Recommend me a second language to learn

[Doraneko]

(I have also posted this topic in AS to seek more opinions. If it is against the rules here, my apologies and I will lock this thread immediately)

I feel that as long as I am not learning some sort of language my brain will degenerate at a rapid speed. That is why I am planning to pick up a second language. It would be great if you have learned any of them as a second language and can share some of your insights.

Here are the languages I am considering. Courses on other languages are either inaccessible or prohibitively expensive so I am limiting myself to this list.

Korean
German
French
Spanish
Russian

I am an idiot in learning languages and I always suck at pronunciation (FYI I've been learning Mandarin for 20+ years and still cannot speak it without mistake). That is why one of my main concerns is whether the language is easily comprehensible and pronunciable. (<- is there such a word?)

Beyond that, here is my brief analysis of the listed languages having taken into account my personal circumstances:

Korean
- Easy to master for Japanese speakers due to proximity in grammatical structure
- Sufficient Korean presence in my city so I can easily watch K-drama on TV or pick up Korean books in specialized book stores
- Possible future business opportunities: I plan to start my own firm in the not-so-near future so I still have time to polish my skills to the business level
- Much cheaper to go to Korea during vacations when compared to any of the European countries

Spanish
- One of the dominant languages in the world
- Maybe relatively easier when compared to other European languages (please correct me)
- A fair degree of Portuguese comprehensibility comes as a bonus

French
- The traditional "elite" language in my city but with little practical use nowadays
- Lots of otaku and otaku-related publications in France
- A bliss to listen to French even if I have no idea what it is about
- I would love to have a museum trip in France in the future

German
- If I can proficiently speak German in front of my peers my coolness immediately increases by ten folds
- However it appears to be quite difficult to English speakers or Japanese speakers
- I dream of a pan-European trip in the future so German knowledge will surely be handy

Russian
- Obscure but not non-existent in my city, with demand for Russian-speakers exceeding supply
- Advance courses are expensive, however, due to the lack of qualified instructors

[rpapo]

Being a native English speaker, and a fluent Spanish speaker, I can easily read Portuguese. Understanding the spoken language, or speaking it, however, is quite difficult, as Portuguese has drifted far from Spanish in terms of its sounds. The exact same thing is true, to an even greater extent, with Italian and French. Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, French and Romanian are all descended from casual Latin (NOT what they teach in school, which is formal Latin), but the sounds of the spoken languages have diverged considerably.

On a business trip to Brazil (2006), everybody could understand my spoken Spanish, but I had a hard time with their spoken Portuguese. I had no trouble with signs, so I could get around easily enough. On another business trip to Italy (2008), the spoken language was even more different, but again, I had no trouble with signs. For that matter, I took a side trip over to France that time, and I had no trouble navigating there either, though French is even more difficult for me to understand in its spoken form.

Russian poses a major challenge in terms of the sounds. It has a phonetic alphabet, so theoretically learning to read their letters is no more work than learning to read Hiragana or Romaji. But oh those sounds . . .

[Doraneko]

Thanks for your input on Spanish. As easy as the pronunciation of Spanish appears to be, the rr sound scares me quite a bit. Again my intellectual deficiency in picking up and pronouncing foreign sounds is my greatest weakness in properly learning any language (save for Japanese).

I personally have a greater interest in French culture, literature and entertainment. People in the Hispanic region seems to be more interesting though and a trip in S. America seems to be great (but extremely expensive).

Russian is on the list for the relative utility factor.

Japanese is totally useless here not because it is obscure, but because the ample supply from anime/manga-loving youths far exceeds the shrinking demand by Japanese firms that are quickly moving to our cheaper neighbours.

French is also probably getting close to this stage. Although the supply of French-speakers is still significantly smaller than Japanese-speakers, it is traditionally seen as a prestigious second language after English. Therefore quite a number of people jump into the boat for vanity rather than interest or market needs. On the other hand French businesses here are very limited in number and can hardly absorb even a small portion of French learners.

Spanish is a bit uncertain. There are limited Spanish-speaking businesses, but Spanish is picking up in terms of global usage and I expect its demand here will grow in the future.

German... Well my impression is that Germans are one of the smartest peoples in the world so I assume their English level is sufficiently good for communication purposes (correct me if I'm wrong). So I am only interested in learning it for the coolness factor or maybe better understanding/appreciation of academic papers.

[jmln1]

As a native Spanish speaker, and a fluent english speaker... I cannot give any certain advice on the difficulty of learning Spanish XD
I am, however, learning German. Im about to take the first international exam, in a few month, actually. For me it was (is) really difficult. Not the pronunciation (its a couple of rules off english, not a lot of problems there) but the gramatic. Its almost as complicated as Spanish, if not more.

[rpapo]

...learning German. ...Its almost as complicated as Spanish, if not more.

