Lingua Franca

Learning one of the two languages first doesn't impede you from learning the other language later. The question you should ask yourself is which one do you want to learn first? French seems like the logical choice at first as you already speak two Indo-European languages, but if your heart is set on Japanese you will find it just as easy to learn. The kanji characters can be easier to learn if you brake them down. For example, learn only 10 characters every second day, before you know it you will have learnt all the 2000 kanji.

It can complicate things if the languages you are learning are very similar. If they are very different it might be easier not to mix the languages but at the same time that would mean that you have a larger amount of vocabulary you will have to learn. I personally have never done it, if I want to learn one language, I normally don't feel tempted to learn another language at the same time.

I am fluent in two languages. I speak both Portuguese and English natively. Most foreign movies in Portugal aren't dubbed but rather subtitled. So I get more then enough chances to see if anything is lost in the translation. The simple answer is, depends on who did the translation. I have seen moves were the translation was so perfectly done that nothing was lost, on the other hand I have seen other translations were it seemed like i was looking at two different movies. So it depends on who did the translation.

I have seen it posted around the internet that the Scandinavian language tend to be mutually intelligible. I would be interested to learn one of these languages.I would like to first travel to these counties before I made up my mind on which one I will choose.

I think the easiest way to learn any language is seeing the language being used in a context that you enjoy. The program you choose to watch does have some importance. Sometimes the shows may contain contain slang or regionalisms. The fact you are looking at the program with subtitles, means you will be able to connect the words you are seeing to the words in your own language, and thus increase your vocabulary.

When ever I have to translate a text I never use a translator aid. Has anyone tried to use a translator tool like google translator and then simply correct any errors that might appear? What was the final result like?