Which language do you learn?

[Doctor Strange]

So in September, I'm about to be a freshman in high school. For a language class, there's 5 options, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Mandarin Chinese. I'm either thinking Spanish or French. So what language do you study? And in your opinion, what should I learn?

 

[Iridium Winter]

I learned English.

 

[Chronal]

I'm learning French, for many reasons. For the two classes you want to take, once you learn one of the languages the other one becomes really easy because they're based off Latin and share a lot of details. I'm not saying it will be super easy because there are some major differences but learning both won't be that hard.

 

[Jack]

My school has the same options as yours, minus Italian. This fall I'll be entering my third year of German. As for which language you choose, I would recommend doing a little bit of research about each of the languages and the countries in which each is spoken. Maybe find a piece of text written in each language and choose the one that you find most interesting or that sounds the most pleasant to your ear.

 

[Mira]

I'm currently learning French. And l hope to have a French class l can join this school year (school starts in 2 weeks). It doesn't really matter what language, you can learn the language that's more fun is all l can say. Also, I agree on @Jack 's answer.

 

[TheYESDragon]

In England, a language is compulsory (as far as I know, things are changing for younger years) from years 7-9 (ages 11-14) and the only language my school offered was French, so I took that. The first three years of French for me was pretty bad, I slowly learned but my teachers sucked and nobody really took French seriously until we got a new guy in and having taken French as a GCSE for two years, he pretty much saved the subject/language for me and at times I actually enjoyed it.

Of course, now I've dropped French as a subject but I occasionally try to speak it and I have a lot of my previous work I've done in class here at home which I like to read xP

 

[PersonSP]

So in September, I'm about to be a freshman in high school. For a language class, there's 5 options, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Mandarin Chinese. I'm either thinking Spanish or French. So what language do you study? And in your opinion, what should I learn?

My native language is Dutch, I'm fluent in English and I'm in my 6th and final year of Latin and Mandarin.

I can (with some effort) understand Afrikaans, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German. And a bit of Paresean French (all the other dialects are gibberish to me). I never took any (serious) classes in Spanish/Italian/Portuguese but since those three languages come from Latin they're fairly easy to understand. As for German; it's basically the twin of Dutch. The reason I quit learning German is the grammar, it's just way too annoying, same goes with French.

If I were you I'd definitely take on Mandarin Chinese, the grammar is extra-ordinarily easy to learn and business with China is booming. If you speak just a few words Mandarin they already treat you a whole lot more favourable so even though you won't learn it as fast as the other languages, it is definitely worth your while. You should also take on Spanish. I took only a starter course but I found that it is really easy, and again, there are a lot of native speakers. You'll find that Italian is very much like Spanish so if you speak Spanish it becomes a piece of cake to understand Italian. I'd advise strongly against French. It's a pain. (I took 3 years of obligatory courses and I learned very little.) The grammar is overwhelmingly terrible and the structure of the language makes no sense. How to say 96? Well, that would be 4x20+10+6 of course. No, I'm not kidding. To be fair: French is quite a big language which made major contributions to the English language so from a cultural perspective it's still worth the try.

 

[D4rkDragon]

Well, I've been learning French, and now I'm done with it (good thing, as I doubt you learn it the same way we do it here. Here, it was more like you have to write stuff, and more stuff)!

Also, I've learnt some Spanish (Wouldn't say I'm fairly good at it, but I can understand some), and English (seems obvious, otherwise, I wouldn't have been here, or my posts would look like something out of Google Translation), and I even tried some German two years ago (but had to drop it, as my schedule was full, so it was impossible for us to continue).

 

[Chickenfoot]

If you live in the United States, I'd recommend that you learn Spanish, because it will obviously help you out when speaking to the Hispanic community over there, but personally, I'd choose Italian. I have no idea why, I've just wanted to learn it for a while.

