Spanish, French or Italian?

[Cyrup]

Hi all!

Looking for advice on what language to learn. I'm considering going overseas to Italy or Spain next year, but only for about a week, and I don't think I should make a country travel decision based on what language I know, but maybe something to keep in mind.

Key info:

• French: I have already started learning some basic French. I have an office job where my colleague is French, so I can speak French with him at least 5 days a week. I don't know if this is the best choice as I feel like a lot of French speak English anyway?
• Italian: learnt some basic stuff on Italian for 6 months way back in highschool. Have a friend in another state who speaks Italian, but we only talk about once a week
• Spanish: A colleague speaks Spanish, but her visa ends in October so I don't know how useful that would be. My friend suggested Spanish might not be very useful considering I am working in the game development industry.
• I would like to learn a language for:
  • General knowledge/intelligence/show off! (let's be honest here)
  • Possible work skills. I am a Player Support Expert, and may move up to Community Management or something higher in communications, so a widely spoken language might be useful

So yeah! Even if you would suggest another language, based on the above, no problem. I don't really think I'm keen on learning an Asian language, however. 

Thanks heaps in advance!

[linguaholic]

13 hours ago, Cyrup said:

Hi all!

Looking for advice on what language to learn. I'm considering going overseas to Italy or Spain next year, but only for about a week, and I don't think I should make a country travel decision based on what language I know, but maybe something to keep in mind.

Key info:

• French: I have already started learning some basic French. I have an office job where my colleague is French, so I can speak French with him at least 5 days a week. I don't know if this is the best choice as I feel like a lot of French speak English anyway?
• Italian: learnt some basic stuff on Italian for 6 months way back in highschool. Have a friend in another state who speaks Italian, but we only talk about once a week
• Spanish: A colleague speaks Spanish, but her visa ends in October so I don't know how useful that would be. My friend suggested Spanish might not be very useful considering I am working in the game development industry.
• I would like to learn a language for:
  • General knowledge/intelligence/show off! (let's be honest here)
  • Possible work skills. I am a Player Support Expert, and may move up to Community Management or something higher in communications, so a widely spoken language might be useful

So yeah! Even if you would suggest another language, based on the above, no problem. I don't really think I'm keen on learning an Asian language, however. 

Thanks heaps in advance!

I would go with French. It is a beautiful language, it has great literature and as your working colleague is French, you have lots of opportunities to speak it. Moreover, if you are a guy, to know French is great, as girls are absolutely are in love with it ^ (I am just mentioning this as you said that you would possibly also like to learn a language to show off a little bit haha).

[Cyrup]

11 hours ago, linguaholic said:

I would go with French. It is a beautiful language, it has great literature and as your working colleague is French, you have lots of opportunities to speak it. Moreover, if you are a guy, to know French is great, as girls are absolutely are in love with it ^ (I am just mentioning this as you said that you would possibly also like to learn a language to show off a little bit haha).

Haha I'm a girl! But thanks for the advice. After hearing that does it change your advice at all? 

I think it would be good to learn something I can speak with a colleague everyday I guess. 

[Julian]

If I had to choose only one, I would go with Spanish. Not because it's the most beautiful language, but the most important out of the bunch. Not only does the entirety of South America excluding Brazil speak it, but it's also pretty much the only language they speak. They don't really seem to care to learn English from my experience, making it even more important to learn Spanish. 

I would say Italian is the most beautiful language, but not as important as French, which is more widely spoken while still being a nice language.

[17emilyhalko]

I agree with Julian that Spanish is a very big language. I believe I've heard that Spanish is the second most spoken language (though I can be wrong), therefore I see it as more advantageous to learn Spanish. Also, once you know Spanish, it is very easy to utilize it to relate it to similar languages, such as Italian and Catalan. Once you know Spanish, you can comprehend a lot of Italian and Catalan as well.

[lushlala]

Wow, @Cyrup you have quite a decision on your hands! The poll is also very neck and neck, so that presents you with quite the dilemma. Julian sums it up how I would have addressed it, he really took the words out of my mouth. For me personally, Italian is the most beautiful language of the lot. But of course, that's subjective and the next person may think differently. In terms of userbility and the language that's likely to advance you in the work place, then definitely Spanish would be my number choice, followed by French. I'm sure you'll receive many varying answers based on each person's own biases. Of course the final decision lies entirely with you and I sure hope the responses here will help you in making your choice.

[Rooks57]

Um, if you know one, learning the others shouldn't be to much of a stretch. Since French is what you use five times a week, it's the most practical first choice to learn.  I would practice being more fluent with your French.  Once you get to a comfortable level, you can probably look into learning the other two.  I personally think Italian is pretty but I use Spanish more, so I learned Spanish.  But the structure and grammar of Spanish and Italian are very similar to French so you should pick the next one based on what interest you the most.

[sidney]

I would also agree to what has been suggested, you should just go along with Spanish, because lots of countries speak it, so it would be more useful than Italian or French, which is spoken by a lesser number of people compared to Spanish.

[Baburra]

I think it would mostly just depend on personal preference but when it comes to job opportunities I would assume there are a bit more there on the side of Spanish than any of the other language options you've mentioned since I see a lot more need for Spanish translations in general though I could be wrong. I just think that employment wise it may be a lot more sought after than french or Italian since Spanish has a wider range from what I know. 

[Cyrup]

Thanks everyone for the responses! Haha yeah, I felt a little awkward asking what language to learn at first @lushlala, (it's such an open ended question). 

I am considering doing French for the rest of the week and then maybe trying out Spanish for a little while. In the end,  yes it does come down to what I would enjoy learning the most, otherwise I will struggle to learn. I'm a bit hesitant to try Spanish as I have been learning French a little already, but I don't think I can rule it out until I've tried it!

