Most often used 'second' language....?
 

Wife, 19 year old daughter and 19 year old friend are going to Europe next summer for (3) weeks. For now, they tentatively plan to do (5) days each in Munich, Rome, Paris and London....obviously branching out from each city by day. My daughter and her friend will then be staying in London an add'l (6) weeks on a study abroad program.

Is there any 'best' second language it may be worth picking up? My daughters friend is minoring in French so is more or less fluent. I'm not sure if it's worthwhile or not but my D now thinks she wants to get a Rosetta Stone program (which the military will provide her) to learn some Italian or German....any input on which may be more useful overall? Any idea how difficult either language is to pick up at leastthe basics?

This is the perennial problem for English-speakers thinking about a foreign language. Most of them are only useful in their home country, so it really depends on which country interests you most. French is also useful in Morocco, Algeria and some other north-African countries. Spanish is probably the most useful of all as it is useable throughout Latin-America.

Don't think you need it. I navigated Japan without knowledge of the language and as an illiterate (because I can't read the characters), so they're doing this for fun, not need. Every one of the cities they'll hit is a major international destination that will be fully accessible for an English speaker, even London.

And although the citizens may appreciate your efforts to learn their language, it's really not necessary to put forth a large effort for something you'll use on rare occasions; after all, the shopkeepers, waiters, random passersby, etc. that they'll talk to are folks they'll never see again.

German should be least problematic to read because English is a Germanic language. But don't speak it in France or Italy if the English doesn't work. Learning it is harder because the Germans combine concepts into really long words (just look at some military titles or street names).

Italian is like Spanish on steroids -- structurally similar but much more complex with far more contractions, articles, and pronunciation differences from English.

French is hardest of the three to learn just because of the pronunciation differences from English and the accompanying rules (so many final letters of words are silent, which doesn't comport with English where only some vowels may be silent or even Spanish and Italian where you pronounce every single letter in the word).

Living is San Diego, I know all too well how prevalent Spanish is. Not sure how useful that will be in my D's intended travels. I assume that she will travel on weekend trips while in London this summer, though I don't have any idea on where this may be? Without being any type of expert, I'm guessing Ireland and Scotland will be the easiest to get to but no foreign language should be necessary there.

As a future nurse in the US Army, she hopes to get assigned to Germany so I'm thinking she should take a shot at German but not is it's useless otherwise. I've always been under the impression that Italian and French are widely used outside of their 'home' countries?

Italian is virtually useless outside of Italy, but it's an easy language to learn. I disagree with Big Russ about its pronunciation - it has just about the simplest and most regular pronunciation of any language (there are virtually no exceptions). German is useful in a few countries, but is a complex language. Not only does it string words together, its rules regarding placement of prepositions depending on the tense of the verb they are used with are very hard to grasp for a beginner.

I wouldn't put a lot of effort into either Italian or German, except to master a few phrases to get you by as a tourist.

Another important issue is how well people in those countries can speak English. The Germans have improved a lot in the last 20 years. Most French and Italian people either can't speak, or don't like speaking, English. Knowing please and thank you in all 3 languages will certainly help.

I think it obviously intends where you plan to go. French is useful in France, and parts of Switzerland and Belgium. You wouldn't expect Italian to be used anywhere but Italy. German isn't really useful anywhere else.

You can't really speak a language at all by using a canned program for a couple weeks, but you can learn a couple phrases, of course. That isn't really speaking the language, and you can do that with a phrasebook.

I have used my French in Spain when I was talking to someone who didn't know English and my French is much better than my limited Spanish. So we conversed in French, which was interesting.

I know people who major in French in college and are not remotely fluent in it.

Overall. the most useful language across Europe is English. If the friend is already fairly fluent in French, she will be able to understand basic Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. Depending on where they are traveling I would suggest learning a language from another group. German might seem the most obvious - since the Scandinavian languages as well as Dutch are fairly closely related. However, those countries probably have the highest percentage of English speakers.

If they are planning to go to Central Europe it might make sense to study one of the slavic languages - perhaps Czech - since it will cover a whole different group of countries - and is much more difficult to intuit for a native English speaker than either romantic or germanic languages.

NYT is right, your group already speaks the most useful European language and unless there's a specific reason to learn something else, they just need to know pleasantries.

St Cirq -- my comment was pronunciation differences from English and Spanish (which also has regular pronunciations and its base sounds are closer to English) to Italian, not within Italian.

