second langauge - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

jeza · 10-16-2005, 11:17 PM

hey guys heres my situation - i plan to travel the world quite extensivly in a year or 2. i have already been through europe for 5 weeks about 4 months ago and now im hooked. i would like to work in some parts where possible and am keen to start learning a langauge in the next few weeks. i plan to spend slighty more time in south america and spain/portugal than some other places. heres what ive brought it down to

spanish - my reason being i havnt been there before so i am planning to spend longer there than other euro countrys. it also apeals to me since you can speak in it some parts of south america.

french - simply because its more common

german - have done some basic german in high school to may be easyer

japanese - obiously the smartest choice with carrier in mind, but at the moment dont plan to spend a whole lot of time there

im thinking either french or spanish but the other 2 are a option as well, just wanna know what u guys think and which would be more useful for tring to get work over there.

thanks

**Joker** · 10-17-2005, 12:38 AM

Espanol esta muy importante en Sudo America y en America Centrale.

Hablo Espanol un pequeno, y hablo poquito Italiano.

Any of the Romance languages are good. Italian and Spanish are very similar. So much so that I get them confused all the time when speaking them. (drives my Italian teacher nuts)

As for German, I dunno, knowing certain key command phrases is a plus. Same with Japanese and French. But given the amount of the world that speaks Spanish, and if you plan on being in native-Spanish speaking countries for a while, I'd suggest that. Japanese, I hear, is very difficult to learn without being in a total-immersion format but then again, that is the best way to learn any language.

**florencia9699** · 10-17-2005, 05:54 AM

ESPAÑOL!!! ESPAÑOL!!! ESPAÑOL!!!!

HEHEHEHE

Actually did you know that we don't say español but "Castellano"? Learn it! it's your key to most countries you're planning to visit anyway and you'll love it... besides, there's nothing sexier than someone's pronunviation while learning castellano, either if you're a guy or a girl. And you'll have the lcals going ga-ga over you

Have fun!!

Y mucha suerte!!
Besos!

**worldwidemike** · 10-17-2005, 08:22 AM

I have to agree: Spanish. All of Central America, most of South America, much of the Caribbean, Spain, the Philipines, in sheer numbers of countries, you can't beat it.

Say, florencia, you mean when we stumble through our Spanish in another country, we're being sexy? Woo-hoo! Gotta sign up for that Spanish class now!!!

worldwidemike

**florencia9699** · 10-17-2005, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by worldwidemike@Oct 17 2005, 01:22 PM

Say, florencia, you mean when we stumble through our Spanish in another country, we're being sexy?*
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Ohhhh yeah!

travelguy · 10-17-2005, 09:46 AM

florencia, i assume you are from Spain?
can you please explain this castellano thing? ive heard spanish being called castellano before.

one more question, why do the spaniards pronounce the "s" almost like a "the"?
i heard somewhere that this is because of the habsburg empire. so many questions.

**weirdbeard** · 11-17-2005, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by travelguy@Oct 17 2005, 10:46 AM
florencia, i assume you are from Spain?
can you please explain this castellano thing? ive heard spanish being called castellano before.

one more question, why do the spaniards pronounce the "s" almost like a "the"?
i heard somewhere that this is because of the habsburg empire. so many questions.

[snapback]81673[/snapback]

This explains Castellano Castellano

And here's a little info on the lisp...
The Castilian language became the official language during the reign of King Alfonso X in the 1200s, where traditional Spanish became mandatory for all government documents (it's been suggested that the reason Spaniards even today use the lispy TH sound when pronouncing the /z/ is because King Alfonso had a lisp!)

happy travels! · 02-06-2006, 02:04 PM

Hello! Hola! Bonjour! Guten Tag!...and that's about all I know!

I learned french for about 12 years in school and then spent a year in the french part of Switzerland learning to speak it! It's definitely a beautiful language and spoken lots around the world so worth learning as well! If you're heading to Europe I'd suggest getting a little book with key phrases in a few languages or a travellers c.d. I had a Rick Steves' book with french, german and italian, which I thought was pretty useful, although it's never enough to learn the language just enough to say "I'm lost where is the toilet" kinda thing!

I took a German course as well while I was there and

is all I can say! It's a very difficult language to understand! but i think it's always a good idea to learn a few things in every language, I tried to practice a bit of my german when I went to Germany and Austria but they just looked at me like this

and responded in English!! However, normally the people in Europe really appreciate when you make the effort to at least learn to say "please and thank you" in their language. that's what i noticed anyway!

I think I'd like to learn Spanish as well next. Like many of you have said, once you know one romantic language it's a lot easier to learn another because there are many words that are similar and sometimes even the same! I'd like to head off to South America sometime this year, hopefully sooner than later!

cheers

**bluepea** · 10-17-2005, 10:02 AM

I'd say Spanish as well. More versatile for the areas you want to go. Also, if you learn it well enough, it shouldn't be too difficult to transcend into French from there. French is very versatile as well - spoken a lot in Western Europe, Canada and parts of Africa.

