If you could speak just 5 languages what would they be?

[Nekomimi_mode]

1. English

2. Chinese(mandarin)

3. Arabic

4. Korean

5. Japanese

[KittenErnst]

Ooh, I like this.

1. English (first/only fluent language)

2. German (my favorite language)

3. American Sign Language / ASL

4. Latin

5. French

[Saholy]

Great thread! Here are my top 5: 

1. English (I still am horrible at spelling and grammar despite it being my first language. 

2. ASL (I am considered fluent but never felt I mastered it to the level that many of my peers had.) 

3. Malagasy (My current language and ongoing source of pleasure mixed with equal portions of torture). 

4. French (This is the creme de la creme for me personally, I am at a basic level that has me feeling like an ant trying to move a mole hill.) 

5. And for my last I will add a language which intrigues me but I don't think I could ever master because I'm becoming hard of hearing and its tonal - Chinese. 

[AExAVF]

1. English (I use this language for typing and drafting papers and documents, and I find it easier to convey my message in the English language)

2.  Filipino (I speak Tagalog most of the time)

3. Japanese (I'm currently learning this language)

4. Arabic (I don't know why, but lately I'm thinking about learning this language again after dropping out of it)

5. Esperanto

[OmniHead]

My five languages would be;

1. English, because whoever does not understand and speak English is kind of lost, and dropped out in our globalized word.

2. Spanish,  because without it, I wouldn't understand people where I live

3. Italian, because I like how it sounds and is so similar to Spanish, yet I think pretty easy to learn

4. French, because of the romantic cliché

5. German, which is the language I'm currently studying, because I like German culture.

Many people say that, after English, one should learn Chinese due to the fast-growing China's economy, but most Chinese people involved in the business world knows already English, hence Chinese is not appealing to me as a personal choice or for business matters.

 

[petrushka]

1. My native language - because, obviously, it's my first and I love it, haha!

2. English - since I already know it and currently, it is considered the universal language or something.

3. An East Asian Language - I'd like to learn a language that doesn't use the roman letters but still close to home.

4. A Romance Language - I'm cheating, haha, but I figured if I become fluent in a romance language, the learning of other romance languages will be easy. Also, if I learn Spanish or Portuguese, I figure it might be easier to learn a Latin American language since they share some words and/or sentence structures. 

5. An African Language - just because I'd like to learn a language in each continent, haha!

EXTRA: I want to learn a non-verbal language too. Sign language or braille or even a language of cryptography. 

More than thinking of the feasibility of me actually learning them, I just basically want to be able to communicate to a LOT of differing cultures, I guess.

[sidney]

For me, I would want my 5 languages to be:

1) Tagalog (native)

2) English (2nd main language)

3) Spanish

4) German

5) Japanese

[Arzy_]

I think that most likely they would be:

-Spanish (native)

-English (imperative)

-German (There are lots of germans where i live and i work in tourism)

-Italian (easy to learn for spanish speakers and i love this language)

-French (love this language as well although i might change it for Japanese)

[innovativecat]

Tagalog is my native language 

2. Greek ( I'd love to speak this language fluently)

3. Chinese ( I started my lesson recently. This will be useful in my future career as most business people in our country are chinese and I'm also one fourth chinese)

4. Korean ( I would love to work in Korea someday. I love this country so much probably because of the influence from Koreandrama)

5. Japanese ( So that I could watch animes without subtitle)

[petesede]

If I could instantly learn 4 other languges?   Russian and Mandarin for sure.  I think once you know English and spanish/italian/french  most of the other European languages would be fairly easy.  Italian and Spanish for instance, if you know one, learning the other is a breeze.   Chinese is so different than everything else that it will be a pain to learn.  I was in the vocabulary phase of Russian, but it didn´t seem so difficult except most website aren´t effective because of the alphabet/keyboard.

[Trellum]

Right now if I could choose (not counting my native language) I'd pick those 5:

 

1 - Dutch (because I will be moving there soon and I need to find a job there as soon as possible). 

2-  German ( work reasons). 

3 - Russian (I like the Russian culture and like the way the language sounds. 

4 - Hebrew. 

5 - French (work reasons). 

[Piccadilly]

1. German (native)

2. English (international language)

3. Thai (i speak Thai and i just love how it works)

4. Vietnamese (i am currently learning Vietnamese and it is so fun to learn)

5. Korean (i love Hangeul)
It wasnt easy to make those choices, i am interested in a lot of languages and this list could go on forever ^^

[DivaDee]

Here's my list:

1. English (Native)

2. French (Gonna move/live in France)

3. Japanese (Gonna visit the country) 

4. Chinese (Gonna visit the country)

5. Latin (just to mess with people and make them think I'm casting magic, when I'm just saying something ridiculous, also to see all of the similarities between the definitions/spellings of the native word and it's many, MANY language variants...)

