bonjour, ola ,etc etc (1 Viewer)

[meltdown]

ive come into a bit of spare time recently and i want to fill it up doing something usefull rather than staring at a wall/tv/computer screen etc. anyway id love to learn a language, i was decent enough at french to leaving cert level but obviously that has faded into memory, id also like to learn spanish, so question one would i be better off goin back to french or start a fresh and have a go at the spanish,and question two anyone got any suggestions about the best way to go about it. im sure we have some multilingual people on here, any suggestions would be much appreciated.(im not based in any of the cities by the way)

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

i'd go for the french meself, its much more glamorous although it will be no use to you in the boutiques and cafes of buenos aires

 

[Scientician 0.8]

Spanish is more useful in more countries and by alot of accounts is easy enough to pick up. Level of English in French speaking countries seems to be higher too.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

French is more widely spoken than you might imagine. look:

Countries where French is a national language:
Belgium
Benin
Burkina-Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Canada
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Democratic Republic of Congo
Djibouti
France
Gabon
Guinea
Haiti
Ivory Coast
Luxembourg
Madagascar
Mali
Monaco
Niger
Republic of Congo
Rwanda
Senegal
Seychelles
Switzerland
Togo
Vanuatu

 

[Danny_Mc]

French is more widely spoken than you might imagine. look:

Countries where French is a national language:
Belgium
Benin
Burkina-Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Canada
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Democratic Republic of Congo
Djibouti
France
Gabon
Guinea
Haiti
Ivory Coast
Luxembourg
Madagascar
Mali
Monaco
Niger
Republic of Congo
Rwanda
Senegal
Seychelles
Switzerland
Togo
Vanuatu

They speak a bit of French in 'Nam too don't they?

 

[Scientician 0.8]

Not anymore. In Haiti they speak a version of French that differs vastly from the French you'd learn in school here.

http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/worldlang.htm

French isn't in the top 10 whereas Spanish is about the number 3 most widely spoken language in the world.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

They speak a bit of French in 'Nam too don't they?

Other member states of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF): Bulgaria
Cambodia
Cape Verde
Dominica
Egypt
Equitorial Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Laos
Lebanon
Morocco
Mauritania
Mauritius
Moldova
Romania
Saint-Lucia
Sao-Tomé et Principe
Tunisia
Vietnam


i have a french speaking friend who lived in vietnam for a while and she said it was no use to here there so this second list mightnt be so useful.

 

[pissypants]

Spanish is the 2nd most spoken language in the world after Mandarin.

You can learn a lot from decent lingua-phone course (I used one called "All Talk" that was available on 16 cds from my local library). Speaking it is a lot more fun than doing book work. Having someone to speak it with is pretty important too.

 

[Scientician 0.8]

Only older folks in Viet Nam can speak it. English is very common there.

 

[Scientician 0.8]

Spanish is spoken in:

Argentina,
Bolivia,
Chile,
Colombia,
Costa Rica,
Cuba,
Dominican Republic,
Ecuador,
Equatorial Guinea,
El Salvador,
Guatemala,
Honduras,
Mexico,
Nicaragua,
Panama,
Paraguay,
Peru,
Puerto Rico,
Spain,
Uruguay,
Venezuela,
and a significant number of the populations of
Andorra,
Belize,
Gibraltar,
and the
United States.

 

[pissypants]

Only older folks in Viet Nam can speak it. English is very common there.

I was in Northern Laos years ago and you could get croissants and baguettes. Mad it was. There was something like only 4km of railroad in the country and it was put there by Napoleon.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I was in Northern Laos years ago and you could get croissants and baguettes. Mad it was. There was something like only 4km of railroad in the country and it was put there by Napoleon.

exactly. spanish is just common

 

[Scientician 0.8]

I was in Northern Laos years ago and you could get croissants and baguettes. Mad it was. There was something like only 4km of railroad in the country and it was put there by Napoleon.

Fairly impressive considering he was dead nearly 70 years when Laos became a French territory.

 

[plug]

mi propia respuesta sería... español!

reasons... spoken by LOTS of people; the grammar is very regular; pronunciation is mostly phonetic, and very also regular, with a few basic rules outlining everything; loads of good online resources; similarities (also lots of differences but whatever) with english: loads and loads and loads of cognates, (for example, 99% of english words ending in -tion can be directly converted into spanish by replacing -ción) and... if you've already done french then the idea of masculine/feminine nouns, preterite, imperfect past and subjunctive tenses probably won't be anything new.

I'm pretty rusty now but I absolutely loved learning it, and I really thought it was quite easy. and I was SHIT at foreign languages in school.

it can be hard to train the ear to native speakers (not such a problem with latin america but the spanish accents can be pretty tough) but this is probably the case with most or all languages.

I had a look at irish, but it's so mental, and I really think you need to immerse yourself, which is surprisingly hard here I think. it's too easy to rattle into english. also, it's not really very useful unfortunately. I started doing a bit of japanese for a while, which was fascinating, but that had to slip down the priority ladder for the time being.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

im half thinking of learning irish again, also thinking about russian. most likely i wont do either. i have enough french to muddle through inelegantly

 

[Scientician 0.8]

Táim ag foghlaim gaeilge arís ach Táim shite.

 

[muffin]

I've been learning Irish for the past two years...My spoken Irish is pretty dire but my written work is getting tons better.

I also recently started Japanese. Slow and steady and whatnot.

Spanish is next on the list.

 

[ernesto]

i want to learn Spanish properly and have Leavin cert German (has gone to mehness) but would love to be able to speak:
Russian, Arabic, Japanese & Dutch.

 

[adamus]

Spanish is piss easy. I can't speak it but only because I'm a lazy bastard. I went to night classes for a while & it was really straight-forward. I did French in school too but those wankers ruined it for me. Go for the Spanish. It sounds way cooler than French, it's easier and you have the added novelty of being able to use a Mexican accent.

 

[adamus]

Hi Aaron.