<p>French is basically the language of tons of intellectual literature, which I doubt most people that take French read and german has a ton of philosophy. The point isn't what language is more useful, but what language you WANT to take. I think it's just dumb that people are criticising others on their language choice. I personally take Japanese, which I find fun. So there. BLAH!</p>
<p>Swahili and Gaelic are almost a necessity to daily life anymore. Rumor has it that Scotland is going to dominate the worlds economy in 2024.</p>
<p>rofl Justinian</p>
<p>Ireland might dominate the European economy in the near future. Seriously.</p>
<p>For me, it's only been useful when im kissing somebody. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>You people are kidding. You'll never speak good enough to do business by learning in school.</p>
<p>I agree with Orange Juice. Well at least public school anyway...</p>
<p>I asked a few highschoolers if they took a foreign language, they said yes, Spanish. I asked them to say something and all the ysaid was, "Hola!" I asked them if they could say anything else and they were like... "Not really."</p>
<p>They were juniors by the way.</p>
<p>The problem with Public school language is that the textbooks focus too much on culture rather than learning the language. For example, I read a recent Spanish 2 textbook for HS and the book probably had 75% culture learning( ie:Lets learn how to make burritos!) and 25% grammar and conversation. A recent trip to Mexico revealed that there are no fiestas, pinatas, brightly colored, frilly dresses, or huge sombreros like the PS textbooks implied. Thank golly I learn from a college textbook!</p>
<p>I think it's more important to learn conversational Spanish. Recently, our school upgraded the foreign language textbooks but they now have the history as well as the culture of spanish-speaking countries. I think my 3rd year Spanish teacher taught the best b/c she only allowed Spanish in the classroom. Otherwise, I thought it was a waste of time. When I try to think of something to say in Spanish I usually blank out. :/</p>
<p>My Spanish teacher is great too. He only allows Spanish in the classroom and he won't even respond to you unless you talk in Spanish. We write a good deal, and grammar is drilled into our heads, so it's all good.</p>
<p>I took french but i can't remember crap (i can read alittle, but that's it.. i can't pronounce anything right) so i guess it doesn't even matter. I just heard french is used more around the world and spanish more with in American continent...</p>
<p>I speak Korean, English, and a little bit of Japanese. I want to learn mandarine and Japanese (more) though...</p>
<p>I would learn Japanese if they would learn to stick with one writing system. That is why I take Mandarin Chinese-the grammar is relatively simple, the characters, although more numerous, make sense in combinations, and there are no particles.</p>
<p>Oh I agree. Why do you need 3 writing systems...? Just makes it confusing for me..(especially because I don't know chinese characters that well) And they insult koreans for not using chinese characters in our language...***.</p>
<p>I think that it is good that the Koreans use a hangul-only system; if the Japanese adopted the system, their language would far easier to learn. Chinese is easy in the traditional form-the simplified just needs to be laid to rest, since it confuses everything and disrupts the diffusion of literature.</p>
<p>Well Korean WAS created b/c the common people or whatever had so much trouble learning Chinese. So in a way, it's expected to be relatively simple... (I'm Korean btw)</p>
<p>And then again, the Chinese language was seen as prestigious because only the scholars could comprehend it from the difficulty of learning 10,000 characters. It has since been cut to 3,000.</p>
<p>kman1456:</p>
<p>Yeah, that's true...Which is why Korean was made :) and as you said, the huge number of characters has been cut down.</p>
<p>Ummm...it makes sense they have 3 systems. One is for foreign words, one is for words in Japanese taht don't have a Chinese symbol and one are the Chinese symbols. It makes it fun and interesting to learn. BTW, Japanese is harder than it looks. Japanese grammar is a ***** and people try to put Indo-European language structure to it. It doesn't work that way. </p>
<p>Japanese is more than just the grammar. I think Chinese is easier to learn. Except for tones ><</p>
<p>And then they stick random English letters in place when their already atrocious transliteration skills fail.
I prefer the simplicity of Chinese to the confusion of Japanese. And tones are easy-there are only four: the flat, the rising, the falling, and the bent (aka rising-falling).</p>
<p>ahh, j'adore francais! c'est la meilleure langue! mais, je pense beaucoup de personnes sur ce website sont cochons. hahaha, oh francais...</p>