Post: #26

(01-22-2012 04:39 AM)misterstir Wrote:  It is not worth it to learn french, take my advice. Learn spanish or Portuguese. Unless your into black girls from Africa or the carribean as virtually all young french are speaking or learning english. French is a very regional language. It is spoken in France and Belgium and a few microstates and few islands in the carribean and west and central africa.. but it will soon fall out of favour in everywhere but europe. Swahili is quickly taking over french as the african lingua franca. The french carribean islands are under pressure to learn english for obvious reasons. If french was not the official language of Canada alongside English it'd only be marginally more useful than dutch (aruba). When I traveled throughout France I had several immigrants complain to me, I should have learned English first, Why?, because all french speak English.
As far as European languages go, your better off with Spanish, Russian, and Portugese, probably in depending on what you like. Basically Spanish will make Portugese a breeze to learn from what I hear, and you can travel from Spain, andorra, portugal, brazil, argentina, mexico, etc. Russia gives you former soviet union +russia. Even which Spanish allows you to go through Italy easily. So its just the best. The next best would be German or Nordic because it gives you the ability to travel severeal european countries

My close half French Mauritian friend chilled in France for a while last year. Just because they CAN speak English, doesn't mean that they will. (Different story for Nordic and German girls). He tried to buy a magazine in Paris but the lady wouldn't sell it to him because he accidentally asked in English. Even when he switched to French (which he is fluent in) she still wouldn't do it because that's how much it pissed her off. I've heard similar stories from multiple guys. If you want to kill it in France, you need to know French. Don't believe me? Ask G.

Post: #27

I grew up bilingual (Irish & English) both completley differently languages, one Celtic, the other Germanic so learning a new language for me has never been too difficult. In school I studied French and loved it. It's a Romance language and as others have said it here, being related to Spanish, Italian and Portuguese it will open up alot of doors. Being a conniseur of everything that EE has to offer, I'm learning Russian which I'm finding not to difficult since I already have a bit of Bulgarian from my time living there.

As to which language I would recommend, it's up to each and every person individually, but if you're aiming for Latin America, well it doesn't take a genius to figure out that you will need to brush up on your Spanish and Portuguese. Learing a new language can not only be fun but a hugely rewarding and enriching cultural experience. To the monolingual English speakers here, don't go in cold. Be prepared.

Post: #28

(01-22-2012 04:39 AM)misterstir Wrote:  It is not worth it to learn french, take my advice. Learn spanish or Portuguese. Unless your into black girls from Africa or the carribean as virtually all young french are speaking or learning english. French is a very regional language. It is spoken in France and Belgium and a few microstates and few islands in the carribean and west and central africa.. but it will soon fall out of favour in everywhere but europe. Swahili is quickly taking over french as the african lingua franca. The french carribean islands are under pressure to learn english for obvious reasons. If french was not the official language of Canada alongside English it'd only be marginally more useful than dutch (aruba). When I traveled throughout France I had several immigrants complain to me, I should have learned English first, Why?, because all french speak English.
As far as European languages go, your better off with Spanish, Russian, and Portugese, probably in depending on what you like. Basically Spanish will make Portugese a breeze to learn from what I hear, and you can travel from Spain, andorra, portugal, brazil, argentina, mexico, etc. Russia gives you former soviet union +russia. Even which Spanish allows you to go through Italy easily. So its just the best. The next best would be German or Nordic because it gives you the ability to travel severeal european countries

I had a totally different experience in France. Most of people i have met in France couldnt speak english and if they did, it was very basic and it wasnt fluent enough to carry out a good conversation. Whoever is interested in gaming french women, then go learn french.

Post: #29

Quote:Romanian, for some reason, seems to be within the same language group (Romance languages), but I've never heard any of it to look for similarities

Well there're a lot of Romanian immigrants here and to my ears Romanian sounds like a weird dialect of Italian. It definitely sounds familiar sometimes but it's very difficult to catch more than a few cognates here and there when they're speaking fast.

It could be an interesting language to learn for Eastern Europe though. The grammar seems to be much easier than those crazy slavic languages and it's still used by more than 20 millions speakers in both Romania and Moldova.

Talking about romance languages, one of my Albanian friend told me that Italian was widely spoken (or at least understood) in Albania due to the fact that Italian TV shows are very popular there. I don't know to which extent it's true but it could be useful to know.

Quote:It is not worth it to learn french, take my advice. Learn spanish or Portuguese. Unless your into black girls from Africa or the carribean as virtually all young french are speaking or learning english.

