k2rider

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?

LittleHotels

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.

BigRuss

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).

k2rider

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?

StCirq

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.

JeremyinFrance

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.

Christina

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.

nytraveler

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.

BigRuss

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.

StCirq

German actually is useful in Turkey as well.

alihutch

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.

Alec

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.

PalenQ

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!

TDudette

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.

Underhill

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.

danon

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.

xyz123

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.

jnjfraz

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.

farrermog

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

farrermog

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

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