German is useful in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In every other European country, they'll generally refuse to speak German. It may also have utility in some areas of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay or Brazil, depending upon which Nazi refugees went where. Other Germanic languages (excluding English) are completely useless -- the Dutch speak Dutch, the Scandinavians speak their languages and understand each other's, and they all learn English to communicate with people from outside their countries.

Italian is useful in Italy and the two countries completely surrounded by it -- Vatican City and San Marino. It's essentially useless elsewhere and it's dying.

French is useful in France, Belgium and some of North Africa. It's useless anywhere else other than Canada. Spanish is useful in Spain, some of North Africa and from Mexico to Argentina, with a notable exception.

The most useful Slavic language is probably Russian, but Europeans in Western Europe don't speak it, Europeans in Central and Eastern Europe (other than Russia, eastern Ukraine and maybe Belarus) won't. Ask a Pole or Magyar if they speak Russian and you'll get a cold stare in return.

German actually is useful in Turkey as well.

Italy is really easy to start learning, but only useful in Italy...also spoken a little in Ethiopia and another North African country I think, but someone else will know better than me. Dead easy pronounciation...Italians think that it's really strange that in English you have to learm spellings.
I found in Sardinia, that German was almost more useful than English as a non Italian language. A lot of Dutch people speak German, but nearly all speak English, often better than native English speakers.

German is useful in countries where a lot of Germans go on vacations: Croatia, most of Central and Eastern Europe (esp among the older people; younger people prefer English), Turkey, Greece, parts of Italy (esp on the Adriatic and of course South Tyrol). I found German quite useful in Hungary, where the local language is all but inaccessible.

For a few days for utilitarian reasons I agree with some above that it would be a waste of time and money to try to learn French or German - the two most used languages I believe simply because Austria and Switzerland and bits of Belgium and France use German as their daily language and Belgium and some Swiss use French.

But with English you will never have to rely on German or French, even in Germany or France IMO

Now in Britain you may well have some trouble understanding the local dialects and may have to resort to say French as a common tongue!

In tourist settings, you'll be surprised at how many languages are understood by servers. But I agree, English is fine. In Italy and France I made myself known with a salad of English, French Italian and hand signs! All part of the fun unless the wait person is extremely busy.

I always suggest that people learn "hello, goodbye, please and thank you" in their host countries. It's just a nicety.

We found that fewer people in German spoke English than in France, for what that's worth. I would definitely get to work on the German.

In big cities...you'll be o.k. with English ( learning greetings , "thank you', etc. does not hurt).

When we were in Munich, we always looked for someone YOUNG to get information in English.

Given the smaller size of most European countries, most Europeans elementary school kids learn a 2nd and even a 34d language very early. So a Dutch kid, a German kid, a Danish kid will choose a language very early. Guess what language the vast majority of them choose? That is why so many people throughout Europe do speak English, of course in rural areas you can't count on it or if you get on a tram in Copenhagen, you can't count on the tram driver being able to speak English (although I must admit it was very very rare in the Netherlands to find anybody who didn't speak English fluently, I'm sure such people exit, I just couldn't find thenm)....the US military, of course, was very prevelent in Germany for along while and that was an impetus among other reasons for the study of English in Western Germany. Italians, seem to be less willing to pick up additional language (a gross generalization I know but that's just the way it seems).....

Now of all this, I must say that about 5 years ago I did a coach tour of many of the former Soviet satelite countries. Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic. What was shocking to me is how prevelent English had become as a 2nd language (their way of spitting at the Russians so to speak). You'd go into a muyseum in Warsaw....the explanations were in Polish and English (I expected German).

So, while again it is a generalization, if you speak English, you will usually be able to survive in Europe without all tht much trouble.

An engaging attitue, a few polite phrases of the language in the country you are in AND talking with your hands will get your around most of Europe.

I'm still learning English, my first and only language, and find that dabbling in European languages helps.

FWIW this NYTimes article reprinted in this weekend's Sydney Morning Herald -

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/societ...231-19bxo.html

We go to Switzerland a lot and they have, I seem to recall, 5 official languages there, so it seemed that everytime I got on a train, I had to prime myself for the few words I knew in the language where I would be getting off. But practically speaking virtually everywhere a tourist will go, they will speak good English, and you can enjoy a good laugh when you mispronounce a word in their language.

I think currently Spanish is being used by more and more people, and I would guess that some flavor of Chinese would also be very widely used.

