Ask HN: Best second language to learn?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3967029

by mpg33 • 14 years ago

10 16 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

English is my native language, but what would be the best/most valuable second language to learn? Also what would be the easiest language to learn for english speakers?

What are the best resources to learn languages?

damian2000• 14 years ago

It depends where you live and what you are hoping to use it for? E.g. if you do business in Asia, then Mandarin chinese would be the most valuable. Personally I like Italian/French/Spanish/Portuguese since they are reasonably easy to learn.

CPops• 14 years ago

Speaking multiple languages is a great thing, but if you already speak English, maybe you ought to consider if its worth your time if you don't have a clear goal in mind.

Do you want to learn a new language for the sake of knowledge? To travel the world? For business?

I would figure that out first and then make a choice on what to do.

inspiredworlds• 14 years ago

I'd tend to agree with CPops. If you have a reason to learn it will motivate you. If you have clients in that country or if you are intending to travel to a place, it will give you incentive to learn.

I might be a bit biased, but I'd go with Mandarin Chinese! A lot of people speak this language :)

I'm also the founder of a company called Native Tongue which creates vocabulary apps. It's one of the most simple ways to learn and fun to, so I'd invite you to try out our apps. Go to nativetongue.com and check out our mobile apps. If you have any questions, email me on hello at nativetongue dot com.

Thanks,

Matt

boolean2• 14 years ago

Spanish: It's the second most spoken language in the world. French: It's spoken officially in 33 countries, most of them in Africa which is developing fast.

tokenadult• 14 years ago

Spanish: It's the second most spoken language in the world.

[citation needed] Possibly so by number of different countries where it is official or co-official, but certainly not so by number of speakers.

Weighting aggregate number of speakers by the economic activity of the countries where those speakers predominate may be a better gauge of which languages are expedient to learn in the next few years.

boolean2• 14 years ago

You're right. It should've been "Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese."

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language

szhorvat• 14 years ago

If you choose to learn a new language, I'd suggest to do it for the joy of learning and discovering something new. The fact that you ask which one is the most valuable shows that you don't feel you need another language for any practical purpose. Don't look for the easiest or "most valuable" (whatever that might mean). Look for one you'd enjoy.

You can check out some online language learning communities such as UniLang or HowToLearnAnyLanguage for a lot of discussion on this.

andrewroycarter• 14 years ago

Exactly why I'm learning Japanese! Also, I believe it's been shown to improve other brain functions (memory) as well, so you'll get added benefits!

stevenbrianhall• 14 years ago

As far as resources for learning languages, I have been using Duolingo (http://www.duolingo.com/) to learn German over the past few months, and can't praise it highly enough.

They currently offer German, Spanish, and French (which is in beta). It's in private beta, but I recently had an influx of friends added to the site, so it seems like they're sending out invites pretty regularly.

luxpir• 14 years ago

CPops is right. What is the end goal? I found Swedish easier to learn than French; (more) simple grammar, very similar to English in many ways. Tolkien/saga-style English, at least. Ties to northern British traditional slang and place names of interest also. But I earn the majority of my living from French.

stevenbrianhall - I'm no fan of Duolingo. I wanted it to work well, but it let me down. The voice rec is a gimmick, the material doesn't seem to be able to take you very far. Also, as a translator I find the idea of relying on crowdsourced translation too great a risk.

For anyone interested in language learning techniques and startups, would you happen to know how to legally protect an audio-only teaching method? I presume it would fall under the legal area of copyright, but the technique I'm developing would be easily copied. Do I need to just bite the bullet and trust in copyright law?

I'm not normally jumpy about IP but I would like a few years to try to market this one as my own.

davesmylie• 14 years ago

It will be hard to learn a language without the motivation of needing (or wanting) it for a specific goal.

I'm currently learning spanish with the aim of it being useful when I take my family on a extended tour around south america sometime in 2014 or 2015. I don't expect to be fluent by then, but hopefully am able to learn enough to get by. (I spent time in France last year, having not made the effort to learn any french - not an experience I would recommend!)

For actual tools, I'm currently using Anki (specifically ankidroid). This is just a brute force tool for rapidly increasing vocabulary (similar to supermemo) but free. Previously I have tried Rosetta stone, but although easy, I found it to be an incredibly slow way of making progress.

Take what I say with a grain of salt though - I'm still only learning so I'm far from an expert in this area =)

korginator• 14 years ago

I'd go with Spanish or French if you want fast learning. Mandarin (Simplified) Chinese otherwise for practical reasons. Japanese and Korean are much easier to learn than Chinese if it is too tough.

davyjones• 14 years ago

Learn a non-germanic language since you already know a germanic one. Plenty to choose from: Hungarian, Japanese, Arabic, Russian, etc.

computerslol• 14 years ago

C#.

jfaucett• 14 years ago

the easiest language for english speakers to learn would have to be swedish, its very similiar and its grammar is about as simple as that of english, but there's not much value in it even if you go to sweden, since everyone speaks english. I'd say if you want a valuable language (besides english which is by far the most valuable in the world today), go with spanish for the americas, german for europe, and chinese for asia, all of these languages are very valuable and german and chinese bring with them booming economies.

tallpapab• 14 years ago

I've had a better time learning German than other languages just because my grandparents were German speakers. So as a small child I heard sounds which help my accent today. So just another of the many things to consider when making this choice. If you want to _speak_ as opposed to just read then you might look to a language others spoke around you when you were little. Even if they just had an accent.

Ask HN: Best second language to learn?

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