The French speaking African girls have the sweetest accent you can imagine. They're very fun to be around too. By far my favourite in the French speaking world...

Madagascar has some serious hotties too... both black and asian looking...

Quote:My close half French Mauritian friend chilled in France for a while last year. Just because they CAN speak English, doesn't mean that they will. (Different story for Nordic and German girls). He tried to buy a magazine in Paris but the lady wouldn't sell it to him because he accidentally asked in English. Even when he switched to French (which he is fluent in) she still wouldn't do it because that's how much it pissed her off. I've heard similar stories from multiple guys. If you want to kill it in France, you need to know French. Don't believe me? Ask G.

Yeah, it can happen. What a retarded behaviour... I'd kill to listen to the creole accent of cute girl from Mauritius

Quote:The next best languages are one state languages spoken by a large country.
-Turkish, Farsi, Amharaic,
Followed by languages like the nordic ones.

I tend to disagree with Turkish being only useful in Turkey.

You have to add the huge native Turkish minority in Bulgaria that makes up almost 10% of the country's population. Plus Turkish will also be useful in Azerbaijan, Northern Iran and Northern Cyprus.

Post: #30

(01-22-2012 04:39 AM)misterstir Wrote:  It is not worth it to learn french, take my advice. Learn spanish or Portuguese. Unless your into black girls from Africa or the carribean as virtually all young french are speaking or learning english. French is a very regional language. It is spoken in France and Belgium and a few microstates and few islands in the carribean and west and central africa.. but it will soon fall out of favour in everywhere but europe. Swahili is quickly taking over french as the african lingua franca. The french carribean islands are under pressure to learn english for obvious reasons. If french was not the official language of Canada alongside English it'd only be marginally more useful than dutch (aruba). When I traveled throughout France I had several immigrants complain to me, I should have learned English first, Why?, because all french speak English.
As far as European languages go, your better off with Spanish, Russian, and Portugese, probably in depending on what you like. Basically Spanish will make Portugese a breeze to learn from what I hear, and you can travel from Spain, andorra, portugal, brazil, argentina, mexico, etc. Russia gives you former soviet union +russia. Even which Spanish allows you to go through Italy easily. So its just the best. The next best would be German or Nordic because it gives you the ability to travel severeal european countries

You definetly have too think where you want to go and think what would be for your best interest when you choose a new language . Your remarks about french are wrong tho . French is represented in all continent. In Africa You forget to mention all the mahgeb country in north africa . In Europe French is more important than the other language you mention . French was a language that a lot of country learned before for a second language . To go in Italy,spain,GB with French it's more easy than Portugish or spanish . France,switzerland,belgium,monaco,luxembourg all speak french in europe . Even in Romania , french have similarities with Romanian and have been learned before has a second language .

Post: #31

(01-21-2012 10:01 PM)misterstir Wrote:  Hey Neo, I also have pimsleur just started, how good where you after the part 1. Can you only speak or can you write too? after spanish and portuguese I think I'm going to try arabic in pimsleur.

I would say I was pretty good speaking and understanding the basics. Like how to get around, telling drivers where to go, ordering food etc. I got to around lesson 10 on the second course before my trip, and I was able to understand most people fine and have basic conversations.By basic I mean I was able to get my point across and understand what they were saying. As far as reading, I didn't try much besides menus and road signs most of which I understood. The thing is I also have a foundation in that I grew up speaking an Italian dialect which is very similar to formal spanish. The poster who wrote that learning Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese is like learning a subset of one language was dead on. French however I barely understand it just seems so much different.

Post: #32

(01-22-2012 12:36 PM)Alfonzo Wrote:  

(01-22-2012 04:39 AM)misterstir Wrote:  It is not worth it to learn french, take my advice. Learn spanish or Portuguese. Unless your into black girls from Africa or the carribean as virtually all young french are speaking or learning english. French is a very regional language. It is spoken in France and Belgium and a few microstates and few islands in the carribean and west and central africa.. but it will soon fall out of favour in everywhere but europe. Swahili is quickly taking over french as the african lingua franca. The french carribean islands are under pressure to learn english for obvious reasons. If french was not the official language of Canada alongside English it'd only be marginally more useful than dutch (aruba). When I traveled throughout France I had several immigrants complain to me, I should have learned English first, Why?, because all french speak English.
As far as European languages go, your better off with Spanish, Russian, and Portugese, probably in depending on what you like. Basically Spanish will make Portugese a breeze to learn from what I hear, and you can travel from Spain, andorra, portugal, brazil, argentina, mexico, etc. Russia gives you former soviet union +russia. Even which Spanish allows you to go through Italy easily. So its just the best. The next best would be German or Nordic because it gives you the ability to travel severeal european countries

You definetly have too think where you want to go and think what would be for your best interest when you choose a new language . Your remarks about french are wrong tho . French is represented in all continent. In Africa You forget to mention all the mahgeb country in north africa . In Europe French is more important than the other language you mention . French was a language that a lot of country learned before for a second language . To go in Italy,spain,GB with French it's more easy than Portugish or spanish . France,switzerland,belgium,monaco,luxembourg all speak french in europe . Even in Romania , french have similarities with Romanian and have been learned before has a second language .

