I want to learn many of them.

Français!

I am currently learning Esperanto, so besides that, I would say Icelandic. One of, if not the most beautiful sounding naturally-made languages, and the culture surrounding it is equally amazing. Plus, by learning Icelandic, you are also learning a large amount of the language of the original Vikings, Old Norse.

I would definitely like to learn Japanese or Korean.

I think learning one of the languages of Asia would be useful.

Romanian. I love it.

French, because it’s such a beautiful language. You can cuss someone out in French and it still sounds beautiful! Also, as a lit major who still devours books, it would be nice to be able to translate French passages from my favorite books, like The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Mandarin, Cantonese or Hungarian. There are others that I’d rather learn but these three are notoriously difficult, so if I could just wake up one morning and choose fluency in a different language, I’d choose one that’s good value.

@lonelydragon French and German are two of my favorite languages, for similar but opposite reasons. As you said, you can cuss someone out in French and it still sounds beautiful. In German, you can whisper sweet nothings into someone’s ear and terrify the crap out of them. :D

@MacBean I think I want to learn German now instead of Chinese.LOL

Arabic and Pashtun. I would really like to get into discussions on the net with these people in their own language, read their Press in order to have a greater understanding of how they perceive the world and read the news and literature they are exposed to rather than rely on the American and European Press to interpret it for me. I like my information raw and without editorial.

I already speak Spanish pretty well, but it would be great to be fully bilingual.

I can kind of speak french already. Those friggin future and past tenses screw me up everytime. I’d like to learn Italian or Japanese. Those seem fun.

Spanish, because having visited Spain once and fallen in love with the country, I would very much like to live there.

Italian because I am Italian and I would love to go to Italy.

@MacBean That’s hilarious, and so true! You could be saying, “My flower, you are so beautiful!” or “Please pass the salt” and it would sound like you’re threatening their lives. I’ve actually heard non-native English speakers say the same thing about English, but it is a Germanic language, after all.

I would go with Hebrew, the language spoken to the Jews.