Thread: Most valuable languages

Swedish and German are not so similar, and German is not considered a Nordic language.

I speak German and love the language. Most people think it's an ugly language based on hearing Hitler speak it (or generic German villains in movies). I happen to like it when it's not being shouted.

If you wanted to cover the most linguistic territory possible in just a few languages, I'd think something along these lines:

1. English
2. French, Spanish, or Italian (one only)
3. Japanese
4. Mandarin
5. Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish (one only)
6. Russian (or maybe Polish)

With that, you could go just about anywhere in the world.

Stay away from Finnish and Icelandic. Two of the most difficult languages on the planet!

I would put Chinese higher on the list.

1. English (Obviously... everyone speaks it)
2. Chinese/Cantonese (spoken in China, one of the fastest-developing countries in the world)
3. Spanish (spoken in Spain, most of South America and Mexico)
4. French (Spoken in France, and various ex-colonial states)
5. Russian (Russia = big important country, and it's similar to other East-European and Asian languages)

At the moment I speak English, German to an acceptable level and French to an almost acceptable level.

I didn't include German on my list because Germany's really the only place you can speak it, and it's not really similar to any other languages (maybe dutch)

Originally Posted by skysaw

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I speak German and love the language. Most people think it's an ugly language based on hearing Hitler speak it (or generic German villains in movies). I happen to like it when it's not being shouted.

I just don't like it because of the way native tongued Germans laugh. I don't know how to describe it. I guess that is a crappy reason not to like a language, but it is that way and I can't change my sturdiness.



1. English
2. French, Spanish, or Italian (one only)
3. Japanese
4. Cantonese
5. Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish (one only)
6. Russian (or maybe Polish)

I'm working on Spanish right now...I'm getting there =P

Japanese seems really hard.
I had no clue Cantonese was a widespread Asian language!
Swedish then =D I want to go to Sweden someday.
Russian is nice I guess hehe, though I don't know if I would ever want to go to Russia, isn't it really cold in the harsh sense and not the fun time kind? hehe. Also I heard Russia isn't very a very consumer oriented country.


Is there a language that most countries try to have their country's people speak? I know in southern states of the U.S. they try to put Spanish on us, and then in others they try French.

I was thinking I could try to learn lots of languages cause a linguist is always necessary to people who need translations =P

Originally Posted by Sandform

Japanese seems really hard.
I had no clue Cantonese was a widespread Asian language!

Probably not as hard as you think. Chinese is probably much harder.

Just how wide-spread is Cantonese? There's Hong-Kong Cantonese, and then what else?

Originally Posted by Lord Toaster

Just how wide-spread is Cantonese? There's Hong-Kong Cantonese, and then what else?

I just went to wiki to answer the question hehe.

70 million (2000)[1] people speak it.

Originally Posted by Lord Toaster

Just how wide-spread is Cantonese? There's Hong-Kong Cantonese, and then what else?

Actually, I mispoke on this. Mandarin would be the Chinese language of choice. I just had the two reversed in my head (never tried to learn either). Fixed in my first post.

Originally Posted by skysaw

Actually, I mispoke on this. Mandarin would be the Chinese language of choice. I just had the two reversed in my head (never tried to learn either). Fixed in my first post.

Ah Mandarin sounds cool, though I would have to learn the Americanized righting form instead of characters. That is what they use right? heh.

Originally Posted by skysaw

Actually, I mispoke on this. Mandarin would be the Chinese language of choice. I just had the two reversed in my head (never tried to learn either). Fixed in my first post.

I believe Cantonese and Mandarin are similar enough that once you speak one, you can speak the other.

But yeah, any of these Asian languages with complicated phonetics and thousands of characters would be very difficult to learn.

Originally Posted by Lord Toaster

I believe Cantonese and Mandarin are similar enough that once you speak one, you can speak the other.

But yeah, any of these Asian languages with complicated phonetics and thousands of characters would be very difficult to learn.

There is a special word for the English version of characters. I forget.

http://geography.about.com/od/cultur...0languages.htm

Here's a listing of the ten most popular languages spoken worldwide, along with the approximate number of primary or first language speakers for that language.

1. Mandarin Chinese - 882 million
2. Spanish - 325 million
3. English - 312-380 million
4. Arabic - 206-422 million
5. Hindi - 181 million
6. Portuguese - 178 million
7. Bengali - 173 million
8. Russian - 146 million
9. Japanese - 128 million
10. German - 96 million

----

The numbers vary when it comes to the total amount of people who speak a particular language, not just as their native tongue.

I guess the chinese thing isn't that suprising.

Hmm, interesting. I forgot about Arabic, and I'm surprised French isn't in that list. France by itself has a population of 60 million, and there are several countries in Africa where French would be most people's first language.

I forgot about Hindi as well, although most people in India apparently speak English as well as Hindi, so maybe not the most valuable language.

For french don't forget about the damn conuuks from Quebec.

The six official languages of the United Nations are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish; so I would say that those are the most important. If you knew all six, chances are you would be able to communicate with just about anyone you met in the entire world (barring some backwoods primitives)

I agree with Xagaria except I would replace French with Japanese, I think the only reason Japanese isnt in there is because of how the united nations was made after WW2.

What I think:

1. Mandarin Chinese
2. English
3. Spanish

In the REAL world:

1. English
2. Rashazhani
3. Aruvic

Currently I can speak English and Rashazhani fluently.

1. C
2. HTML
3. PHP
4. Assembly

Originally Posted by Pyrofan1

1. C++
2. C--
3. C
4. DarkBASIC

Fixed.

FUCK assembly.

I don't think that's possible.

Even if you really wanted to.

Originally Posted by Sandform

FUCK assembly.

QFT I hate that language!

I forgot africa...I hear French is good in Africa...but is that the overwhelming language?

No.

If you are gonna go to africa (which brings me to the question: Why the hell wud u do dat?!) you would probably want to leanr French, Swahili, and bits of the local languages.

Because there are thousands in africa.