French is represented in all contients you're right. But I think more posters would rather go to a large place like Brazil that has numerous cities than go to guadeloupe or french guinana or haiti. Most of you won't get into Algeria or Libya without visas anyways, so there goes your magreb plan, you have just morocco, in which case . Also French is on the way out in Algeria as the government there is promoting Arabic b/c they want to establish their own identity and distances themself from colonial past.

This is the real problem with French. It is largely a 2nd language in the important countries where it is present and in most of those large countries French is on the way out as they want to distance themselves from France. French is still useful but its useful is going to die it will be replaced by English. As of 2005, it was estimated there were as few as 70 million first language french speakers. As far as Tunisia and Morocco go, the berber movement is taking over as the new 2nd language and in Tunisia they are moving to arabicsize all the textbooks = kids will no longer be french fluent in a generation.


France was a very important empire in the past 300 years, they set up a lot of colonies and french was very important, but I think they will go the way of the dutch in that regards. German is more important in switzerland and luxembourg than french and many french 2nd language speakers are nowhere near fluent enough to have a real conversation with. The only place French will grow is in Africa and even that is questionable because these major African countries are looking to replace French with Swahili in central Africa, or Arabic in the north or English elsewhere like Rwanda as all their dealings are with the us, or chinese.

French would have been a more useful language if it was actually the first language of place in africa and the middle east like it is for spanish in the latin countries. Unfortunately it just seems to be slowly being abandoned in favour of other strong regional language like arabic, swahili, or english. I think French will stay strong in France and Quebec and Haiti (even though it may have been arguable surpassed be haitian) but thats about it.

Post: #33

(01-22-2012 04:49 AM)P Dog Wrote:  

(01-22-2012 04:39 AM)misterstir Wrote:  It is not worth it to learn french, take my advice. Learn spanish or Portuguese. Unless your into black girls from Africa or the carribean as virtually all young french are speaking or learning english. French is a very regional language. It is spoken in France and Belgium and a few microstates and few islands in the carribean and west and central africa.. but it will soon fall out of favour in everywhere but europe. Swahili is quickly taking over french as the african lingua franca. The french carribean islands are under pressure to learn english for obvious reasons. If french was not the official language of Canada alongside English it'd only be marginally more useful than dutch (aruba). When I traveled throughout France I had several immigrants complain to me, I should have learned English first, Why?, because all french speak English.
As far as European languages go, your better off with Spanish, Russian, and Portugese, probably in depending on what you like. Basically Spanish will make Portugese a breeze to learn from what I hear, and you can travel from Spain, andorra, portugal, brazil, argentina, mexico, etc. Russia gives you former soviet union +russia. Even which Spanish allows you to go through Italy easily. So its just the best. The next best would be German or Nordic because it gives you the ability to travel severeal european countries

My close half French Mauritian friend chilled in France for a while last year. Just because they CAN speak English, doesn't mean that they will. (Different story for Nordic and German girls). He tried to buy a magazine in Paris but the lady wouldn't sell it to him because he accidentally asked in English. Even when he switched to French (which he is fluent in) she still wouldn't do it because that's how much it pissed her off. I've heard similar stories from multiple guys. If you want to kill it in France, you need to know French. Don't believe me? Ask G.

I wouldn't dispute that, I had similar rude experience in Paris, where they essentially did similar shit, but this imo is restricted to Paris, and I did not experience this elsewhere. the truth is at any given time in Paris French people are the MINORITY. Thats right they have so many visitors a year that visitor/tourist often outnumber French, hence they get pissed off at all the english speaking people coming into their country asking for english service. Similar to how some may feel if everyone came into their store/business asking for things in a foreign language.