[kimseokjin]

Wow, thank you actually for this fun question! I think my top 5 would have to be:

1. English (native)

2. Hainanese

3. Korean

4. Cantonese

5. Mandarin

Yes, I just listed three different Chinese dialects. 

[111kg]

First of all I would love to master English. I still have problems with certain aspects of grammar, unfortunately.

However, for the other four, I would like do learn:

1) German - because there is where I am heading once I will be a doctor.

2) Russian - because Russia is one of our neighbors and one of the most powerful countries in the world;

3) Spanish - because this language is spoken by millions of people in the whole world;

4) French - mainly for the same reason as the above.

[wolfette]

1. English. (I live in England, so this one would be necessary to live here, I think.)

2. Spanish. (My friend is Spanish so it makes communicating with him much easier. I also love Spain and hope to go soon!)

3. Italian. (I just love the language!)

4. Korean. (Again, I love the language!)

5. Polish. (I have several Polish friends and feel it could be useful to speak Polish, although they're all completely fluent in English so I've never picked up many Polish words from them)

[GingerCat]

Fun question!
 

1. English (native)

2. French (next language I know the most of)

3. Russian (I guess, only because I know a few words and phrases--had intended to learn it at one point and did not)

4. Spanish (I don't know any, except a few words, but I feel like it would probably be very useful!)

5. Irish Gaelic (Because why not?! But also because I really had my heart set on this in high school, but naturally it wasn't an option. LOL)

[blue_plume]

Five languages I would love to learn....

Italian: This language is just so rhythymic it's almost musical.

Polish:The language of my ancestors. 

Any Native American language, just to help keep it alive.

Urdu: I would love to go to India

Creole: I'm not referring to the French Creole spoken in Haiti. I'm speaking of the English patois spoken in the Caribbean by my relatives. Perhaps this is probably not an official language. Although it's based on English, it's about as understandable to me as the middle English in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

 

[宇崎ちゃん]

I already gave my 5 languages I already know.
Now I will disclose the 5 languages I'd like to learn yet:

1. Korean (not really useful, but still interesting to know).
2. Mandarin Chinese (it's becoming more and more relevant to my daily life nowadays).
3. Russian (got inspired by RT International).
4. Spanish (this would allow me to communicate with 2/3 of the world, especially with those on the western hemisphere).
5. Cantonese (to fill an important gap after learning Mandarin).

[lauraxoxo]

1) Spanish (native)

2) English (fluent)

3) French (it's so beautiful and useful in literature)

4) Italian (I love how it sounds and want to communicate with Italians)

5) Russian (I love Russian literature and want to read in this language one day)

[lingvo]

Well, besides my native language.

1. British English. It can't be helped, if you don't want to starve, you NEED this language. At least I pick british because I like their smooth way of speaking compared to the coarse american.

2. Chinese Mandarin. I would pick this over japanese, but let's face it, mandarin is more useful and you can speak with japanese people with easier languages anyway.

3. German. I love how this language's pronunciation sounds. So adamant and subtle, also many intellectual powerhouses of philosophy and music geniuses were german.

4. French. I like better german but since I'm a descendant from a migrant french family, I think I should learn this language for the sake of my roots.

5. Esperanto. This language is so logical and beautiful. You can communicate with people from different cultural origins that are willing to really speak with you for friendship and cultural exchange, not because you are a wealthy wallet with legs.

 

[Rooks57]

On December 10, 2015 at 1:43 PM, Blaveloper said:

If communication with the whole world is your biggest reason, then why Latin and Cantonese?
Latin is used by linguists only right now and Cantonese is only used in the south of China + Hong Kong and maybe Macau.

I have a feeling everyone learns French for the food.  Joking...  But I would speak English, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and French.  And most of those choices are because of food.  I live in California and I feel bad that my Spanish isn't better than it is.   I'm half Japanese and wish I had been taught it by my father so it could have also been a native language but it's not.  It's next on my list.  I want to go to France for the food, art, architecture, and fashion.  I really want to go to South Korea though and see Big Bang and a bunch of other bands live.  Plus it would be nice to watch dramas without having to wait for subtitles.  Plus, the street food looks awesome.

[LeHolic]

English

Spanish

Russian

Chinese

German

I'd like to add Italian, French and possibly others, but we're talking about 5

[VinayaSpeaks]

I speak three languages.
I am fluent in Nepali, my mother tongue
I am semi fluent in English, my working language
I am semifluent in Hindi, the language I learned from watching bollywood movies.
If I have to choose five language,I will choose aforementioned two language Nepali and English and other three languages would be Sanskrit,  French and Spanish.

[abonnen]

I would speak English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean and Arabic.  I don't know why I picked those I think they are good languages to know from every part of the world, plus I think they would be interesting to learn.