jnjfraz, just what I said!

One reason German is very often understood in Central/Eastern Europe was the yearly influx of East Germans during the Communist era. Like their western counterparts, East Germans were keen travellers but the only countries they could visit without a visa were all in the Communist bloc, and millions of them used to migrate over the borders in the summer months. On the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the news media captured the vacationing East Germans walking or driving across the lightly-patrolled Hungarian-Austrian borders into the West.
Unified Germany is still one the biggest tourist groups in those countries, attracted by low prices.

Good point, Alec.

Actually, I would advocate for learning German for anyone planning to be stationed overseas in Germany. I remember so clearly being a performer on a USO tour there in the mid-1970s, and the folks on the military bases who had no command of the local language were really, really out of touch with the local community and were actually considered a menace in some cases and had a very negative relationship with the locals. German's not that hard a language - it's very regular and orderly (no surprise there, eh?).

Alec....you are right insofar as Germans do quite a bit of travelling, it's a very large country and thus there is a great deal of German spoken especially in Central Europe as you go east. However, and again this is based on my experience (which I admit might be limited) as I noted of travelling in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, there is of course a great deal of resentment towards the Germans for obvious reasons. There is also a great deal of resentment towards the Russians for obvious reasons. These people have the ability to travel now that they never had in the past and seem to have the same aspirations as many West Europeans. After speaking to several young people in Prague, what I was told is that while their parents learned Russian and German as second languages, most younger people today feel the most important language for them to learn is English (followed most likely bvy German; Russian is far behind now)...English is the unifying language in som many fields such as aviation...all international airports you will notice have signs in the naitive language and in English....pilots communicate on any other than domestic flights in English with air controllers...lyou get on a DB train going between say Frankfurt and Paris, you will find annoucements on the train made in German, French anbd English (I haven't been but I wonder what happens on train servicde say between Warsaw and Berlin)...perhaps this is a passing fad. Perhaps in the next generation it will be local languages along with Chinese as these things are constantly changing.

English is the lingua franca of Europe.

Most 2nd language usage is based on reasons of practicability or usability these days - and not on historical reasons.

Young Poles or Czechs learn German not because of a newly-found love for Germanic culture or language but because they have Europe's biggest economy right next to their border.
Same with Hungarians with strong cross-border employment in Austria.
BTW.. if you wish to get into historic ties, the ones based on German language between Hungary and Austria go back a bit further back than just the 1940s.

The Saar region of Germany has official signposting in French (and German) not because it had been a part of France once but because there is a great deal of cross-border micro-tourism these days and Germans want to make things easier for French shoppers.

Unless your daughter knows for sure that her future career plans will take her to either Germany, France, or Italy, I would not waste more time and energy on either of the three language than buying a tourist phrase book or language CD.

>there is of course a great deal of resentment towards the Germans for obvious reasons.
XYZ, if you were German like I am, you'd know that that isn't true. :-).

You only need to visit Lake Balaton ("Plattensee" in German) in the summer in Hungary to realise that German spending power more-or-less keeps its tourist industry going, and German is very much the lingua franca there. While English is the preferred language for younger generations who grew up post 1989, any lingering resentment towards the Germans among the oldest generation who knew the war pales into insignificance compared to economic necessity. German-speaking tourists are very much welcome throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

Because Germans are such travellers, many places in Turkey, Greece and Spain use it as a second language.

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.>

Yes indeedy - but after biking around Luxembourg several times I encountered very few folks who could speak French except in areas near the French border - everyone said they did not speak French, just German though many spoke really good English.

Just like everywhere else on the planet, people speak their native dialect then all the other languages they learned and have or have not forgotten to speak. Lëtzebuergesch is close to the dialect spoken around Cologne.

'
"The Saar region of Germany has official signposting in French (and German) not because it had been a part of France once but because there is a great deal of cross-border micro-tourism these days and Germans want to make things easier for French shoppers."

I was surprised to see so many signs in German in Strasbourg - it is all abut commerce not emotional reaction to a nationality.
As often, Cowboy has it right... English (and a few words or sentences in the country's language) will do.

Yes, of course, "English will do," but some people, myself included, actually love to learn other languages and spend a huge amount of time doing so. There's a world of difference between visiting a country where you can listen and understand and speak and read the language and being a complete "outsider" who can only observe and hope to guess what's really going on. I would never discourage anyone from making an attempt to learn a new language.

>many signs in German in Strasbourg
The older people speak their local dialect Straßburger Elsässisch, which is similar to the allemannisch on the other side of the border around the Kaiserstuhl.
Who would have guessed...

Why don't people know anything about history today?
High german is an artificial language used to communicate between eachother. Even some Germans speak it quite well, but not all. It is the written language in all of Germany, founded on the translation of the bible by Martin Luther.

One of the advantages to me of learning German, was that when I went to the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, I could often read subtitles, newspapers, ads, and so on. I couldn't really understand people when they spoke, but it was still helpful. Especially in restaurants.

It surprised me when I went to Turkey and Morocco, how many people spoke German. Seems Germany is a favorite for studying or working in for a while and then coming back home.