Anyhow the trick is to ask them if they speak english in french
parlez anglais si vous plait? and most of them will switch. The fact of the matter is plenty men who know no french kill it in France. French girls are at best average looking. Sure there may be a few hot ones here and there but the general consensus is they are not ugly, but not very hot either. I'd rather kill it in Spain or kill it in Brazil, or kill it in Argentina or kill it in columbia and panama than kill it french with average looking girls. Also not to mention, the french are not very accepting of someone spoken bad french and its the hardest romance language to learn, one could easily master Portuguese and Spanish and Italian before you mastered french. Not even the French master french, ever heard of dictee, the way how one sound can mean 15 different things that are all context dependent will always make it difficult to understand at best and many of the sounds are near indistinguishable to the average english speaker.

Even if you learned all the french words, your innotation would still be off and therefore technically wrong, your pronounciation would probably be accented to, and you'd have to learn all the extra liasions which are words where they blur two words together. This is part of formal french.
That means, learning -so you want go get all them apples and oranges outside - is not enough. Because spoken it will sound like "so you wan go gettall themmapplezndrangezoutside. And you have to learn that everywhere in all possible occasions and it just makes translating/learning the language a major pain, not to mention the spelling looks nothing like the sounds because of all the silent letters. Its just a pain, and even if you did learn all this it'd take too damn long and there are just not a widespread amount of french speakers like there are for other languages in typical urban/suburban areas. I live in a place that is less than 1% latino and over 10% french but I'd be hard pressed to find someone who speaks fluent french beyond grade 7 immersion level, whereas I can easily find a spanish speaker by finding a latino. And that was the real nail in the coffin to me. Why learn a language where everyone speaks it poorly as a 2nd language even after years of study therefore they won't use it with you. I can't even think of a time when I heard 2 french speakers just talking on the subway yet I see it all the time with spanish and the place I live has 10 times the french than spanish.

Even if you master french so what, it gives you no insight to any other great language. When you consider that Spanish and Italian are almost the same damn language and how close it is to portuguese then you're really learn 3 major languages.

Also French is the only language that purposely destroys English cognates. Any time an English loan becomes popular in France, they make a new french word that sounds nothing like it does in english

Post: #34

Spanish, Portugese, and Russian. If you want to learn Russian just make sure you start studying and get serious about it a year beforehand if you want to really have it as a solid tool before a stint in EE. I say this for most of the people here who are probably average-skilled language learners with above average intelligence. I'm pretty solid now, but everyday I wish I started sooner.

If it comes easy to you, you might as well learn French also. A lot of people are naturally impressed/intimidated/jealous when they find out you speak multiple languages.

Post: #35

[/b]

(01-22-2012 01:55 PM)misterstir Wrote:  

(01-22-2012 12:36 PM)Alfonzo Wrote:  

(01-22-2012 04:39 AM)misterstir Wrote:  It is not worth it to learn french, take my advice. Learn spanish or Portuguese. Unless your into black girls from Africa or the carribean as virtually all young french are speaking or learning english. French is a very regional language. It is spoken in France and Belgium and a few microstates and few islands in the carribean and west and central africa.. but it will soon fall out of favour in everywhere but europe. Swahili is quickly taking over french as the african lingua franca. The french carribean islands are under pressure to learn english for obvious reasons. If french was not the official language of Canada alongside English it'd only be marginally more useful than dutch (aruba). When I traveled throughout France I had several immigrants complain to me, I should have learned English first, Why?, because all french speak English.
As far as European languages go, your better off with Spanish, Russian, and Portugese, probably in depending on what you like. Basically Spanish will make Portugese a breeze to learn from what I hear, and you can travel from Spain, andorra, portugal, brazil, argentina, mexico, etc. Russia gives you former soviet union +russia. Even which Spanish allows you to go through Italy easily. So its just the best. The next best would be German or Nordic because it gives you the ability to travel severeal european countries

You definetly have too think where you want to go and think what would be for your best interest when you choose a new language . Your remarks about french are wrong tho . French is represented in all continent. In Africa You forget to mention all the mahgeb country in north africa . In Europe French is more important than the other language you mention . French was a language that a lot of country learned before for a second language . To go in Italy,spain,GB with French it's more easy than Portugish or spanish . France,switzerland,belgium,monaco,luxembourg all speak french in europe . Even in Romania , french have similarities with Romanian and have been learned before has a second language .

French is represented in all contients you're right. But I think more posters would rather go to a large place like Brazil that has numerous cities than go to guadeloupe or french guinana or haiti. Most of you won't get into Algeria or Libya without visas anyways, so there goes your magreb plan, you have just morocco, in which case . Also French is on the way out in Algeria as the government there is promoting Arabic b/c they want to establish their own identity and distances themself from colonial past.

