I want to start learning a new language; ideally it should have the same qualities as a good programming language: useful (meaning that I'll actually find other people that speak it), fun to use, and not insanely difficult to learn. For perspective, I am American, so my primary language is English. I can speak conversational (read: mediocre) Spanish, and I started looking at Russian a while ago, but felt like I wouldn't ever really get to use it. Suggestions?
well i mean if you know english and spanish then the really useful ones are tough i think.<p>i like spanish, it has a nice sound and is very easy to learn if you know english(a lot of words are very similar) and grammar feels consistent and easy. my impression at least.
obv it has great use too.<p>the big economies of the future are speculated to be:
china - mandarin
india - ok english we all know
brazil - portugese, also some african countries have portugese a s alanguage
nigeria - english<p>if you dont want the tough ones(mandarin, russian) and spanish you are already learning then i dont know how big the use is but:
french, portugese, german<p>i would probably learn spanish really well instead of learning yet another one with limited use.<p>i mean knowing to speak just the basics of a language doesnt really help you with anything except when you travel.<p>but im hardly an expert on the matter.
I took Mandarin classes while working on a project in Shanghai in 2005, but made stunningly little progress and finally gave up. Then again, that might say more about me than it does about Mandarin. You definitely need a teacher, and consider focusing on the spoken language if most of your communication will be verbal.<p>Korean is useful because very few Westerners speak it. (There's a reason it's called the Hermit Kingdom). Very cool high-tech country with a too-low profile IMHO.
I speak Spanish and English (native English speaker) and was thinking of adding Chinese, until I read this: <a href="http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html</a><p>Now I'm thinking about French.