<p>French. 10char</p>
<p>too bad portuguese isn't offered anywhere.</p>
<p>^ Just learn Spanish or Italian. They all seem very close, except for a couple words and grammar rules.</p>
<p>Either French or German. French is fun to speak, but German is more practical and useful (especially in engineering).</p>
<p>I said Spanish earlier, but if you actually want to enjoy it, do Latin :] I did.</p>
<p>@rmadden15: Magical realism, yo. Besides, I think it's a lot of fun to apply my language studies.</p>
<p>Portuguese is one of the most beautiful languages on earth. I'd learn it just so I could understand bossa nova songs.</p>
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I am not denying the Spanish culture's uniqueness, but I think Roman folklore and gladiator fight are much more intesting than Spanish tales and bullfights.
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<p>Spain is a dull country. Latin America is where the real culture is at.</p>
<p>You may also want to take in consideration the teachers at your school. For example, at mine there are five spanish teachers, but only one is really competent at her job. French, on the other hand, has only one teacher and she's a great teacher.</p>
<p>I didn't take Spanish because it didn't appeal to me in terms of culture and literature. I took French for those very reasons. Interestingly, both are very similar and if you learn one you can pick up the other fairly easily. If you know both, it will take you about 5 seconds to learn Italian.</p>
<p>I would definitely study Chinese in college, I don't study it just because my school does not offer.</p>
<p>I think Spanish will be my choice even I signed up for Latin.</p>
<p>Swedish is the language I also want to learn. I will try to self study it.</p>
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Spain is a dull country.
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<p>One of the dumbest things I've ever heard, and this is coming from a germanophile.</p>
<p>Having learned Mandarin, Latin, French, Spanish, and German, here's my take:</p>
<p>1) Take Spanish. It's the most practical. I mean practical, in the sense that you will probably get a chance to use it in daily life if you at all seek out opportunities and therefore will be able to keep it up.
2) Avoid Chinese -- unless you are absolutely sure you want to commit yourself to extensive time in country. It'd be like getting a third of a PhD otherwise; you'd invest a lot of time and ultimately have little to show for it.
3) German is not practical; it is largely only spoken in Germany and Germans are by and large great at English. It is good for things like philosophy, if that's important to you.
4) French is in my opinion a nice sounding language and is fun, but again, less practical than Spanish. However, it is more widely spoken than German, particularly if you think you want to spend time in Quebec or Francophone Africa (other than France or Belgium).
5) Latin can open a lot of doors of intellectual and linguistic inquiry. You learn the interesting roots of the romance languages, something that can help you learn more romance languages. I have picked up Portuguese completely on the fly in part because I learned Latin (and French and a bit of Spanish). But do you want to learn a dead language that will impress only a few people with such classical interests, and that you'll quickly forget? Some people really get into the arcane, crossword puzzle-like solving of old texts about gladiators and pompous Roman orators.</p>
<p>All of them are valid choices, depending on your preferences. But one simple point stands out: in New York City, there are two groups of native speakers you can run into a fair amount and use to practice these languages -- those who speak Spanish and those who speak Chinese. But Spanish is a lot easier to learn, and therefore that much more practical.</p>
<p>Thanks guy. I have already made my mind. I chose to switch from Latin to Spanish.</p>
<p>Love Spanish, but Latin is the easiest of the three.</p>
<p>However, instruction in Latin is very, very important.
It will be a labor in futility if your texts or teachers are poor quality and unclear.</p>
<p>Normally, I would argue on Latin's behalf, but for the reasons above, I'd say good job on making an informed decision.</p>
<p>you think Latin is easy ? I thought the rules were complicated ?</p>
<p>French. I have to say, though, for a language spoken by 100s of millions of people, Portuguese is VERY underrepresented.</p>
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One of the dumbest things I've ever heard, and this is coming from a germanophile.
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<p>I'm Latino, fluent speaker of Spanish and I fully endorse it. </p>
<p>I dislike when only Spanish culture is referred to when discussing the Spanish language. There is so much more culture to offer in Latin America. Its dullness was in comparison to Latin America. It blows much of Europe out of the water otherwise. </p>
<p>And you read it, not heard it.</p>
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you think Latin is easy ? I thought the rules were complicated ?
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I really agree that Latin is pretty easy. The rules seem fairly straight-forward to be, but some people in several of my Latin classes have been lost beyond belief - but they were the ones not paying attention.. lol</p>
<p>Don't waste your time with Latin. I'd go with either French or Spanish, depending on which track has better teachers at your school.</p>
<p>Latin is not easy. It is much more complex than Spanish, which is also easier than French. The rules are not all that hard, but there are sooooooo many of them, and the order of the sentense does not matter, or at leats not like Spainsh and even English.</p>
<p>BeKindRewind: Well, I'm of the opinion that it's impossible to directly compare two cultures and declare one "better" than the other. If it were, I'd just be saying "German culture is better than both," but the world tends to frown on that nowadays.</p>
<p>That aside, though, do you really think it's fair to compare an entire region of separate nations to one nation in Europe, and then say the conglomerate is more varied? Of course it's going to be more varied; you mashed a whole bunch of countries together and labelled it "Latin America."</p>
<p>It might just be the region I live in, but the Spanish language is always associated with American Spanish-speaking countries, especially Mexico.</p>