This is the real problem with French. It is largely a 2nd language in the important countries where it is present and in most of those large countries French is on the way out as they want to distance themselves from France. French is still useful but its useful is going to die it will be replaced by English. As of 2005, it was estimated there were as few as 70 million first language french speakers. As far as Tunisia and Morocco go, the berber movement is taking over as the new 2nd language and in Tunisia they are moving to arabicsize all the textbooks = kids will no longer be french fluent in a generation.


France was a very important empire in the past 300 years, they set up a lot of colonies and french was very important, but I think they will go the way of the dutch in that regards. German is more important in switzerland and luxembourg than french and many french 2nd language speakers are nowhere near fluent enough to have a real conversation with. The only place French will grow is in Africa and even that is questionable because these major African countries are looking to replace French with Swahili in central Africa, or Arabic in the north or English elsewhere like Rwanda as all their dealings are with the us, or chinese.

French would have been a more useful language if it was actually the first language of place in africa and the middle east like it is for spanish in the latin countries. Unfortunately it just seems to be slowly being abandoned in favour of other strong regional language like arabic, swahili, or english. I think French will stay strong in France and Quebec and Haiti (even though it may have been arguable surpassed be haitian) but thats about it.

Like I said logicly you take the language who fit better to your aspiration . If you attent to go to Brazilia yes take Portugish and yes is one of the country who is one the way up and good place to go . But if your plan is to learn a language to go worlwide French it's a better asset . Portugish,Spanish,Italian will do nothing in Europe .Theses 3 country are in terrible shape at the moment and are isolated in their own continent . For Africa I understand your point and agreed that regional language take the edge now but French is still learned as a second language . Africa will take a more important position for the next generation and I really doubt the buisness will be done in Swahili . French and English will be a really good asset over there in my opinion .

Post: #36

Business will be done in English because most investors are foreign business people speak english including the french. There is no reason to learn a language when all its speakers speak english (hence why few learn scandinavian languages.) I'd put French in this group, some older uneducated french speak no english. It is still a good 2nd language. French isn't going to take you so far in europe either. Italy and France are about the same in size and economy. Spanish and Italian are more or less the same language. there are no other major French countries in Europe. Belgium is only half French french or something like that and the other part is separatist and non french. They also have plenty of dialects. The part of switzerland that speaks French include only one or 2 major cities the rest are all Germans. Historically France's power has been more into the industrial age than Spain's. As it was located in a triangle shaped area that spanned England, Germany, and France and the netherlands etc. where industrialization was really developed and centred around. Later on a few other countries were able to industrialize. But even by ww2, only less than 10 countries were really industrialized.

Anyhow I agree that French may be the best general language in that its on every major contient but Asia (unless you count lebanon). The problem is you're going to waste lots of time TRYING to learn french when you could easily learn Italian and Spanish and Portuguese.

Post: #37

This obviously all depends on what types of girls your targets are. If you like Latinas, obviously spanish. Portuguese is mostly spoken in Brazil yes, but also Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, and a couple other african nations and small countries. Mandarine is one of the most spoken languages but only because China has close to a third of the worlds population. You aren't gonna use it much outside of China. For me I'm really glad I learned Portuguese, Brazilian women are my favorite. My next is gonna be spanish. I obviously love latinas.

Post: #38

I'm currently teaching myself Portuguese.

I think (after spanish) it's one of the best languages to learn if you plan on living someplace in the west for the rest of your life (N. and S. America and Europe).

Simply put, Brazil is the where the party is at in 2 important ways.

1. Literally. As in it's the new Vegas, or will be soon as the american Vegas continues to go down the shitter.

2. Business. Brazil is about to explode economically, and probably has one of (if not THE) healthiest economy currently in the West.

Post: #39

If you learn one Romance language, you also learn something about the others. Being a phonetic language, many consider Spanish the easiest out of the four main languages.

You can also go Slavic if EE is your thing, but it will take you longer.

In general, it takes 3 months full-time effort to reach an intermediate level of Spanish (assuming you practice in your free time, as well). That's roughly 3x150 hours. A Germanic language would take 300 hours to reach that level, whereas a Slavic language like Russian, with a different alphabet, could take 4-5 months.

If you are NOT studying full-time, say... 3 times a week at 2 hours a pop, it will take you 450/6 = 75 weeks to reach that same level of Spanish, not factoring in the entropy factor where you simply forget your lessons because you don't practice them daily.

By far the fastest and most efficient way (in terms of achieving genuine fluency) is to live wherever it is the language you want to learn is spoken, and then to read voraciously when you get back home.

