Which language is more useful in Europe, German or French?

NINJA   Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:34 am GMT
Which language is more useful in Europe, German or French?
If you have to choose 2 languages to learn, will you choose them both, or only choose either of them and as well as Italian? Thanks!
Guest   Wed Dec 14, 2005 6:23 am GMT
I guess it depends on where you are planning to spend the most time (France, Germany, Italy, etc). I suppose you can't go wrong learning all three (but this may be easier said than done).
Guest   Wed Dec 14, 2005 6:38 am GMT
JApanese
NINJA   Wed Dec 14, 2005 6:40 am GMT
Never have I decided to settle my family in any of them (France, Germany, Italy). And I'm not sure which country I would spend my most time in for the future. By and large, I just want to get others' advice and know why they think it that way, and whether their opinion suits me fine.
Candy   Wed Dec 14, 2005 6:42 am GMT
I'm so sick of these endless threads on which languages are more 'useful'. It depends entirely on what you want to do and where you want to go. German has more native speakers in Europe, but French is widely spoken too. Ninja, do you have to decide which one to learn? Do you have a reason for asking this question? Because if it's only a theoretical one, I'm sorry to say it's pretty stupid.
NINJA   Wed Dec 14, 2005 6:59 am GMT
Most people, generally, have 2 motivations to learn foreign languages, one is to boost their competitive power, and another is only for their interest. Sometimes I think these 2 motivations might be contradictories. It would be a little different to choose according to different motivations.
Could you understand what I'm trying to explain? hahaha...
NINJA   Wed Dec 14, 2005 7:08 am GMT
For example, I should say, If I were working at an German company, maybe I ought to learn German, but if my favourite language, oppositely, were Italian, and what should I do? For occupation or only for my interest? It's just an hypothetical example, which can put my puzzle.
Donald   Wed Dec 14, 2005 7:58 am GMT
If you want to know what other non-native French or German European speakers prefer to learn, I would say:

1.) Europeans, on a whole, tend to be more and more bilingual or trilingual. Their "mother" tongue, whether it's the language of the State or not, the State tongue, and English. Languages such as Catalan, Basque, Occitan, Breton, Welsh. Frisian, Irish and others know a strong comeback, more in some cases than others.

3.) Very few learn a third or fourth language, which would be the case for foreigners learning French and German (and to a lesser extent Italian or other European languages, as you will see.)

4.) Once it is clear they have to spend more time than enough with two or three languages, there is a minority learning a fourth language for business or cultural purposes.

5.) In Romance-language countries French has a far greater tradition and people still prefer to learn French to German. The language group also helps.There are exceptions in touristic areas, depending on whether they receive more French and German tourists. Romance-language speakers have a harder time learning German than learning French. It's hardly surprising.

6.) In Germanic speaking countries, French also had a very strong position. It is kept (in schools, at least) in Great Britain although Spanish, and not German, is taking the place since one million Brits have a house in Spain and millions travel there every years. Some Brits will also learn Italian or even Greek, for the very same reasons.
In Scandinavian countries people tend to be perfectly bilingual in English and, to a lesser extent, German. French is only kep in cultural groups.

7.) In Slavic speaking countries, German has a much stronger position although more and more time is also spent learning English.

8.) Conclusion, I would say French and German are specially useful in French-speaking or German-speaking countries and are only "mastered" by a minority of foreign-language speakers nowadays.

9.) The reason would be people tend to go from local (regional), to state (national) to international (English). This is how things go.

10.) One last interesting question. Do the French learn German or the German learn French. They do in neighbouring frontier regions, such as Alsace, where a German dialect is often the language of the home. Many Germans in frontier areas also learn French. The same goes for neighbouring regions in Spain (Basque country and Catalonia) or for Northern Italy. It's a useful choice since the language is only a few miles away.

I have no time to edit.
NINJA   Wed Dec 14, 2005 8:13 am GMT
Donald,

Thank you very much indeed for your patient reply!

You're great...
bernard   Wed Dec 14, 2005 10:48 am GMT
in french shools, some parents tend to put their children in classes with German as first foreign language because they have the reputation to be classes with a higher level. I personally don't think it is always true, and I think it is better to shoose english as first foreign language, spanish as second and German or Italian as third.
3   Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:17 pm GMT
German or French are useless in Spain
NINJA   Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:30 pm GMT
Spanish native speakers should realize that it is extremely arrogance that has cramped your progress.
Damian in Edinburgh   Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:52 pm GMT
***It is kept (in schools, at least) in Great Britain although Spanish, and not German, is taking the place since one million Brits have a house in Spain and millions travel there every year***

Unfortunately the learning of foreign Languages in the UK appears to have taken a bit of a nosedive recently, if several reports from reputable sources are to be believed. I can't really give a valid reason for that, apart from saying that other subjects seem to be taking precedence in the study pecking order, one of them being media studies!