German can be useful if you ever go to Namibia.

"There's a world of difference between visiting a country where you can listen and understand and speak and read the language and being a complete "outsider" who can only observe and hope to guess what's really going on"


A valid point, but to be able to speak a language takes years of studying.
I was born in Europe and can speak five languages (with various degree of fluency), but from living on this continent for many years I have come to believe that most English speakers have no interest in spending "a huge amount of time" ( and money) learning other languages.

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?>>

forgive me if i repeat what has been said before - I am entering this thread rather late, but couldn't ignore these sentences!

German [or indeed the learning of ANY language IMHO] is NOT useless unless you are able to use it in Germany. learning it provides an insight into the culture and literature of a great civilisation. although it, and italian are not greatly used outside the immediate areas where they are spoken as first languages, learning them does not make them any less valid as academic exercises. also, i would suggest that for your DD to learn a language other than the one her sister is studying is a good idea.

another point to consider - people's brains are different. when I was at school, I was made to study French first, then offered german or latin. I wasn't much good at french then [I'm a bit better now as I am more enthusiastic] but I excelled at German. I had no interest in Latin, but I am now learning Italian with some success. And to disagree [respectfully] with Danon, any knowledge of a foreign language is better than none.

If your daughter hopes to live in Germany eventually, I would encourage her to start studying that language. I think it is difficult to speak well. Many Americans have trouble because of the grammatical structure which is much more complicated than English.
I can speak some French and German and have found the French helpful for understanding the other Romance languages.

I like to have a tourist phrase book for any country I am visiting if I don't speak the language. They are also helpful for restaurants.

I am fluent in Italian; not bragging or thinking it's a big deal because I was raised by my Italian grandmother who spoke no English.So it's not like I had to study it or whatever.

I only speak high school French and Spanish but my Italian helped us tremendously in France, Spain, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria and of course Italy. I think it's quite similar to Spanish and a little like French as it helped me figure out reading French and Spanish. Just me though.

" I think it's quite similar to Spanish and a little like French as it helped me figure out reading French and Spanish. '"

Reading a similar language or getting by as a tourist is always a bonus , but speaking another language with some degree of fluency is very different. It does take hard work and many years of studying.
Or an Italian grandmother.

It's not just you, norcal. Being fluent in any romance language is a big step toward learning any of the others because they all derive from vulgar Latin and share cognates. And a few years of Latin helps with just about any Indo-European language, and is especially helpful with German grammar.

<I>
A valid point, but to be able to speak a language takes years of studying.
I was born in Europe and can speak five languages (with various degree of fluency), but from living on this continent for many years I have come to believe that most English speakers have no interest in spending "a huge amount of time" ( and money) learning other languages.</I>

Perhaps many English speakers don't see the need? Learning a foreign language for personal fulfillment might interest some, but it isn't particularly useful for the traveler, unless you tend to travel to one place over and over. In response to this topic in the past, I've listed the languages I would have had to speak in the past year or so, were I to want to "dig deep" into the locales I've visited. Here it is again: German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, French, mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Thai, Arabic, Hebrew, Norwegian, and probably a few more.

Frankly, unless you will be moving, for an extended period, to a place where knowledge of the local language is critical, then there is not much practical need to learn one. For the average traveler, I would say that the level of knowledge you will get from self-study will be of such limited use as to make it a waste of time. If you want to learn a language, great, but if you are dabbling because you think it will help you in your travels, I'd tell you not to bother.

As the world's worst linguist I have an unfortunate habit of liking to travel for periods too short for fluency to countries that use foreign tongues. I always try hard to learn some of the language before visiting, but rarely get past the basic civilities. So I become used to that moment in the mutually incomprehensible attempted conversation when we try to find a common language that is not the first language for either of us.

In 2006 we wandered briefly through Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Czech, as well as most of Western Europe. East of the old Iron curtain that second language was invariably German.

Unfortunately, my German was little better than my mangled versions of their native languages. But we survived, and used lots of smiles and descriptive hand gestures.

The OP asked "Is there any 'best' second language it may be worth picking up?"

I suggest German would be the obvious choice for the OP.

Occasionally I had some very interesting meals as a result of my tortured attempts to communicate. These days I always take the phrase book with me to restaurants :)

I like to keep life interesting, so the trip in planning at the moment includes French, Italian, Croatian, Russian and whatever is spoken in Mostar and Sarajevo. Thank goodness for my well-thumbed Polyglob.

Cheers, Alan
http://loraltravel.blogspot.com/

I just read travelgourmet's comment. I try to learn the basics when I travel to foreign lands, but I have to agree with:

"Learning a foreign language for personal fulfilment might interest some, but it isn't particularly useful for the traveler, unless you tend to travel to one place over and over."

I have enough trouble learning the civilities - which I always attempt to do - and "where is the bathroom" but to learn the language in depth for my type of "butterfly" travel where I am rarely in country for more than a week would be impossible for anyone other than the communications officer on the Starship Enterprise. I'd love to have the Galactic hitch-hiker's babelfish in my ear as I wandered these language districts in the past eight years - but I still enjoyed my travels without it:

Mandarin, Malay, Hindi, Khmer, Arabic, Turkish, French, Italian, Spanish (various - Catalan, Iberian, South American), Portuguese, Greek, Czech, Hungarian, Slovakian, German, Serbian, Polish and several others I've forgotten.

