Spanish or French?

[Cain]

When I transfer to my University I'm planning on taking a foreign language each semester to try and be close to fluent before graduation. I am only considering these two right now, though I will eventually be attempting to become fluent in Spanish, French, and Italian. Though, I may drop Italian to try and learn Japanese or Mandarin some day.

Right now, however, I need to decide between Spanish and French. In the US, Spanish will be more useful especially considering the Hispanic population is rising extremely fast and it would be nice to be able to speak the unofficial language of the US. French, however, is the more International language of the two. It also sounds nicer.

I don't know much about French. I took some Spanish in high school. And I will need to learn how to roll my Rs. It's that little purring sound with your tongue. Without that ability I won't be able to say any word with a double R correctly such as perro.

What do you guys think?

[Indignant]

Spanish is easier for me.

[DoesntMatter]

I took Spanish and Italian. Spanish has been by far the most useful language for me

[Lipp]

Spanish. I don't reckon that french has all that much of an international advantage over spanish.

[doppelgaenger]

They are both Romance languages, so it doesn't matter which one you take, if you are fluent in one, you will partially understand the other. You'll also understand some Portuguese, Romanian and other Romance languages (Of course all this is assuming that you're somewhat intelligent)

It is the same thing with Germanic languages. Since I am fluent in German, I can also understand Dutch. I can also understand quite a bit of Danish, even though it's Scandinavian, it has quite a bit of German vocabulary. It's also the same with slavic. I know quite a bit of Serbian (though not fluent by any means) and I know it is very close to Russian because the vocabulary is very similar.

I recommend learning Latin first. That gives you a better understanding of many European languages, including slavic languages. It also gives you a better understanding of English. Learning Latin would make learning Spanish/French easier, or Italian.

Frankly I wouldn't recommend learning Mandarin or other Eastern languages without knowing very much about linguistics. It is very difficult and without the proper knowledge tackling it at this point when you probably don't even remember what a direct object is, probably will be very discouraging, because those languages are VERYYYYYY different.

Of course, if you just want to be a lazy **** and you really don't have a genuine interest in language, your best bet would be Spanish, especially if you're going to live in the US.

[Indignant]

They are both Romance languages, so it doesn't matter which one you take, if you are fluent in one, you will partially understand the other.

this is bullshit dop

[misombra]

dopp is right. well i only read his first line.

french and spanish are very similar. i know spanish and when i took french i breezed right through it. i had a tough time with the accent though.

so if you learn one you would very easily pick up the other.\

i'm biased toward spanish. plus i can tutor you.

[Lipp]

this is bullshit dop

*beep* Wrong.

[Gribble]

Spanish. I think with English you all ready have a solid international language.

this is bullshit dop

Er. No. He's right. They're all based on Latin.

[doppelgaenger]

Yes they teach English in the schools in Europe starting in the 5th grade. However it is still good to be able to speak foreign languages especially in the business department. Just makes things easier, and it establishes the business more strongly, because of the amount of respect.

You also have to consider many of the people in America who don't speak a word of English. There are a lot of them too. Most of them speak Spanish though, according to the demographics and stuff.

[Indignant]

Er. No. He's right. They're all based on Latin.

I meant to say that Spanish speaking people don't understand French and vice versa.

[doppelgaenger]

I meant to say that Spanish speaking people don't understand French and vice versa.

Да ли говорите руски?

If you understand any of that, then you understand what I mean. Similar vocabulary, with etymological roots in the mother language. Just like Serbian and Russian are Slavic in origin, Spanish and French are Romantic in origin... thus the languages are very similar, and if you're intelligent enough, you can partially understand the other language.

[Cain]

iplus i can tutor you.

I might like that.

[vashti]

Definitely Spanish. No one in the American working world cares if you can speak French.

[doppelgaenger]

Yeah, **** the French!