So for touristic purposes, I don't think you need to really learn another language. Similarly, for being an army nurse in Germany, she will not be there for more than a couple of years, and all business will be done in English.

Since she is living with someone who speaks French, it would seem that this is a great time to buy the Rosetta stone and learn french, because she could reinforce the lessons by talking with her roommate, and by visiting France or Switzerland.

I took French in third and fourth grades, but never really mastered it (not that I really wanted to), because once I left the classroom, I had no one to talk to.

I don't think French is a more useful language than any of the others, but I think she has a great opportunity to learn it.

She will be OK with English-only, but a 2nd language (at any skill level) is always a great thing when you're traveling or living in different countries. For the areas you mention I'd pick French.

My friend who lives in Switzerland was making a hotel reservation for me in Venice and they ended up doing it in French (it was the best common language between her and the desk clerk, not English or Italian).

For me living on the west coast US, Spanish would be the most useful second language or Japanese.

I wouldn't bother learning a language for touristic purposes but would learn it for business reasons. No matter how good English is spoken, people prefer to converse or conduct business in their own language. Learning a few useful phrases doesn't always work either as the pronounciation can be way out and either not understandable or painful to listen to esp if you learn only from a phrasebook.

Some observations here reveal limited experience of Europe, travel and/or languages eg "You wouldn't expect Italian to be used anywhere but Italy. German isn't really useful anywhere else" and virtually every comment by BigRuss.

So where else would you expect Italian to be used? (apart from the Italian bit of Switzerland?
The Italians are wonderfully patient when you try and speak Italian...

If your daughter hopes to be assigned to Germany, I certainly don't think it would be useless to learn German unless she intends to never venture off the base. Learning the language of your host country enriches your overall experience and imo is very satisfying. Sure, you can get by with just English and a few phrases, which is fine for holidays, but I would make a real effort if I were in a country long term.

Dutch children have no choice at primary school as to which second language they learn. They all go on to learn German and French too at secondary school, though many drop French as they find it a hard language.
Parts of the Netherlands have tourist information only in Dutch and German since those are the main visitors to those areas. For some reason English speakers rarely venture beyond Amsterdam.

German is hard to learn correctly as it has declined nouns, and it can be tough to get it right. However they are generally pretty forgiving of people mangling their language and do their best to understand and help.

For a trip such as your family is making I would just learn a few very basic things - asking a question is one thing - understanding the stream of language which comes back at you quite another, and take more than a Rosetta Stone course I'm afraid.

The French have made vast improvements in speaking English, contrary to a lot of folklore that still circulates on forums. However, questions in English that are blurted out without any politeness do indeed receive a blank stare. Even I tend to give a gruff reply (I know - hard to believe since I am so sweet here) when somebody walks up to me and blurts out "Which way to the Eiffel Tower"

I would consider German to be very useful in quite a few countries in tourist areas, due to the vast amount of travelling that the Germans do -- particularly in a number of the 'eastern' European countries, as well as Turkey, Greece and the Balkan countries. The drawback of German is that most people don't learn it for cultural reasons and only as a tool. This is not the case of the Latin languages.

We were surprised how much speaking French helped us in Turkey.

True, I found that large numbers of people, at least in Istanbul, spoke excellent French.

For some reason English speakers rarely venture beyond Amsterdam.>

I have ventured all over Holland and never ever not found the VVV or Tourist Information Center staff not very fluent in English - and many Dutch all over Holland also seem rather fluent in English. In Holland English IME is all you need for basic tourist talk at least. And I have never seen a coffeeshop whose staff is not very fluent in English as well - probably due to their higher education?

I agree that if your daughter hopes to get stationed in Germany, she will NOT need German to get through her daily routine on base. However, since she appears to like to travel, I assume she will spend quite a bit of time off base, in which case a knowledge of the language, while certainly not absolutely necessary, will be a great thing to have. I met my DH when he was stationed in Frankfurt. He learned very little German while there, but I was a German major. When we travelled together "off the beaten path" my knowledge of German was very useful, especially with the older Germans who typically don't speak English. Even the younger Germans appreciate the effort. Having learned German and French with a smattering of Spanish and Italian, I would argue that German is the hardest to learn, though. The grammar is tough!

