I'm interested in learning a language...can't decide on one..suggestions?

Question

I was thinking of learning Latin or Greek.. what do people think? I think I want to learn one that a decent amount of people might actually know...any suggestions?

...I sort of want it to be a little more unnique than Spanish, as suggested by my examples...

Answer 1

How about Chinese , It is beautiful and will be useful in future!

Answer 2

You didn't say why you want to learn a foreign language or how you will find it useful. Maybe you should learn more than one.

In college, I took a course in Latin and Greek in current use -- one semester of each, and it has given me powerful tools for understanding unfamiliar words.

In the United States, the second most widely-spoken language is Spanish. I studied Spanish in high school and college and have found it to be invaluable, as I am relatively fluent and have many Spanish-speaking patients, which would not be the case if I did not speak Spanish. I did not know when I took Spanish in high school in Maryland that I would wind up practicing medicine in souther California, but that was, in the end, the very best choice I could have made. Along the way, I have also learned some German, French, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese, and I find all of my smatterings of these idioms to be very useful.

With the rise of China -- it is expected to surpass the United States to become the largest manufacturing country in the world in the next few years -- if you will be going into business that involves import-export, you might consider whether it might be useful to learn Mandarin Chinese.

Since my wife is an Ilokana from the Philippines, I could gain a lot by learning both Tagalog and Ilokano.

My mother, who grew up in Indiana, learned Latin and French in high school, and later taught school as a missionary in Japan for five years. While in Japan, she became fluent in Japanese and remained in touch with her friends there until she could no longer do so.

In any case, what language you learn depends very much on what you will do with it later in life. How will you use the language you learn? What will the benefit be of having learned that language? And why learn just one foreign language? You'd be far ahead of the game if you knew more than one foreign language.

Answer 3

If the choice is Latin or Greek, I would say Latin because several other major languages are based on Latin (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French) and the medical and legal languages use it. However, it's a "dead" language in that no nation that I'm aware of speaks Latin as its common language. So if it's an actual common language you want, then choose Greek since the Greeks still speak it. If you are open to other languages and are thinking of employment advantages, in the U.S., I'd take Spanish, Chinese, Japanese or Arabic. I'd say the latter three are important worldwide given the current state of economics and foreign relations.

Answer 4

Where do you live?

Up north it might be good to learn French.
Down south it would be good to learn Spanish.
On the west coast it would be good to learn Japanese or Mandarin.
On the east coast I've found Spanish is prevalent - and easy to learn.
In Washington they'll hire you if you speak Arabic or Farsi.
JavaScript is very useful.
Klingon is good for the nerds - make sure you use the Martok Dialect as anything else is not currently considered to be true Klingon. (Although I'm sure the Gowron dialect would still be easily understood).

How about American Sign Language? That's an easy one - you can do it all by yourself if you want. Get "A Basic Course in American Sign Language".

Answer 5

how about German?

Latin would only really be helpful if you are working in the medical field, since so much of that is based in Latin word origins.

Greek would be helpful if you are into archeology...

German is regaining popularity as a second language to learn and with their booming business, it is helpful to know---and it's really easy to learn!

I took 5 years of French and hardly learned a thing.

You might also think of Spanish, since pretty much everything today is available in Spanish and English in the USA.

Answer 6

If you want to learn Latin you have to work hard. I am Italian and I don't understand a word in Latin!!! I have Greek relatives, but I don't speak Greek. I think it's hardest than Latin: they have another alphabet...

Answer 7

Latin and Greek wouldn't be very useful...
I would suggest maybe Russian or Persian (I don't know if those would be useful, depending on where you live)

Answer 8

How about American Sign Language?

Answer 9

well they say that it is good to learn spanish but if you want to be a busnisess person japnese is the way to go because that is where the money is

Answer 10

look bro u can learn Chinese is like the most spoken language in da world