With respect to the grammar, English is probably much easier than most european languages. It's the pronunciation and the spelling that kills people. English is a mongrel language, and that has resulted in both problems.

[Mystes]

I recommend personally languages such as Spanish. I do not know Korean, but it is always open to the future.

For French, I must say that learning it would take too much time.. Direct onjects link or such thing, with the plural and stuff, just as the words which have a 'gender', I do not recommend this unless you absolutely need it.

Italian seems good to me, personally, and mastering the languages you already know would be good too.

[ainsoph9]

Really, it all depends on what you are looking to accomplish. Sometimes picking languages that do not have such a wide appeal to learn can actually be a benefit. Also, whatever language you pick, your grammar in your native language is more likely to improve.

[Doraneko]

Thanks for all your input.

I recommend personally languages such as Spanish. I do not know Korean, but it is always open to the future.

For French, I must say that learning it would take too much time.. Direct onjects link or such thing, with the plural and stuff, just as the words which have a 'gender', I do not recommend this unless you absolutely need it.

Italian seems good to me, personally, and mastering the languages you already know would be good too.

French sounds like a real hassle to master... Too bad that I am genuinely interested in it . On the other hand I don't really see any pressing need for it. The country is almost on the other side of the globe.

As for the languages I know, I have been paying continuous effort to brush up my English, Japanese and Mandarin. I just feel like it is a waste if I don't take advantage of my youth and the free time I have in graduate school. It will be much more challenging to learn new languages when I have to take care of both a full-time (read: overtime) job and professional exam requirements at the same time.

Really, it all depends on what you are looking to accomplish. Sometimes picking languages that do not have such a wide appeal to learn can actually be a benefit. Also, whatever language you pick, your grammar in your native language is more likely to improve.

Which is why I included also Russian. The Russian market is clearly a niche. But within the niche demand exceeds supply. Unlike Japanese which is pretty mainstream here but supply far exceeds demand.




Anyway after considering the opinions here and in AS, I think I can simplify my analysis as follows:


Usefulness:
Korean > Russian > Spanish=French=German

Difficulty (From the easiest to the hardest);
Korean > Spanish > French > German > Russian

Personal interest
French > German > Spanish > Korean > Russian


So right now it is mainly a contest between Korean and French.

I have around two years before graduation. Within two years I am quite confident that I can polish my Korean to at least upper intermediate or even advance level, which will be helpful to my career when coupling with my English+Chinese+Japanese background. French however will take a much longer time before it can get remotely useful. I took a look at the course structure in Alliance Francaise and it seems that by regular study it will take me 2.5 years just to reach lower intermediate, which sounds very insufficient even just for the purpose of reading comics. I am not even sure if my future work will allow me to take evening French classes. After all it is not unusual for fresh graduates here to be pressured to work for horribly long hours.

On the other hand I have some clear motivators behind my French study, such as their comics, animations and movies. I have yet to find similarly interesting stuff from Korea. My poor Mandarin learning progress despite spending 20+ years on it, compared with my much more reasonable speed of acquiring business level Japanese in 2 years, shows that simplicity and economic usefulness are not the only factors that dictate my success in picking up a language. Somehow I hate every minute I spend on Mandarin struggling with the retarded tones since grade 2 and the language is clearly a chores to me. Still, I certainly don't hate Korean per se, unlike Mandarin. I just have to find something interesting to keep me go on.

Back to square one of being stuck. At least I have narrowed my list down to two options.

[ainsoph9]

For me, it would be nice to have more of a mastery of the other languages I know rather than be a "jack of all trades and master of none" that I am currently. My Spanish has kind of faded away, but I can still read it and understand it. My speaking ability is horrible relatively speaking. My Japanese is the exact opposite. My Hebrew is mostly a few phrases and words here and there for speaking; for reading, I can read it with very little comprehension, and I still need the niqqud markings (the dots and dashes above and below the letters for showing vowels) for the most part. If I ever move on past this point, I would like to pick up Korean because it is my "native" tongue. *smiles bitterly* After that, I do not know, but I think it would be fun to pick up Yiddish because I already know a little.

[Mystes]

Actually, you can manage to learn French. However, the 'Asian' accent is more noticeable in that case, while in English, it can still be a bit hidden.

[ainsoph9]

I have never had any desire to learn French, although I did learn some in junior high.

[Mystes]

I have never had any desire to learn French, although I did learn some in junior high.

To which extend? just by cuiosity.

[ainsoph9]

Only pleasantries really. I only took it for a half of a semester as part of a class called FLEX, short for "Foreign Language Exploratory." Half of the class was French and half Spanish. My teacher for that class was fluent in both languages and was working on a fourth language, I believe.

[Mystes]

I'd also work on a fourth...

[ainsoph9]

But...?