which language should I learn?

Question

I live in America and I only speak english but I would like to learn another language. which language should I learn: French, German, Italian or Spanish? I need to know how it will be useful to me and how hard on a scale of 1-10 it is to learn.

Answer 1

Spanish could help you in so many ways. It can actually get you paid more money on many jobs and it should not be to hard to learn. Good luck

Answer 2

You would be best served to learn Spanish. It's the easiest, you will have many, many opportunities to practice it with Spanish-speaking people all over the USA and the world, and there are already a lot of Spanish "loan words" in American English.

On a scale of 1-10 (10 is the hardest) I'd put Spanish at 3-5. Spanish is considered a "Romance" language, meaning the words have their basis in Latin, or Rome. Other "Romance" languages are French, Portuguese and Italian. If you learn one Romance language, others are easier to learn.

There are a lot of Spanish learning CD's available, and Spanish websites, Spanish chatrooms, and English language help websites for people who want to learn Spanish. Just do a Google search for "learn Spanish"

I disagree about French or Italian being much more difficult than Spanish, however. I had 4 years of HS French and a year of college French. If Spanish is a 3-5, then French or Italian is a 4-7. Difficulty really depends on how hard you practice your Spanish lessons, of course.

When I travelled to Italy and Spain I was able to decipher menus and road signs with almost no problems because the root verbs in all three languages are so similar.

Answer 3

I learned Spanish and German in school, and I would definitely recommend Spanish. It is a very logically-designed language, and it has many words similar to the English counterparts. Plus, with the rapidly rising demography of Spanish speakers in the U.S., Spanish-speaking skills will give in an edge in many professions. Last, many countries you may travel to speak Spanish (Mexico, Central and South America, Spain), as opposed to Italian, which you could only really use in Italy or countries neighboring Italy.

I do love German, but I rarely find any place to use my German skills or practice conversation.

I tried to learn French, and I found it to be extremely difficult. All of the different accent marks alone had me confused. It was beautiful, but there were just too many exceptions to every rule. I think you might really have to love the language and spend a lot of time to learn it properly.

In summary:

Spanish- easy to learn, can use many places
German- Medium difficulty to learn, no place to use
Italian-don't know
French-Very difficult ot learn

Good luck!

Answer 4

Think Spanish, the growing Latino community in the US is making Spanish a very important language, good to learn if perhaps your neighbor also speaks it.

French and Italian have the same roots as Spanish and will be easier to learn. All are romantic languages.

German, quite hard, try the romance languages first. I am from Mexico, who knows in a few months we can chat En Español...

Answer 5

Spanish! If you learn spanish, you can understand Italian and French. It is somewhat easy to learn (5), but easier than the other 3. You can even watch shows in spanish on TV to help you learn! Have fun, make some spanish speaking friends!

Answer 6

Spanish

Answer 7

Just for usability I would suggest Spanish. More and more the use of spanish is going to be needed to know as we live in the US as things are at the moment. The language isn't terribly difficult to learn either, so I'd say around a 4 if you are dedicated.

Answer 8

Spanish is the up and coming language in the US. With the increase in Mexican, Latino, and Hispanic populations, Spanish is in great demand.

Answer 9

Spanish most useful (unless you live near Canadian border), but to be prepared for the future, learn Chinese...we will have lots of dealings with those folks in the future!

Answer 10

spanish. its easy to learn. and spoken more than the above.
id want to learn german but i believe that would be the hardest to learn. however, germany is such a better place then anywhere id want to go speaking spanish.
however, i do like those burrito stands.