Post: #76

(03-29-2015 08:54 AM)Cunnilinguist Wrote:  If your motivation is pussy, I seriously doubt that you're going to take language learning very seriously.

Very true. It goes deeper than that.. Like I said, I studied French in High School, so it feels like I have unfinished business with the French language, if you know what I mean.

Post: #77

(03-29-2015 06:31 PM)Atticus Wrote:  

(03-29-2015 08:54 AM)Cunnilinguist Wrote:  If your motivation is pussy, I seriously doubt that you're going to take language learning very seriously.

Very true. It goes deeper than that.. Like I said, I studied French in High School, so it feels like I have unfinished business with the French language, if you know what I mean.

Hahaha I know this feeling exactly.

Post: #78

Didn't read through the entire thread but I'll throw in my two cents.

Obviously English is the best to learn worldwide, as probably one third to half the world has a basic understanding of the language. After that is probably a tie between Russian and Spanish, based on what type of women you prefer. Do you like the Latin girls, or prefer the eastern European look? Also I will say that French is up there as well. It's a romance language that rolls off the tongue, and western girls who speak English go gaga over. They also use it throughout a few places in europe, as well as a large portion of Africa and Canada. So that's not a bad option either.

But it really depends on the type of women you wish to target. I personally feel that french is the most versatile, aside from english.

Post: #79

(03-30-2015 10:10 AM)mau man Wrote:  Didn't read through the entire thread but I'll throw in my two cents.

Obviously English is the best to learn worldwide, as probably one third to half the world has a basic understanding of the language. After that is probably a tie between Russian and Spanish, based on what type of women you prefer. Do you like the Latin girls, or prefer the eastern European look? Also I will say that French is up there as well. It's a romance language that rolls off the tongue, and western girls who speak English go gaga over. They also use it throughout a few places in europe, as well as a large portion of Africa and Canada. So that's not a bad option either.

But it really depends on the type of women you wish to target. I personally feel that french is the most versatile, aside from english.

I do like your post mau man; however, usually it is my sense that it is NOT good to start your post with "Didn't read through the entire thread but I'll throw in my two cents" - even if it is true.

Post: #80

I'd say, aside from English...
1. Spanish
2. Russian
3. Portuguese (simply for Brazil)
4. Chinese
5. Japanese
6. Polish
7. French

After that, I'd imagine if you learn a language hardly any foreigners know, it could help you a lot -- Swedish, Czeq, Serbian.

Post: #81

(01-21-2012 05:45 PM)canucktraveller Wrote:  4 most widely spoken languages;
English
Mandarin
Spanish
Russian


Since you said you love latin women it's really a no brainer to learn spanish. Spanish is a romance language and it is somewhat similar to French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian (although not usually mutually ineligible)

So maybe learning Spanish, then another romance language like french might be an option.


Russian and Mandarin are a lot more difficult to learn from english because they use a different alphabet, but either one would be useful in europe or china respectively.

The russian alphabet takes all of 2 hours to learn and the words are pretty phonetically pronounced in 99% of words. I'd say the hard part is switching from English grammar to Russian grammar. Masculine / Feminine / neutral words seem overcomplicated to me. I am really starting to appreciate how in english everything is neutral.

Can't wait til the political left tries to ban all genders from foreign languages for sexism

Post: #82

Alright so can speak spanish and english perfectly what should I pick up next?

Post: #83

^^^^^^

Chinese is a burden to learn if you want to get reach the newspaper, book reading level. I spent about 5 years going to classes and having a private tutor a few times a week.

Another issue with Chinese: once you reach a high level and can discuss economics and politics in Chinese the amount of people who you'd want to talk about those issues with is almost zero. Even worse, those people are often western educated and speak English well. They'd rather use English because they just came back from the UK, USA, Canada.

Id say if you speak Spanish, learn French or a similar language.

My goal in the next few years is to spend 1-2 years in a Spanish speaking country and get fluent in Spanish, then I'd be fluent in Chinese and Spanish. That's most of the world I could speak with.