Personally, I've taken Arabic and like 2 days of French (I dropped out of it immediately), but I wasn't particularly good at Arabic, until I started learning by immersion (Living in Saudi Arabia, so yeah..). Now I can speak some conversational Arabic, as well as Filipino and English.

Side note: If by any chance you'd like to learn Filipino, Spanish is a really good starting point.

 

[2071]

Apparently Spanish is an important language that you have to learn at my school. It is always quite important to be bi-lingual or have more languages learned since locally where I am, there are quite a few population which speaks Spanish-only.

The language isn't that hard as long as you have basic dialogue and vocabulary down along with writing and conjugating.

 

[Jeff The Killer]

I took Spanish when I was in middle and high school I can't speak it to save my life but I can read it.

I am learning Sign Language (I can only sign colors so far)

My sibling is taking Japanese and I wanna learn that next.

 

[Rafasmeers]

Portuguese is my native language, so i learned English through gaming and i'm actually learning Spanish, a language that almost doesn't have anything to do with Portuguese, on contrary to what many persons think.

 

[PersonSP]

Portuguese is my native language, so i learned English through gaming and i'm actually learning Spanish, a language that almost doesn't have anything to do with Portuguese, on contrary to what many persons think.

Well they're certainly different (Bon dia and Buenos dias (I know, the accent but my computer seems on strike)) but both sport strong influences from Latin, so if you know a bit Latin you'll see they are alike. To me it seems like Portuguese is as close to Spanish as French, definitely related but still different. I've heard Spanish and Italian are very alike though. Also; Portugal is a great country, I'm a big fan! (Guess where I spent my previous holiday? )

 

[Vii]

I have been taking 4 years of Japanese within all my years of High School. Going into College, I am taking more Japanese classes. Reason? I would like to become a translator and Japanese was the language that interested me the most.

I would recommend for you to take a language that interests you. Don't just pick a random one, or the easiest. Pick the one that speaks to you. ^.^ ​

 

[numage]

My mother tongue is Thai but I'm fluent in English (I'm studying in a UK university). I used to take a bit of Mandarin for a year (or maybe 2 I cannot remember) in 6-7th grade but I cannot really remember anything.
I know a basic Japanese, around N5 level, the lowest level of Japanese test. I'm thinking of learning more Japanese but still don't have time to do so. I might go to study Japanese in Japan for a year after I'm leaving the UK.

 

[Mistral]

I did Spanish throughout my high school career (and a year of it in middle school). Would've liked to do Japanese instead, but the middle school didn't offer it, and it was easier for me to just continue with the Spanish. I ended up doing a year of Russian my senior year, and that was interesting. The class was basically a trainwreck, haha. Still passed it though, so I can't complain.

The language you decide to learn depends on how much effort you want to put into it though. A language like Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, or Russian has a completely different alphabet than we're used to. Spanish, German, Italian, and French use the alphabet we're all used to as English speakers. Learning an entirely new alphabet is a bit of work, and it's a lot harder to learn those languages than it would be a language that doesn't involve learning a new alphabet; at least that's how I see it.

 

[KEWYoda]

At my school you arent allowed to chose. When you start you can ask the teachers "Hey, can I do french?" And they will decide at meetings and split the year up. However I have been learning Spanish from school since 5yrs old and my mom lived in france for two yrs so now she teaches me. But, I did a taster of german and im currently looking for classes to take in it for my GCSE s

 

[Slayerpon Tatsu]

So in September, I'm about to be a freshman in high school. For a language class, there's 5 options, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Mandarin Chinese. I'm either thinking Spanish or French. So what language do you study? And in your opinion, what should I learn?

I learn Spanish and French. Spanish from my sis and French from my dad

 

[423]

I took 2 years of Spanish (and I still feel like I don't know very much about the language lol). Spanish 1 was pretty straightforward and fun. Spanish 2 was a tad more challenging with its many different verb conjugations and such, but was still enjoyable at times.

 

[Slayerpon Tatsu]

French is better now imo