If you want to learn a non-indo European language, it will be even harder. At least 6 months to a full-year.

So it's up to you: how much time are you willing to put into it, what kind of girls you want?

For me the choice was easy: Spanish. Then I use that to get to Portuguese, and after that I've got my sights on French and Italian. The marginal effort of learning the last two will be much smaller once you're fluent in the first two. As unappealing as French women might be, other nationalities love a guy who speaks French - it just sounds more sophisticated.

Post: #40

(01-22-2012 03:00 AM)P Dog Wrote:  Cr33pin, unless you're seriously into German culture or want to live there permanently I don't see why you'd learn German. They speak English so well it's redundant. France however, is a country where you'd want to know the language. Germany? Nahh.

(01-22-2012 04:49 AM)P Dog Wrote:  My close half French Mauritian friend chilled in France for a while last year. Just because they CAN speak English, doesn't mean that they will. (Different story for Nordic and German girls). He tried to buy a magazine in Paris but the lady wouldn't sell it to him because he accidentally asked in English. Even when he switched to French (which he is fluent in) she still wouldn't do it because that's how much it pissed her off. I've heard similar stories from multiple guys. If you want to kill it in France, you need to know French. Don't believe me? Ask G.

It depends where you are (living in a major city vs third tier/small town). As a non native German speaker I agree that it's a language that you should only learn if you have some cultural interests or you plan on residing there.

Although what you bring up (in the second part I quoted) is relative to any language. This also works in reverse when your being gamed in another language (I can't tell you how many people wanted to "practice" their English skills with me when I lived out there). My experience in Germany was regardless if the locals could speak English well, if I went into the market using english I was usually met with a cold social interaction... using German landed much more receptive results.

Post: #41

(01-24-2012 11:00 PM)misterstir Wrote:  Business will be done in English because most investors are foreign business people speak english including the french. There is no reason to learn a language when all its speakers speak english (hence why few learn scandinavian languages.) I'd put French in this group, some older uneducated french speak no english. It is still a good 2nd language. French isn't going to take you so far in europe either. Italy and France are about the same in size and economy. Spanish and Italian are more or less the same language. there are no other major French countries in Europe. Belgium is only half French french or something like that and the other part is separatist and non french. They also have plenty of dialects. The part of switzerland that speaks French include only one or 2 major cities the rest are all Germans. Historically France's power has been more into the industrial age than Spain's. As it was located in a triangle shaped area that spanned England, Germany, and France and the netherlands etc. where industrialization was really developed and centred around. Later on a few other countries were able to industrialize. But even by ww2, only less than 10 countries were really industrialized.

Anyhow I agree that French may be the best general language in that its on every major contient but Asia (unless you count lebanon). The problem is you're going to waste lots of time TRYING to learn french when you could easily learn Italian and Spanish and Portuguese.

We have the same opinion in general but , your point on french in europe vs the other major latin language is wrong . France is not in good shape economicly like the majority of Europe. But they are not in the same situation as Italy . They called PIGS(Portugal,Italy,Grece,Spain) for a reason , because it's a total mess .The other part where you said , They have no other French country in Europe well I don't want to arg you but 3 city from different country who French is the main language are really important and richer than the the others (Genève,Monte Carlo and Bruxelle) .

Post: #42

I think it all depends where your interests are, like many other posters said...

You wouldn't catch me learning arabic nor hindi and with the exception of possible visits to buenos aires, barcelona, and punta del este I wouldn't really bother with spanish. HOWEVER, I'd love to spend monthly visits in paris, lyon, st tropez, monaco regions without having to worry about language issues. I've already flirted with enough russians/french to know its best that I learn them both.

This was a good discussion though as I realize I can focus more on being very fluent at russian and french since many germans have above average english. Only russian/french women have asked the sayings of many different words.

