Tips for choosing the right language

[dragongirl]

Hi everyone!

I am posting here because I would like to learn languages. Mainly European languages. I was wondering if maybe you could give me tips on how to decide on which European language I should go for. I have personal interest in the following languages: Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Greek. But if you suggest other European languages for my consideration, I'll be happy. Please, don't post hateful comments. Thank you.

[linguaholic]

On 2/12/2019 at 9:18 PM, dragongirl said:

Hi everyone!

I am posting here because I would like to learn languages. Mainly European languages. I was wondering if maybe you could give me tips on how to decide on which European language I should go for. I have personal interest in the following languages: Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Greek. But if you suggest other European languages for my consideration, I'll be happy. Please, don't post hateful comments. Thank you.

Hey Dragongirl! First of all, I am sorry for the late answer. 

Hmm, it is really hard to suggest something here. But in general, I think it is a really good idea to choose a language that, later on, you would like to use on a regular basis...maybe at work. So in my case, I studied Japanese and Chinese. But eventually, I had to drop Japanese because I just studied Japanese out of passion, but in my professional career, there just simply was no opportunity to use Japanese. So I just focused on Chinese ( I am working in Beijing now and I use Mandarin Chinese on a regular basis).

So, you should ask yourself if you really do have some concrete plans about how this language is going to be useful for you in the future. Is it really going to have its place in your future plans or not?

In most cases, just being interested for a language is not good enough. Chances are that you will lose motivation over time, if you are studying a language just out of sheer interest. Work or maybe the intention of living in one of those countries are great motivation factors in my book. Another one could be if your husband/boyfriend has one of those languages as his/her mother tongue :=)

[yong321]

Everything "linguaholic" said. But it really depends on your personal interest. I choose languages to study 99% out of interest and 1% out of usefulness. I happen to know a big poll about what other polyglots are studying and I saved the result as follows

I happen to be studying the top few languages. Not a pure coincidence!

You listed "Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Greek" as possible languages to study. They are all good. But I heard that the Dutch people don't appreciate much if you study Dutch; they may ask "Why do you study that?"

[linguaholic]

14 hours ago, yong321 said:

Everything "linguaholic" said. But it really depends on your personal interest. I choose languages to study 99% out of interest and 1% out of usefulness. I happen to know a big poll about what other polyglots are studying and I saved the result as follows

I happen to be studying the top few languages. Not a pure coincidence!

You listed "Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Greek" as possible languages to study. They are all good. But I heard that the Dutch people don't appreciate much if you study Dutch; they may ask "Why do you study that?"

I am really surprised to see Chinese that far down tbh :=)

[yong321]

12 hours ago, linguaholic said:

I am really surprised to see Chinese that far down tbh :=)

I'm a little surprised too. But note that the poll creator has both Mandarin and Chinese. If you add the two together, Chinese will be lower than Russian but higher than Portuguese. It's still lower than what many people would expect. The reason may be that this poll is about people's free choice of languages to study, not really out of usefulness to their career or work. Secondly, the members of the Polyglots group are probably concentrated in Europe. (I'm guessing. I don't have the stats.) It makes sense for Europeans to study Europeans languages more than non-European languages.