Post: #84

Solid information, I was looking at the most spoken languages list and the next thing that follows is Hindi, Arabic and Portuguese.

I might have a go at Portuguese actually I heard people who know Spanish can pick it up quicker

Post: #85

I hate seeing this thread bumped.. I'm embarrassed about my original lack on knowledge on foreign languages... #YOLO

Post: #86

What did you end up goin with?

I'm about to begin my third language as well soon. Haven't decided which tho.

Post: #87

Basic Spanish... haven't decided on a third either... not even sure if I need a third cause South America is pretty high up on places I'd like to live. An English hasn't really let me down much at all in this last year of non stop travel.

Post: #88

Well I did some researching last night, this List of languages by native speakers is a bit inaccurate. Mandarin is at the top of the list but only because the Chinese have the largest population. Another search brought me to this List of languages by the number of countries that speak it which has English at the top of the list followed by French and then Arabic.

I might just stick with French since I took some classes back in high school and I still somewhat remember a couple of things from it.

Post: #89

I'm a native English speaker, and speak German fluently, and conversational French (learnt both in High School).

I started learning Spanish before a trip to South America, and can now get by with basic conversation.

I would not recommend learning German. Every German will speak English, and won't really mind switching (same for Scandinavia).

I loved Spanish. It's a cool language. And I love Latinas. At the end of the day, you're only ever going to learn a language properly if you actually enjoy it.

I'm planning on becoming fluent in Spanish and Portuguese (I find it to be easily the most beautiful language I've heard... plus I love Brazileiras), and then dabble in Arabic (I like Arabs).

The concern with Arabic having multiple dialects is valid, but not problematic - everybody will be able to understand Modern Standard Arabic. It will only become relevant if you become seriously fluent in a specific Arabic (e.g. Algerian), which I doubt many people here will do. Even so, you'd easily be able to game any other Arabic speaker. Newspapers, news reports on Al Jazeera etc are all in MSA as well.

Can't comment on Chinese, but I've heard it's not that hard to become conversational.

For me though, French/Spanish/Portuguese are easy to learn as a package. Then I'd chuck in Arabic because I find the cultures and language, politics and history, and women to be interesting. Plus it works well with French, and you have a large chunk of the world.

(03-31-2015 01:58 PM)Jneg Wrote:  Can't wait til the political left tries to ban all genders from foreign languages for sexism

This is so true. The only advantage of feminism.

I saw an article in Germany the other day, saying that a few universities have asked all professors to use the title 'die Professorin' (i.e. the female form) in correspondence. Disgusting.

Post: #90

Quote:Can't comment on Chinese, but I've heard it's not that hard to become conversational. 

Ive noticed that as well with a friend who started picking up chinese for shits n giggles, the speaking wasn't so hard but reading takes some serious effort.

It's a humbling experience to realize it is possible for you to basically be illiterate in some parts of the world.

Post: #91

Edit

Post: #92

(11-20-2015 12:14 AM)cascadecombo Wrote:  

Quote:Can't comment on Chinese, but I've heard it's not that hard to become conversational. 

Ive noticed that as well with a friend who started picking up chinese for shits n giggles, the speaking wasn't so hard but reading takes some serious effort.

It's a humbling experience to realize it is possible for you to basically be illiterate in some parts of the world.

The Chinese understand that their language is unreasonably difficult to learn, so they are extremely patient and accepting of foreigners who give it a go and speak with them in their language. They adore Chinese culture and are smitten by anybody who puts in an effort to learn about it. One benefit of learning rudimentary Chinese is that it is quite the foot in the door in social situations.

Post: #93

English is the best language for hitting all countries. Then the older lingua franca (in addition to German) is French, which hits almost all of Africa and a larger country in Europe.

I think its all about covering as large a base as you can in the desired market, given that you will more arduously pursue one specific group.

• Do you like asians? Hard because no language really transcends borders in Asia. English.
• Do you like latins? Spanish.
• Do you like Scandinavians? English
• Do you like Mediterranean? Tough. Having a strong latin base will help pick up French, Spanish, Italian (Romanian). Spanish.
• Do you like Middle Easterners? Farsi (Iraq).
• Do you like Eastern Europeans? Russian/English.
• Do you like Africans? French/English.
  

