<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.