Hi all, I'm currently in my second year of college (majoring in Asian Languages), but at this point in time I've achieved at least mid to high level proficiency in Japanese and Mandarin due to also taking classes in high school. That being said, I'm looking for a Language spoken in the EU to learn. I would like it to meet at least 2 qualifications * It has to be used in at least two countries (so I'm at least learning something useful) * It can't be a dialect or anything other than the standard variation of a language. I know ZK has a large Europe player base, so I am asking here to see which language(s) that you think are the most useful in that region.
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I am not from Europe nor am I particularly multilingual. That being said... if you are looking for a second language that is useful in specifically Europe then my best guess would be French followed by German and Russian, partially depending on where in Europe you are interested in. If you are looking for a European language that is useful elsewhere in the world (especially Middle and South America) then Spanish or Portuguese are also widely spoken.
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French, it's a beautiful language, it has some similarities to Italian and Spanish, so that is useful, plus learning new words is not that difficult cause some words are similar to English (but pronunciation is different). German is likely the most useful out of European languages (followed by French), but French is a nicer language.
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German has the most native speakers of any language in the EU outdoing English. It is one of the three "working" languages of the EU (Whatever that means). French seems like another compelling option option. It was the de facto international language for business and politics before being supplanted by English. It is also on the list of "working" languages as dictated by the EU folks. (English is the third if you were wondering.) I don't see that many Spanish speakers in zero k, but it is a useful language because there are many Spanish speakers globally. Also there are many in the United States. In my state almost 30% the population speaks Spanish at home, and probably half or more of the population can speak Spanish. Plus Latin America has many great places to go.
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Spanish is most useful on the planet. German is most useful in Europe. [Spoiler]Considering only natural EU languages except English and ignoring other criteria than usefulness.
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French, German, Spanish or Russian would be my advice. All the mentioned languages are spoken in many countries and are thus a business language. But it rly depends what you want to do in the future. Here some points which distinguish them: French: It is the political language in the EU. German: Its the technical language in the EU. If you want to do something in a technical field its very usefull. Spanish: Spain has great movie-productions so if you want to watch movies without subtitles/dubbed... Russian: Its the door to many more languages, all the slavic languages are very close and use either the Cyrillic or Modified Latin alphabet.
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I'll make an out of left field suggestion and offer up Latin or Ancient Greek if you're open to a written language only option. Obviously they are completely useless for any purpose other than being a Catholic or Orthodox priest, but are interesting if you're into linguistics and seeing how English came about. Any of Spanish/French/German/Italian should be very easy for you to learn, so maybe you are interested in something a little trickier (that's still easier than Ancient Chinese!). Of the two, Latin has more straightforward vocabulary and a more annoying grammar, Ancient Greek is very varied depending on the time frame and uses syntax in a very loose way and is more hipster (they're both widely used for technical words of course, most fields leaning more towards Greek but a few are all Latin, and there's a lot of mixed origin words everywhere). Otherwise my vote goes to Spanish or Russian depending on your geographical or cultural leanings.
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Funny, i was thinking about Latin as well... - If you have Japanese down, Latin grammar shouldn`t be a problem. - Latin gives you an incredible amount of word-stems for: French, the four major spanish languages, french, portuguese, contemporary italian and romanian, as well as for English and German, to a way lesser degree Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. (Can`t say much about slavic languages, latvian, lithuanian or estonian, finnish or hungarian tho, i do not speak any of those.) quote:
Obviously they are completely useless for any purpose other than being a Catholic or Orthodox priest, |
- Or you study philosophy and need to read Plato, Aristoteles et cetera... - If you are ever going to be interested in medieval sources, there is no way around Latin (although that requires medieval Latin, which is even more "exotic" as it significantly differs from ancient Latin.) About german: does anyone use German to communicate with non-germans? TBH when i read the Topic, i plain thought: English. I think standart spanish or french are way more useful in a broader context.
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Thank you to all of you who gave your opinions on the matter. I think I'll study Latin for the mechanical knowledge, but it terms of studying a modern functional language, I will probably decide to go with German for a few reasons: * I might end up going to graduate school there for foreign relations * I have a lot of people I know personally that live there * If you live in Germany and have heard the last name Künzer, that's my distant family Also, German linguistic mechanisms sound like a load of fun. Don't think I'll end up having trouble practicing either, given that ZK seems to have a good quantity of German players. P.S. What the hell is up with Polish?
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(Can`t say much about slavic languages, latvian, lithuanian or estonian, finnish or hungarian tho, i do not speak any of those.)
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Latvian, lithuanian and the slavics are all branches on the same indo-european language tree as Latin. Estonian, finnish, hungarian ... aren't.
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   QrowGut, dann lass uns mit diesem einfachen, aus wenigen, jedoch je nach Ansicht mehr oder weniger wichtigen Teilen bestehenden, typisch schriftsprachlich deutschem Satz, den ich mir an diesem wunderbaren, kühlen Winterabend des Jahres 2021 während meines Aufenthalts vor meinem inzwischen auch schon etwas älterem Rechner aus den vom zurückliegenden Spaziergang noch klammen, steifen Fingern sauge, um mir die bohrende Langeweile, die mich seit ich vor einigen Stunden aus dem Bett gekrochen bin plagt, zu vertreiben und gleichzeitig meine Frustration über zu komplizierte Schachtelsätze auszudrücken, anfangen. :) Jemand hier um Kommafehler zu korrigieren?
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Between French and German id go German every time
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I'm not quite sure if german is a useful language to learn. But if you do and "think" in german your thinking will be more german like, meaning you are more exact in using words. But beside that german is used in Germany, Austria und Switzerland and that's it (ok, also in northern italy). The best option would be spanish, as it is speaken in most parts of the world. French however is spoken only in france and some former colonies of france (which are some) If you are interested in the russian "world" you can learn a language which is harder to learn (ok, not as hard as german) but can be used (more or less) only in the former sowjet union countries.
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French is spoken also in (at least) half Belgium and parts of Switzerland. While technically at some point those parts might have been under French rule, don't think people would think about those countries as "former French colonies". Also regarding Russian, at least in one I now better (Romania) you would have more chances with French and German (not talking about English which is the widest studied) than Russian for everybody under 40. Reference here for primary school. In high school people generally study 2 languages reference here. Of course not everybody will study at the same level and some will forget, but still...
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According to Wikipedia French is spoken by 277 million people worldwide where German is spoken by 132 million. Apparently about 140 million people speak French in Africa, mostly as a second language, so "some former colonies of France" adds up to a fair bit.
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I live in EU, and I know French and Spanish. Have been to Germany and guessed things based on English and Swedish. I would recommend Spanish, as it is much easier to learn, and is useful for understanding Italian and Portuguese, French is a different thing entirely.
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