Now.. How MUCH do you like Middle Easterners/FSU? Because those language families will take you 2 times as long to learn as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, German, Dutch.

Post: #94

I would say the languages you want to focus on are the ones where you can travel to a lot of different countries (as opposed to raw number of speakers):

They would be:
English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic

-English, well that is a no-brainer and most Rooshv forum members already speak English.

-Spanish there are 20+ countries that speak it as a first language plus all the people in Europe that speak it as a second language e.g. you go to Italy and you might might some young women who do not speak English but do speak some Spanish as a second language.

-French well you can visit France, Quebec in Canada as well as certain countries in Africa as well as Haiti, French Guyana and a bunch of small island countries scattered across the globe. Not to mention all the people that speak French as a second language.

-Portuguese: Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, and São Tomé and Príncipe. It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea and Macau. There are also some people in Goa (in India) who speak Portuguese as a second or third language.

-Russian: it is the official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. Countries where it is not the official/native language but where they have a large number of Russian speakers include: Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, Mongolia (a popular second language), Israel (Russian Jews living in Israel). I have probably left out a few countries where there are large numbers of Russian speakers.

-Arabic speaking countries:
Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel/Palestine (the Palestinians), Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Yemen

-Persian/Farsi:
Not as useful as English, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese or Arabic but it is still somewhat useful. In Iran it is the official language, in Afghanistan they speak a dialect of Persian known as Dari and in Tajikistan they also speak a dialect of Persian (Tajik Persian). There are also estimated to be more than 9 million Tajik Persian speakers found in Uzbekistan. Also between 10 and 15% of the population of Bahrain can speak Persian (many Iranians live in Bahrain).

I would say that Hindi and Mandarin are not so useful despite the large number of native speakers. Most younger people that speak Hindi also speak English. As for Mandarin its commonly spoken in China, Singapore and Taiwan, but in Singapore most young people speak English. So its not worth learning Mandarin which is just too bloody hard just to visit China and Taiwan. Unless you want to live in China or Taiwan long-term then don't bother with Mandarin. Mandarin is obviously useful for business purposes though.

German is a popular language in Europe but its not worth learning because most people that can speak German also speak English e.g. all the Germans, Austrians, Swiss, Belgians, etc that can speak German can usually also speak English. German is a good language to learn though for international business/work purposes but not so useful for traveling.

There are a fair number of countries with significant amounts of Dutch speakers
http://www.ranker.com/list/countries-whe...d-journeys
However in most of those countries the people that speak Dutch (or a similar language such as Afrikaans) will usually also either speak English or Spanish. So for traveling purposes its not that useful a language to know.

Post: #95

I'm considering learning Greek as a third language after French.

I'm a bit of a hellenophile so I'd like to visit Greece on a regular basis. I figure I can meet English (or French) speaking girls from all over and then speak to the locals in Greek as a DHV.

What do you guys think about learning a local language so that you can impress the tourist girls that go there?

Post: #96

(07-09-2017 02:45 AM)Agrippa Wrote:  What do you guys think about learning a local language so that you can impress the tourist girls that go there?

Never learn a language to impress others. There are much either paths to impressing other people.

Learn it as a gift to yourself.

Post: #97

I started learning german a little more than 1 year ago.

German grammar is really difficult (the terminaisons of each adjectives, plural are never the same and depends on the subject). However it is always pronounced the same and as you read it which is a great advantage compared to french and english.

The hardest thing about german for me right now is getting vocabulary though because even though german grammar is really really difficult, when you speak it germans will not really care if you use an -en -er -em after your adjective or your artikle becasuse they are pronounced more or less the same when you speak fast. So getting around with basic german is easy in germany and most people will understand you and reply in german. However getting a conversation is difficult because german speak reverse french...

For exemple in french or english I would write:

Je vais au marché ce soir, quand j'aurais faim
I will go to the market tonight, when I'm hungry.