I'm a traveller, not a linguist.

If you know a foreign language, you've not only learnd a language, but also a way of thinking. The language you speak also determines the way you're able to think.

I was amazed to realize that English has no word for "sieden", which means almost boiling but not actually boiling. It's the moment, when the water make bubbles just before it it boiling.

Can you prepare sausages without knowing this word? I've read somewhere that the inuit have more than ten words for snow.

Simmer = almost boiling, just below the boiling point = sieden.

Nope, that's "köcheln" or "simmern" in German. It's a little bit ABOVE the boiling point and will crush the skin of the sausage.

The word should be "seething", but it isn't.

French is the most geographically widespread second language, after English, both in Europe and worldwide. Wherever you are, if you can't find someone who speaks English, you can probably find someone who speaks French.

This is due to the persistent popularity of French as a second language in schools, and to other factors such as the language's strong position in diplomatic and international legal circles.

Americans seem to think that the rest of the world speaks Spanish, but the only useful places for Spanish are Spain and a handful of countries in the Americas. Contrary to what Americans appear to believe, the most spoken language in South America is Portuguese.

If your daughter plans to live in Germany for few years she should learn German, although that many Germans people speak English.It would be more fun for her to know the language of her host country.

Nope, not above the boiling point, but rather just below:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simmer

Nope, you don't simmer sausages for 40min, it's not the correct word. You wait for the sieden and the take the pot off the heat. :-). Doesn't work to simmer sausages.

Which is just proof, that sausages from the US don't taste any good. ;-) It's the language that prevents them from making decent sausages.
No, not a joke at all. :-)

Well, we always buy our sausages from the German deli, so you have a point. I defer to the Wurstmeister.

Yeah, It ain't simmern. If they offer sausage soup they have simmered them.

<I>Americans seem to think that the rest of the world speaks Spanish, but the only useful places for Spanish are Spain and a handful of countries in the Americas. Contrary to what Americans appear to believe, the most spoken language in South America is Portuguese.</I>

Spanish is the second most widely spoken first language in the world, by many measures. The census bureau estimates that it is 3x more common on the Internet than French and has more than double the native speakers of French and 80m more total speakers worldwide. As for the claim that Portuguese is the most common language in South America... If this is true, it is only marginally so, as most measures have the two largely even. When one includes second and third languages, Spanish easily trumps Portuguese.

Why do some Europeans refuse to recognize the dramatic rise of Spanish as a language and cling to ridiculously outdated conceptions of the role of French in the world? At one time, French was an important second language, but the rise of English has pretty much wiped that out and the demographic trends in the Spanish-speaking world have made Spanish ever more important. French is, like France, fading on the world stage, and that trend is unlikely to change.

In Spain they speak Spanish, nowhere else in the EU they speak Spanish, that's what matters. You don't go to different continents, you want to be able to speak to you neighbor living 100m miles away from you. There aren't any people living in my area that speak any Spanish. Is that not obvious, that this language from the fringes of the continent, as nice as it may well be!!! is of no interest anywhere else in Europe.

The "world stage" doesn't matter at all.

<I>In Spain they speak Spanish, nowhere else in the EU they speak Spanish, that's what matters. You don't go to different continents, you want to be able to speak to you neighbor living 100m miles away from you. There aren't any people living in my area that speak any Spanish. Is that not obvious, that this language from the fringes of the continent, as nice as it may well be!!! is of no interest anywhere else in Europe.

The "world stage" doesn't matter at all.</I>

By that definition, no European language matters, as most stop at the border. The idea that French is more valuable because a handful of Belgians speak it (the poor half of Belgium, at that), and Spanish doesn't matter, despite being a much more common language globally, is absurd.

Just keep your mind on the fact that you would want to be able to speak to someone living 100k away from you. French helps in many places, Spanish doesn't (unless you're in southern France and those folks across the border prefer Catalan).

The "Spanish world" doesn't matter in Europe. Why should it anyway.

Spanish is the second most widely spoken first language in the world, by many measures. The census bureau estimates that it is 3x more common on the Internet than French and has more than double the native speakers of French and 80m more total speakers worldwide. As for the claim that Portuguese is the most common language in South America... If this is true, it is only marginally so, as most measures have the two largely even. When one includes second and third languages, Spanish easily trumps Portuguese.'

I agree. Spanish is spoken in about 20 countries, aside from
Brazil and Portugal and some former colonies.. Portuguese
not so much.

Simply said:
- With German, I can read the newspapers in Denmark, Sweden and Norway and understand quite a bit of what is said in Dutch
- With French, I can communicate in France and North Africa and can talk more or less well with people in Italy or Spain.
- With German, I can buy potatos in the Czech republic and train tickets in Poland. Whereever there are touris regions in the south of Europe German helps.
- In Turkey and Greece, German helps a lot.

German and French cover the EU and north Africa. That's all that matters. And if that doesn't work, you try English.