It's true a lot of British people (mostly elderly and retireds) have moved home to Spain for climatic reasons....but not that many are even making a basic effort to learn Spanish, the local Language for goodness sake. Sun, sand and sangria are more important, apparently. Spain and (at present) the UK are both in the EU and we can all come and go as we please between the two countries as long as we have valid passports, which the vast majority...over 85%.....of British people have. Even so, and I know this is a stupid thing to say in the overall scheme of things, I would like to see some sort of reciprocal agreement between member States of the EU whereby nationals of one country will only be granted residential status of another if a basic conversational knowledge of the prospective adopted country can be proved. Pie in the sky I know, but it would be fair.

Any Spaniards coming to live in the UK (inconceivable to leave the lovely weather behind and come to our grotty crud but there you go!) would HAVE to learn English to live here in the UK successfully. I can't ever imagine a Spaniard walking into a British store and then expect the staff to understand and respond in Spanish, in the same way as a great many Brits expect people in Continental countries to operate in English!
guest   Wed Dec 14, 2005 2:17 pm GMT
Strangers in their own land

“Una caña, por favor». “Una what...?” comes the reply. The waiter has no idea what his client has asked for, even if this is Spain and the client is speaking Spanish. In fact, the client is Spanish, but he might as well be in some foreign country, trying to make himself understood by sign language. He points to a barrel of beer, and the waiter, saying something in English that the client does not understand, pours him a glass. Welcome to the Costa del Sol, where, in many areas, the language of the locals is English, because most of the locals are English. There is no reason, as far as the waiter is concerned, why he should make the effort to learn Spanish. He now knows that his client does not speak his language, and indicates the price of the beer by pointing to coins in his hand. The money changes hands and the client leaves. The scene is repeated over and over on the Costa del Sol these days.
The bar could just as well be in Manchester, Glasgow or Liverpool, but it is in Torrox Costa, Malaga, Spain. The owner is, of course, English, and he moved to Spain to open his bar with neither the desire nor need to learn Spanish. None of his signs are in Spanish, and the menu is not given in Spanish, not even as a matter of courtesy to the host country. The owner wants it known that this is an English bar, and that anybody coming in without a knowledge of the language will have communications problems.

José Antonio Sierra, director of the Cervantes Institute in Dublin for 22 years, and now a retired Spanish teacher, has initiated legal proceedings that might end up in parliament, in his battle to have the use of Spanish at community meetings regulated. Many Spaniards have to pay to have translations made into Spanish of community documents that have been drawn up in English. “I came back to Spain two years ago, having lived in 37 different countries in the world, including France, Britain and Ireland, and discovered that there are some residential communities where Spaniards have to pay for translations to be made into Spanish of documents required by Spanish law, and that they also had to pay for satellite television dishes receiving television channels in foreign languages. I couldn’t imagine such a thing happening in England or any other country,” he says.

The same situation is familiar to Luis Moreno, who spent 16 years working in Belgium and returned to Spain to buy a house in a residential development in Marbella, in which half of the owners are English, a third are Spanish and the rest are German. “They try to have community meetings in English and then translate the proceedings into other languages, including Spanish. I refused to have anything to do with it. Now, we all pay for these translations to be made, and this could never happen anywhere else in Europe,” he says. He also makes the point that his attitude is not xenophobic. “I want to make it clear that I have lived in other countries, and worked for an international institution, and feel quite at home in other cultures. But the first thing I always did when moving to another country was to learn the customs and language of my host country. I don’t mind using other languages from time to time, but I do fear this linguistic colonialism, where we are all required to speak English if we want to live here. One cannot live in a community and not learn its language and culture,”
Yann   Wed Dec 14, 2005 2:27 pm GMT
Bernard : « I think it is better to shoose english as first foreign language, spanish as second and German or Italian as third. »

I think we should be taught a Romance language first because we could learn it faster and better than English. The kids would have a better confindence in their ability to learn foreign languages thanks to that and would thus be more motivated to learn English afterward.
Esperantists also say that Esperanto can be easily learnt in only one year, so I think we should be taught this language at school in addition to the two compulsory foreign languages.