Post: #43

(01-21-2012 09:32 PM)misterstir Wrote:  It really depends what you want to do and where you want to go.
But I'd say best after English is:....
-Spanish.
-Basically, chinese is the most spoken but is limited to china. thats it. Most guys here don't want to game in China anyways. As far as America and the whole western side of the world is concernced Spanish is spoke pretty much everywhere but Canada, and the non south west border states.
-Spanish is spoken in both poor countries and rich countries over a wide geographical area
-But the reason why Spanish is the best language... It is near 100% phononetic. You can read a grammar book on Spanish like hola amigo and become fluent just by remembering the words. Can't do that with even french because of all the weird sounds like rien or words that require nasal usage. Sure you'll speak with a "gringo" accent but you'll be understood. Spanish is basically the gateway to the romance languages. As someone who went and tried to learn french first and is having a ball with how much easier spanish is. The fact of the matter that Spanish is so similar to Italian and Portuguese you are really just learning a dialect of a language that has multiple "languages"
-I've heard English is suppose to be a Germanic language, but when I look at a page of German/Dutch/Norwegian, and look at a page of spanish, despite being fluent in neither, its not even close, you see spanish just has more cognates (words that look similar in both languages with the same meaning). The words in other germanic languages have more abstract cognates as in Flugzeug = air plane; in spanish it is aeroplano.
-The next best languages to me are in no particular order
-Russian
-Arabic
-German
-swahili
-any other regional language spoken over several countries you may have an interest in.

The next best languages are one state languages spoken by a large country.
-Turkish, Farsi, Amharaic,
Followed by languages like the nordic ones.

A combo of Turkish and Russian I can see in helping in alot of FSU Central Asian Nations. I like that you threw Amharic in there. I never thought about seriously taking up, but having worked with Ethiopians for close to year a now at my job. I have picked up alot and plan on making Ethiopia the first country I visit on the continent.

Amharic is a Semitic language and if you speak Arabic you'll notice similarities between the 2:
1) Ar: Anta/Anti Am: Anta/Anchi - all mean 2nd person informal 'you' masc/fem.
2) numbers i believe are close: Am: ant, huwelet, sost, arat, amist,sedist, sabbat (like sabbath!) - I don't know Arabic well
3) reverse word order to english
4)syllabic based writing system (there are over 200 letters!)

I'm still learning but I'll keep at it. It's allowed me to build good relations and friendships with Ethiopians and slight knowledge of the language will win you brownie points with the habesha ladies
use this: "anchi bet'am konjo nesh" - you are very pretty - for starters

Post: #44

(01-22-2012 02:23 PM)Blunt Wrote:  Spanish, Portugese, and Russian. If you want to learn Russian just make sure you start studying and get serious about it a year beforehand if you want to really have it as a solid tool before a stint in EE. I say this for most of the people here who are probably average-skilled language learners with above average intelligence. I'm pretty solid now, but everyday I wish I started sooner.

If it comes easy to you, you might as well learn French also. A lot of people are naturally impressed/intimidated/jealous when they find out you speak multiple languages.

thanks for the advice on Russian, i'll have to rehone my focus on it. I'm still trying to wrap my head around amharic, turkish, and polish and tighten up my other langs. I have had a few Russians get super surprised when I spoke a couple sentences to them in Russian (is it cuz i'm black? heheh) It's a cool sounding language and I've imitated the Russian accent alot since I was kid so I get comp. on how good my pronunciation is now.

I like how you mentioned that people get "impressed/imitated/jealous". I revealed to some attractive AirFrance flight attendants that I spoke some passable French and they applauded me. I felt like "wonderbrotha" or something, heheh.

I don't learn languages to show off (I don't even list my languages on FB) I learn for the desire to connect with other people and other cultures. Good thread here!

Post: #45

(01-21-2012 09:09 PM)P Dog Wrote:  English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian. These four make the most sense for International Playboy's. Honourable mention: French.

Yeah, that's pretty much the list I am interested in. I am working a bit on Spanish, 10 years ago i did a stint in Mexico and I have Mexican family so that should help. After that Portuguese takes priority as I would love to go to Brazil, and frankly the language is my favorite sounding. I spent the day working while listening to Henri Salvador and samba tunes on Pandora. I think people are correct when they say Portuguese is the most beautiful language in the world. I would put French above Russian, because, at that point I would have already learned two romance languages and if you have French down you can go to Quebec - you essentially have the America's completely under wraps, Portgual, Spain and France. My aunt is also from France, and a French teacher, and my cousin speaks perfect French so I'd have someone to practice with.

Russian is the real wild card, and it's the only language that I'd consider learning primarily for the pussy - although I have made some good Russian friends and they are fun. I am also fascinated by Russian history. Honestly I think I'd have a blast in Russia. I just don't see myself vacationing in Russia and I don't have a desire to live there- although I'd love to visit at least once and you never know, truth is stranger than fiction. Besides, oil is to Saudi Arabia what pussy is to Ukraine & Russia.

Honestly Mandarin would make more sense than Russian, but it is extremely difficult to learn and even if you did, there is no way to ever fully integrate into Asian society as a western man. I just don't see it. It's only use is for business, but you better make sure you have business in Asia before attempting it and even if you did you had better consider moving there. It's just too much.