Travelguy - if you're referring to Catalan, it's another dialect in Spain, closely resembling Spanish, except "harsher."

Quote:

Catalan is a Romance language. According to the Ethnologue, its specific classification is a member of the East Iberian branch of the Ibero-Romance branch of the Gallo-Iberian branch of the Western subcomplex of the Italo-Western complex of the Romance group of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family. It shares many features with both Spanish and French, and is the language nearest to Occitan, and is often thought of as a sort of "transitory" language between the Iberian and Gallic languages when comparing the modern descendants of Latin.

Quote:

Catalan is the official language of Andorra. It is co-official in the Spanish regions of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and Valencia, and in the Sardinian city of Alghero, in Italy. It has no official status in the parts of Aragon where it is spoken, but has gained some recognition by Aragonese laws since 1990. It has no official status in the other places where it is spoken.

**omisan** · 10-17-2005, 12:25 PM

Well, being a sometime speaker of all of the above, I know that French comes in the most useful for me, but that's only because I work for a French company. Otherwise, as someone who lives in California - and travels/will travel to Europe and Latin America - Spanish is the very obvious choice. Outside of work and home, I've had to use Spanish more than any other foreign language - and that's only after having learned it this year!

**TheJake** · 11-10-2005, 01:48 AM

Did I ever mention I loathe you omid?

For me I want to finish learning Portugese then tackle spanish, italian and french before switching gears and finishing learning korean!

Florencia btw is from Argentina. A beautiful country filled with beautiful people!

**goyincognito** · 11-10-2005, 04:38 AM

Definitely go for Spanish first, then French if you have the time; if you get both under your belt you'll have most of your bases covered as far as how many countries you can communicate in :D

Plus, if you ever want to do international work, French and English are generally the main languages spoken in international agencies, and there's ALWAYS a need for Spanish.

Good luck

**TERI** · 11-10-2005, 05:45 AM

I say spanish cause thats what im trying to learn right now.

xanthuos · 11-10-2005, 06:33 AM

Practicality says that I should improve my Spanish...
But I've always loved French...it's what I studied in high school.
There's many languages I'd love to learn, though.

**MissChick** · 11-10-2005, 07:44 AM

Isn't its suppose to be easier to learn spanish, italian, and german once you know french.....I don't know either way I studied french in school but I haven't spoke it in a while so I forget most of it but I'd love to learn spanish or italian

**PlayPal** · 11-10-2005, 08:08 AM

I learned a little bit of spanish in highschool, and now that I'm living in Montreal, I'm (trying to) learn French. Knowing some spanish is definitely helping. I know that it goes both ways though, because my girlfriend, a native French speaker, picks up spanish like a damned sponge. I study it for years and am very marginal, while she can do a quick overview of it and she's off to the verbal races. Booh hoo, poor us monolingual english speakers. It seems to me that you should pick the romance language of your choice and the rest will come much more easily afterwards. One note though: Spanish is easier to learn than French in my opinion, the reason being that although both languages use gender-specific words, in Spanish there are some fairly useful rules. In French, you simply have to memorize the gender of EVERY F*CKING WORD! Tons o fun. Anyway on another note, I found it interesting that you said Japanese for the language to learn for a career. Isn't chinese the ''language of the future''? Just curious.

**voyd** · 02-06-2006, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by PlayPal@Nov 10 2005, 10:08 AM
Isn't chinese the ''language of the future''? Just curious.
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Well, I am going to China for a month this year for a crash course in Chinese - because I want to study some Chinese medicine and most of the old masters still alive today only speak Chinese. So, I think you have to be VERY SPECIFIC with what your goals are. Think about what culture you're most drawn to - or specific ambitions that require certain fluencies. Honestly, I wish I had taken Chinese in high school vs Spanish - cuz I frequent Chinese restaurants and Chinatowns more than South America. Of course, most high schools only offer Spanish or French, anyways...

Anyhow, Bush recently announced a $114 million initiative to fund the study of languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Farsi, Urdu and others. His motives are essentially that he needs future spies that can speak these languages which most Americans are currently deficient in. But hey, even if you don't plan on becoming a spy, you could still take advantage of any federal language grants!

**MeTurk** · 11-10-2005, 08:59 AM

Portugesse! just to be different. A brazilian guy told me that it's easier to understand Spainish if you know Portugesse than it is to understand Portugesse if you know Spainish, if you know what he means. I didn't.

**TheJake** · 11-10-2005, 11:52 AM

It's the same as bass and guitar.

Consider Bass to be spanish and the guitar to be portugese.

If you learn guitar first then bass comes SUPER easy. But it doesn't work the other way.

**The Monsignor** · 11-17-2005, 11:39 AM

By sheer numbers of speakers in the world, I'd go for Spanish (matter of fact, I did - but that also had something to do with my being the only freshman in my high school to have spent a night - naked - in a Mexican jail. A situation that could have been avoided had I taken the time to learn Spanish prior to my trip)

For cool languages? French comes a close second (of course, I love South American women, but French accents really get me when I hear them)