Help about which language to learn :(

Hello everybody! I live in Turkey and am going to learn languages at university next year. I'm gonna take my lessons in English to interpret between English and Turkish. But in the 21th century, as you know, two languages are not really enough. But my language learning isn't just for pleasure, but for also profession. So I need to learn more languages but I think the languages I'm gonna learn should be European languages. Nowadays, I'm thinking of Swedish-Norwegian-Danish groupe as they are said to be simpler than most of the languages in the world.But as these countries are very developed, they already speak 2-4 languages, don't they? So I'm confused about learning these languages. My language learning is a bit of earning money, so I should consider both country's development and its language's ease.

Please help me...

"I'm thinking of Swedish-Norwegian-Danish groupe as they are said to be simpler than most of the languages in the world"

If you intend to learn languages for professional purposes, learning these ones is a waste of time, imho. Scandinavian countries are becoming very angliziced and you can use English with the natives instead the local language. They will understand you perfectly.


Since your main interest is European languages, I would recommend you German because it is the lingua franca of Central Europe and the most spoken European language.

If you're young, I'd suggest learning Chinese.

If you're going to learn Chinese, you will definitely need to love the language or it will be very, very frustrating, which only makes learning harder. Even the spoken language is difficult due to the tones, and the writing system will take a LONG time to study if you intend to learn it as well.

- Kef

I also wouldn't suggest learning something from the Swedish-Norwegian-Danish group. You should learn another European language with more speakers and international stature like Spanish, French or German.

There's nothing wrong with learning a Scandinavian language... They're fairly easy (for English speakers, especially if you know German as well) and they're all closely enough related you can switch between them without much trouble, but for the most part they all speak English. I'd recommend German or French if you plan on spending most of your time in Europe, or Chinese or Japanese if you plan on being in Asia.

German and/or French is the way to go! They are both the most important countries in Europe and you already know English -- English, French, and German = the classic trio! You cannot go wrong with these three! And since you already know English German may be easier for you than French since German and English are in teh same language family.

house = Haus

mouse = Maus

hat = Hut

finger = Finger

hand = Hand

ice = Eis

water = Wasser

bring = bringen

sing = singen

cake = Kuchen

bake = backen

oven = Ofen

apple = Apfel

tea = Tee

see = sehen

mother = Mutter

father = Vater

son = Sohn

daughter = Tochter

shoe = Schuh



You see? German is the best and French is pretty. Germany is the biggest and most powerful country in Europe -- but France is also important. Choose one of these and you can't go wrong! Good luck to you -- bonne chance and viel Glück!

Seljuk,

I would imagine that with all the ethnic Turks that live in Germany nowadays, there would be a lot of people that come back to Turkey for business, family visits, etc., that speak German--a good resource for practice without leaving the country.

Is Seljuk a common name? It seems we have a lot of threads started by someone name Seljuk who wants the forum to choose a language.

There was a thread about whether or not to choose Russian, a thread about whether to choose Russian or Spanish...Of course, it is okay to ask these questions, but please let us know your decision.

<<If you're going to learn Chinese, you will definitely need to love the language or it will be very, very frustrating, which only makes learning harder.>>

Yes, it takes a lot of courage to learn this language. Learning languages that are very different culturally and linguistically is fun, but it adds a lot of burden.

Somehow, there should a balance of such diversity in your basket of languages.

Thank you all for your opinions, but I think I'll go on Spanish or Russian. I am still very confused about these languages as I see Russian very interesting but difficult. But Spanish is just a language spoken by 500 miliion, but nothing more... I would also take French and German into consideration, but I don't think they wil go further than a consideration...CONFUSED and FED UP...

"But Spanish is just a language spoken by 500 miliion, but nothing more... "

Russian can't claim even that.

Go with Spanish and/or Icelandic because they are beautiful

To study a Romance language is a better choice. Why?

For instance, if you study Spanish and a basic French (or the opposite), you can understand a lot of people. You can also study a basic Italian and Portuguese if you consider it usefool.

In short, studying a Romance language (you choose which one) and a little of the other Romance languages you can understand 1 billion people!!

Anyway, Russian, or German are also a good choice.

Spanish language is in fashion because is very spoken in all the world, but also in USA. That´s an important point.

Some States, like New York, California, Florida, Texas, or New Mexico are almost bilingual. For instance, if you want to work in USA or in an American company and you speak English and Spanish you will have any problem.