Post: #46

Choichoi, glad to see another language enthusiast here. I'm also going full force on Turkish thesedays, maybe we could exchange a few tips. The way they build their sentences is really mind boggling ha !

I have a lot of nice ressources for Amharic (and a handful of other less studied languages too), so if you're interested just let me know, I'll share them.

And for Russian learners (I also plan to start Russian in september actually ), here are a few links of interest :

http://www.russianmentor.net/

http://russian.dmll.cornell.edu/rdt/index.htm

http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/

http://everydayrussian.org/

And here's a complete Russian university course available for free online (covers both beginner and intermediate levels) :

http://www.russian.ucla.edu/beginnersrus...t/home.htm

http://www.russian.ucla.edu/vputi/

The Princeton Russian Course is the most comprehensive course one can find on the internet. I haven't checked the link, if it's broken I'll reupload it myself.

http://www.freelanguagecourses.com/langu...course-51/

More advanced stuff :

http://nclrc.org/webcasts/russian/index.html

http://www.feb-web.ru/index.htm

Quote:If you are NOT studying full-time, say... 3 times a week at 2 hours a pop, it will take you 450/6 = 75 weeks to reach that same level of Spanish, not factoring in the entropy factor where you simply forget your lessons because you don't practice them daily.

By far the fastest and most efficient way (in terms of achieving genuine fluency) is to live wherever it is the language you want to learn is spoken, and then to read voraciously when you get back home.

Yeah, great advice. You'll only feel at home in a given language if you're studying and using it everyday. It's not necessary to do tons and tons of grammar drills if you don't like that, the most important thing is to make the learning process as enjoyable as possible so that it never gets tedious and repetitive.

Learning a foreign lingo is basically like working out. No matter how hard you study the first few weeks/months, you better keep practicing regularly or else you'll go nowhere.

Post: #47

Good to find a thread like this: about languages....since i am also a language enthusiast among other things.....some of the resources here are great. Cool find.

Post: #48

I have studied german, french, japanese and latin.

Any language is good to learn, as it develops and reinforces the language acquisition patterns in your brain. The more you learn, the easier it gets. Plus, most languages in the world share in some degree to other languages, so, for example, if you learn spanish, you will at least understand some portuguese, or catalan, or italian, or occitane. (With various degrees of success)

If your intention is to learn for travel and girls, Id say spanish and russian are your best bets.

And if you are spending a few months in china, it wouldnt hurt to learn some phrases and common words, so at the very least you can joke around, and at best carry small talk.

Post: #49

(01-27-2012 07:36 AM)Tresor Wrote:  Choichoi, glad to see another language enthusiast here. I'm also going full force on Turkish thesedays, maybe we could exchange a few tips. The way they build their sentences is really mind boggling ha !

Likewise man. Yeah Turkish fascinates me with its agglutinative morphemes and its syntax. It's also pretty cool sounding. Lets do that. I have the Amharic 101 software on my computer - go to warez-bb and you can find it there as well.

Language and cultural knowledge are the key to building relations around the world so, I'm always glad to share. спасибо мой друг!

Post: #50

While I still put Spanish on the top of the list for any American who is aspiring to be an international player (assuming that one of the many looks of Latin women appeal to you), don't sleep on French. I learned French before I learned Spanish. While in hindsight I would have prefered to learn Spanish first, speaking French has the ability to net you a bunch of flags. In fact, I would place it third, behind English and Spanish in terms of shear flag variety.

In my first trip to Europe, I spent most of my time in Paris. One of the cool things about French colonialism is that a TON of citizens of former French colonies imigrate to France. The end result of this was that I was able to pick up Morrocan, and Guadoloupan flags(yes, I know Guadeloupe is just a region, but I still count it as a flag).

This was in addition to the French girls I banged there (already had my French flag from college). I even picked up a Singaporan flag from a married chick touring Paris alone while her husband was in meetings. She spoke perfect English (went to some American school in Singapore) but no French. If I hadn't spoken French, she would not have hung out with me.

In the Dominican Republic, I used French to game this huge titty Haitian chick. She was a bit of a butter face, but her body was amazing. The chick hardly spoke any Spanish, and ZERO English. Hell, even her French wasn't that great (Haitians speak a creole) but it was better than the other two.

I am absolutely certain that If I stayed in Paris for a couple of months that I could rack up ten more flags. I kick myself for missing out on all of those other African flags. I am considering spending a couple of months there next year for the sole purpose of racking up flags and building European business contacts.