In german the sentence will not be in the same order:

Ich werde zum markt Heute Abend gehen, wenn ich Hunger haben.

Subject: Ich (I) + werde (will..the verb is always the second word, so you can actually reverse Ich and the details of the sentence)+ zum Markt Heute Abend (to the market tonight..details...can actually replace the subject before the verb)+ gehen (go... the second verb is always the last word of the sentence).

So in german, you need to listen to all the sentence when someone speaks, for it to actually make sense because the second verb is always last. While in french or english you more or less get whats important about what somebody is about to say at the beggining of the sentence and the details come after. Our brain is not programmed like that so listening to a german speaker can be a tedious exercice.

Again: the verb always has to be second: I could reverse my sentance and say:


Heute Abend werde ich zum Markt gehen (common)
or
Zum Markt werde ich Heute Abend gehen.

This is different than french or english, the subject doesn't always have to be before the verb. So you can start your sentance with the most important details to you to the less important or vice-versa..

Finally, a lot of verbs have prefixes that has to be separated from the verb, ending up at the end of the sentence. For exemple: Anmelden-to register will actually be seen as an-melden.
Ich melde zum Kurs an - I register to the class....this is the verb anmelden.

Post: #98

I'm learning Mandarin with aspirations of living in China or Taiwan for about a year. Truthfully, I would love to learn a language that is a bit more niche, but traveling wise I think it is pretty awesome. A few Chinese people I've showed it off too are really impressed by my very elementary level Chinese.

Reading is a huge barrier though, I'd be surprised if my interest in Chinese lasted long enough for me to become literate.

Post: #99

Only problem with niche languages is that you often need to know a similar but much more common language to get access to the best resources for it.

For example there is currently no English to Catalan resources on duolingo, and a general dearth of tier 1 resources. However if you speak Spanish there are many more resources available to you.

Another example might be learning some sort of middle eastern tribal language, but only after you know Farsi.

Post: #100

I speak English, Russian and French fluently and Spanish conversationally, Russian I picked up as a kid due to my mom and dad being Russian and I feel like it would be tough becoming conversational in it in a matter of a couple of years, even using it a lot in the house. I still had a private tutor for several hours a week growing up for many years. Not trying to discourage one from learning it by any means, just saying it's a very difficult one for your first attempt at learning a foreign language unless you're willing to commit to spending a considerable amount of time in some language immersion program in Russia. I also want to note many Russians speak shitty Russian adding to it's difficulties. I've been to areas in Russia where I struggled with the local dialect. I also struggle in Ukraine sometimes which is why I'm going over in October to do a 50 week language immersion program in Kiev. The whole program is $2900 usd for all 50 weeks and that includes room and board (although I will not be using the student housing which will make the full program $2,250 roughly) I'll also add the cut off for a student visa in Ukraine is age 35 but I'm sure you could get around this somehow. They have the same program for Russian as well if you're interested in learning more about it PM me I did months of research on this.

I learned French by force doing 5 years in the Foreign Legion and by the end of my first year I was conversational and I'd say fluent by the end of my 2nd year. I thought French was pretty easy and would think other people that learned it as adults would agree. Also very useful in Africa and many other European countries.

Spanish I picked up working in the service industry in Miami I'd say it's a great first 2nd language that can be picked up pretty quickly, I've thought recently into putting in the effort to become fluent but conversational has proven to be more than enough whenever I've needed it.

One thing I like about French and Spanish is they have both proven useful in a lot of ways other than in Spanish or French speaking areas. I've been to places where my English was no good but was able to communicate in Spanish or French because they are common 2nd languages a lot of people pick up in other parts of the world. I would think Italian would also fit into this box. But with a language like Spanish you have so many doors open to languages like Italian, Romanian, Portuguese ect... which become unequivocally easier to learn knowing Spanish.

I would think learning Arabic and Chinese would be pretty clutch and I'm sure would open some serious professional doors not to mention govt contracting jobs, but I'd guess like Russian they would be a very serious commitment just to get past the vocab of a toddler.

Here is a interesting article about language learning by difficulty http://aboutworldlanguages.com/language-difficulty