<p>Mmmm, so it looks like it all comes down to whether Spanish will be fun or not. The French language itself, however, is appealing to me now that I've examined your posts and did a bit of research. French may be more widespread in Europe aswell. Somehwere in the back of my mind, theres that true nature - a psychotic lunatic screaming at me to not care about fun, to be impartial and indifferential, and take each class as simply a learning experience. Therefore, I flip my top 2 over to French and Spanish. Pick between these two now :)</p>
<p>French!!!!!</p>
<p>It's the bomb.</p>
<p>I was just like you Chaos, my school offers those four languages and I ended up having German and Latin as my top two. I'd say if you are going to be a math major, German is an important language to learn. Caveat Emptor - it is the easiest to learn German beacuse it is most like English, but you won't learn much if you have poor teachers. Also if you want to help you grammar for the SAT, German is not the language, all three of those others are romance languages, German is not so it follows its own set of rules. Also, Latin is very helpful in learning vocabulary and science terms. If you want to learn foreign languages for business go right ahead, but if you, as I expect you are, a math guy who wants to just stay in the US, Latin for scholarship, German if you want to blow off the class.</p>
<p>Chaos, what language did you study in junior high?</p>
<p>I take French but my school only offers French and Spanish. I always wished we had German. It supposed to be easy to learn since English is derived from German. Plus, you can ALWAYS sound angry no matter what you're saying :)</p>
<p>We didn't have the option of studying a foreign language in Middle School. </p>
<p>Aah yes, German, have you seen that Simpsons episode? ;)</p>
<p>Do you have any reasons as to why you want to take any of those languages?</p>
<p>Ivy League schools have Latin words on their Univeristy Shields isn't that cool? Harvard's and Yale's are similar. Yale's is Lux et Veritas, which means light and truth. Harvard's is Veritas, which means truth. Latin is actually used in the world even though it's dead. Medical is always good with Latin ,but any other languages work if you decide to work in another country to help the homeless or just decide to live there.</p>
<p>I took both Spanish and French and I have to say that Spanish sounds a LOT better then French once you're fluent. </p>
<p>Que hora es? sounds hella better than Quelle heure est il?
Spanish pronounciation is easier too.</p>
<p>However, you should ask yourself what YOU like. Spanish is really easy and useful if you intend on having any job that requires communication.</p>
<p>Latin is VERY easy IMO. I got a year's worth of credit in just 15 days since Latin is very fast paced. I think it's also only a two year sequence at my school. I think it's also a midwives tale that Latin helps with SAT's. Hasn't helped me do jack, there are more words that have Greek roots on the SATs.</p>
<p>Finally, German is fun to learn but German speaking people are not prevalent in the U.S. It's also quite difficult and the same time very easy since there are a lot of cognates.</p>
<p>Latin is dead, end of story. I would never waste my time with that one.
German and Spanish are quite useful, although German is rather difficult with its many cases. However, English is a Germanic language, which is a good thing.
French is the one I can't speak much about; ask Alexandre, because he is a native speaker who can go on and on about the merits of the French language.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your advice.
I may look into considering Spanish as my foreign language.</p>
<p>However, I would presume French is a dominant language within Europe. Spanish, on the other hand, is dominant in Central America. Which one outweighs the other? This is the deciding factor within my search. </p>
<p>Help me out :D</p>
<p>Do you plan on traveling to Europe or doing business there? If so, take French or German. (It won't really matter.)
If otherwise, take Spanish.</p>
<p>Tough question. Anything's possible :D</p>
<p>How hard would it be to self-study Spanish? French?</p>
<p>Just in case you don't know, Portuguese is the main language in Brazil, which is basically the South American power. /the more you know</p>
<p>I don't have much (ok, any) experience in Spanish, but from what I've read about it, it's easier to pick up and learn by yourself. Also, depending on where you live you'll probably be able to find many speakers and just learn from them :P</p>
<p>Though I've never taken Latin, I'd imagine that it would expand your english vocabulary.</p>
<p>Latin, but only if your teacher is good. The texts you read towards the higher levels are incredibly rich (works of Virgil, Ovid, et al.) and the language is incredibly reqarding. I can say with certainty latin has improved my skills in almost every arena of academia.</p>
<p>I signed up for Arabic because my friend was doing it and I have this goal that has to do with speaking 5 languages fluently. Anyway, my choices were Arabic and Chinese and I asked my dad for advice when choosing and he said "there's no way you'll learn chinese, you're not smart enough". It turns out he was wrong and both are hard. I just wanted a challenge.</p>
<p>haha...chinese *is hard.</p>
<p>and I'm chinese...the shame...</p>
<p>Chinese is only hard if one attacks it using rote memorization; Kangxi invented the radical system for a reason, people.</p>
<p>you should do whatever interests you, i took french because i always thaought it sounded cool...but i kind of wish I had taken Spanish because it is used so much around the world</p>
<p>Spanish it is!</p>