I think I will enquire with some colleagues also as to how useful Spanish with would be in game the games development industry. 

[reverserewind]

I'd rather you pick up Spanish If you wanna be understood my many people, especially the ones from South America / USA.

However, if you wanna sound beautiful = pick up Italian. It's not as widespread as Spanish, however it's a very cool language to speak.

[lushlala]

5 hours ago, Cyrup said:

Thanks everyone for the responses! Haha yeah, I felt a little awkward asking what language to learn at first @lushlala, (it's such an open ended question). 

I am considering doing French for the rest of the week and then maybe trying out Spanish for a little while. In the end,  yes it does come down to what I would enjoy learning the most, otherwise I will struggle to learn. I'm a bit hesitant to try Spanish as I have been learning French a little already, but I don't think I can rule it out until I've tried it!

I think I will enquire with some colleagues also as to how useful Spanish with would be in game the games development industry. 

You're most welcome, Cyrup.....I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we were all more than happy to chip in  I do hope it goes some way to helping you with your decision. Something tells me whatever you do, you'll be just fine. I totally agree with carrying on with French for a while, seeing as you've already started with that. But in all honesty, you should be fine because I've heard French and Spanish have some similarities. I can't say to what degree that's true because I've never tried to learn Spanish. I have to say someone told me Italian and French were similar, but I still not that convinced. I wish you the very best of luck, whichever way you take it, I'm sure you'll soar

[djlearns]

I would go for spanish, since it is the second most spoken language in the world! So, in terms of practicality, I would say learn spanish so that you can interact with more people. Although, I would also go for Italian, because there is a lot of music and literature that is in Italian and for once, I would like to enjoy the Opera without looking at the subtitles

[宇崎ちゃん]

I would advise you to learn a bit of all 3 of them and then stick with what you love most.
In that case, you want to learn Italian, French and Spanish.
Learn the basics of all 3 of them at the same time so you get an insight on which of those you like most.
Based on that, continue with the one you liked most.

[Lingua Franca]

i think that the only person that can make that decision is you. It's all good and well saying that one language is more important or more useful then another but if you are in a classroom wishing that you had picked another language, it's going to make learning it all that much harder.

[stogian]

I would also go with Spanish because is spoken in more countries!
In addition, Spain is a great country and it would be great to visit it while you know the language! 

 

[Cyrup]

Thank you all again for the advice!

I've been trying out Spanish a little on Memrise this week, and I've found it so much easier than French haha. My friend is insisting that although Spanish is the second most spoken language, it's not as common in game development, and there's not many game development studios in South America compared to Europe (where Ubisoft is!).

I am considering just doing Spanish until my Spanish colleague's visa ends, and then continuing with French until my trip overseas (where I think I am going to visit Spain, possibly). Would that be a bad idea to do Spanish for awhile then pick it up next year - would I forget most of it?

[宇崎ちゃん]

Lol yeah, Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo of America keeps requiring me to create a French manual and stuff while I don't know any French beyond "Bonjour".
So if you ever want to make games for Nintendo platforms, French is indeed more essential than Spanish.

[AntonioCalcano]

Those three languages share a lot of similarities among them. I'm a native Spanish speaker and I also know some French. I haven't had the pleasure of learning Italian but I hope I get to it someday. I believe you should start with French if you already speak English since they're almost the same, specially vocabulary. Then you move to Spanish or Italian, it wouldn't matter, then of course finish up with the third language. I would learn all three if I were you.

[Tripeo]

1 hour ago, AntonioCalcano said:

Those three languages share a lot of similarities among them. I'm a native Spanish speaker and I also know some French. I haven't had the pleasure of learning Italian but I hope I get to it someday. I believe you should start with French if you already speak English since they're almost the same, specially vocabulary. Then you move to Spanish or Italian, it wouldn't matter, then of course finish up with the third language. I would learn all three if I were you.

I believe you. By the way, are you from Mexico? or where are you from exactly? I'm looking to get along with other Hispanic people interested on languages learning, hit me up soon.

[Mereloshn]

I would base your decision on which person in your life communicates with you the most if this is why you want to learn those languages.  Is it your French speaking colleague, your Italian speaking friend, or the Spanish speaking co-worker who will be gone very soon.  Just saying if I were you I would not choose to learn Spanish just because a lot of other people speak it.  Base your decision on which of those people is in your life the most or which language you are the most passionate about.  It sounds like you will have the most opportunity to use French. 

[Cyrup]

On 21/09/2016 at 10:42 AM, Mereloshn said:

I would base your decision on which person in your life communicates with you the most if this is why you want to learn those languages.  Is it your French speaking colleague, your Italian speaking friend, or the Spanish speaking co-worker who will be gone very soon.  Just saying if I were you I would not choose to learn Spanish just because a lot of other people speak it.  Base your decision on which of those people is in your life the most or which language you are the most passionate about.  It sounds like you will have the most opportunity to use French. 

Good point! 

I have decided to learn French for now. That's not to say I won't learn the others - i think Spanish especially would be very useful - but for now, I am more passionate about French. I've also noticed that more gaming studios are in France, as opposed to south America or Spain. It's a harder language so it might be better to also start with French before Italian or Spanish. 

 

Thanks everyone for the advice. It's all been very helpful! 

[AntonioCalcano]

The three of them are very similar so you can't go wrong if you decide to start with one over the other, just start with the one that you like the most, the one that you feel most comfortable with and from there you move on to the next one and then the last one. Since they're very similar you will find it easier when learning the second and the third.