Learning FRENCH or GERMAN?
It depends on whether your focus is Europe only, or the world as a whole. Germany is obviously a larger economy than France, so it might make sense to learn German if you're focussing on Europe. However, worldwide, there are dozens of countries that have French as an official language, and dozens more that have some connection to French culture (check out the membership of La Francophonie). German on the other hand is essentially limited to Europe due to losing the colonies after WWI.
As noted above, German will be easier for you coming from Danish, another Germanic language. Your experience with English (your English is quite good, I might add) will probably also help with German, but it could also help with some French vocabulary. French will probably be harder for you in pronunciation and vocabulary, and maybe in grammar as well. But, like others, I tend to learn languages for pleasure rather than practical reasons (or a mix of the two).
Pourquoi *CHOISIR* entre l'allemand et le français ?!? Le mieux c'est encore d'apprendre les deux.
Choose French, it is just as important as German is in the EU. And French sounds more pleasant. When you speak, you don't want to sound like a barking dog.
"And French sounds more pleasant. When you speak, you don't want to sound like a barking dog."
yes, choose French if you prefer to sound like a gay like a.p.a.m.
HA HA HA Not funny, Guest. Your lame attempt at humor was unsuccessful. A comedian you're not. Do me a favor Guest, keep your day job. I still prefer French over German.
Learn French if you want to have fun learning a language. Learn German if you are especially fond of unecessary torture.
I would recommend learning German over French, especially if you are interested in great literature since the German speaking world has a lot more to offer in that field. But also concerning its usefulness, I would definitely prefer German over French, unless you are interested in developement aid somewhere in Africa.
And if you are aware of those plenty cognate words in German and English, you will notice that learning German isn't actually that hard. Furthermore, Germans don't speak very fast, so it's really easy to get a grasp of what is being said, even if you have only little knowledge of German!
I don't understand why everybody's bashing the sound of German. my opinion is that it sounds cool! and it somehow embodies this ancient flair of germanicness I adore.
In the case of French, the permanent occurence of sounds like [ʃ] and [ʒ] doesn't make it less harsh.
@Eric
That's not a suitable example to form an opinion about the sound of German. This girl is not a native speaker. Judging from her accent her mother tongue is English.
Mark Twain once said:
It takes three weeks for one to master English; and three months for one to master French.
But it would take thirty years for one to master German.
Who can tell me why Mark Twain have such a comment?
Actually, french seems easier to learn than german for an english speaker since many of the English vocab are from french (around 40%). While on the other hand, german seems to be harder for english speakers even thought they are suppose to be in the same lang family. What do you all think?
Learn the 2!
In the first one French, because you will take more pleasures there to learn it, it's more harmonious, this language is very culturally and historically significant (from this point of view there, German also), but not only, some people say that German is the language of future OK, but not as much as French, more practised in the world, and especially internationally sharply more important:
The officials language of great organizations are:
The language of the JO: French and english
UNO official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish; language working: french and english, the secretary (Bam Ki-Moon) speaks: English and French.
The postal union: french only (but invented by an american...)
The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile and Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile: French and English
Sports organizations as: FIFA, FINA: French and english
NATO: French and english
International Court of Justice: French and English
European Space Agency: French, German and English
World trade organization: French, Spanish and English
Interpol: Arabic, English, French and Spanish (but headquarters in Lyon)
And on WIKIPEDIA:
"French as a foreign language is the second most frequently taught language in the world after English"
And if you don't know any romanic language, also French can be a gate to undestand and learn another latin language as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian... (this big family regroup 700 Millions speakers! They can be inter-understandable)
For the english speakers, it's so easy to undestand french, because 60% of english words result from french and latin.