Just for the record, Italian, German and French are certainly not used just in "their" countries, so it depends on where you want to travel.
Italian is certainly the least widespread of those three languages, but it's the only useful one if you go to Albania, or to parts of Slovenia and Croatia (not to mention the Italian part of Switzerland, of course). French is the first foreign language in Romania, Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon and Syria, and spoken in half of Belgium, Luxembourg, part of Switzerland and of Italy. And German is certainly the most useful of the three: the first foreign language in Turkey, Serbia, Croatia, Poland, still in Hungary and the Czech Republic (though declining in favour of English), but also the Netherlands and the northern part of Belgium (where there is even a small German-speaking region), and it's Luxembourg's second language of course, plus the first one in parts of Denmark and Italy.

"French is the first foreign language in Romania, Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon and Syria, and spoken in half of Belgium, Luxembourg, part of Switzerland and of Italy."

Plus most countries in West Africa, Mauritius, Madagascar, the Seychelles, the Comores, Vanuatu, Djibouti and last but not least : Monaco :-))

Relatively few Luxemburgers IME speak French - mainly older folk - the native language is a dialect of German I believe.

Even in Corsica some folks do not use French as their native language I believe.

The question wasn't about being conversational or fluent, it was about how hard it is to "pick up the basics". I think it is worthwhile to learn at least enough so you can get around as a tourist more gracefully. As I said, I'd pick French, but learning a smattering of Italian &/or German would be good too. It seems like people's first "2nd language" is the hardest. Some people have more natural ability and inclination than others (learn more easily). Definitely worth the effort.

<<Relatively few Luxemburgers IME speak French - mainly older folk - the native language is a dialect of German I believe.>>

The administrative language of Luxembourg is French, except for real estate matters which are in German. All laws are written in French. Children start school in German and switch to French after age 7. The Luxembourg language was only made official in the country in 1984, so the situation is really quite complex.

Most important documents are in four languages: French, German, Luxembourger, and Portuguese, because Portuguese immigrants represent 16% of the population of the country.

In the hypermarkets and shopping mall stores that I have been to, just about all of the employees are French, crossing the border every day to go to work.

I think it's a toss-up between French and German. I studied French for many years and learned German while living in Stuttgart for 2 years. Both of course are useful within their respective countries, but German is more widely used across Western Europe. I used my German in Switzerland, Austria, and northern Italy but have never used my French outside of France (except the one time I tried to help a French woman find a salon in Rome). German is also a common second language in some Eastern European countries, for instance the Czech Republic, where (I have heard) you might run into someone who knows some German but not English. French is a beautiful language and I'm glad I learned it, but I have found German to be more useful. It is not an easy language to learn, but the pronunciations are very consistent and there are many shared nouns in German and English.

Whether you "need" to learn the language of the country in which you are traveling is another matter. As others have pointed out, the most important thing is to know a few key phrases and be polite when asking for assistance. If you stick to major cities and tourist attractions, you will generally have less trouble than if you want to go to small towns and sights that are off the beaten track.

I would do the language that you think you might use the most in your life. Unfortunately, there is now way to tell what that might be.

Growing up in Arizona and also having Chilean relatives, I thought Spanish would be good to learn and studied it in high school (2 yrs) and college (only to meet a requirement - 1 semester). I have never visited Chile or Mexico and spent only 2 weeks in Spain (and that was with my sister - a Spanish teacher).

I studied Japanese in Grad school (3 intense semesters) and have only spent 2 weeks as a tourist in Japan.

I took no French and have spent 5 weeks there. Took German in Community College after spending 2 months in Germany. Have spent 2 weeks there since taking the course. I do hope to spend a few more weeks there before I die.

My wife has studied Spanish (she was a Spanish teacher), French, Portuguese, Italian, and German. She has spent 2 weeks each in Germany and France. She did spend quite a bit of time in Mexico.

My son took Spanish, French, and Italian in middle school, high school and college. He has never been out of the USA.

Maybe you will be able to have a better match between courses and travels.

<i>German is useful in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In every other European country, they'll generally refuse to speak German. It may also have utility in some areas of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay or Brazil, depending upon which Nazi refugees went where.<i>

BigRuss wins the first prize for the most idiotic statement on this thread!
You've never travelled much have you?

Check out a multilanguage menu in a restaurant in Europe. Apart of the langage of the country, English comes first. German comes in second position. Only then comes French or Spanish.

Oops!

Only this part (BigRuss's quote) was supposed to be in italic:

<i>"German is useful in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In every other European country, they'll generally refuse to speak German. It may also have utility in some areas of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay or Brazil, depending upon which Nazi refugees went where."</i>