most useful language to learn

Well,actually it is Latin. This can you use in other languages,too.

I suppose, every people will also say their own language.
So I say: German (which is of course important..)

which is losing enormous ground. nobody studies german anymore in europe. the french government is trying to stop that fall by trying to push kids to take german as a foreign language in studies but that will never work. the german government is doing the same with french and the outcome will be close to nil. sad but true.

i love both languages, ich habe deutsch viele jahren gelernt aber ich habe alles vergessen. ich werde die sprache wiederlernen wenn ich zeit habe:)
jetzt, lerne ich russisch.

**** a all "approximate" english world.

if **** doesn't work, what about screw?

Spanish. Just my guess.

Chinese.

It is the native tongue of over 1 billion people.

It seems that China is destined to be the next superpower, and probably my grandchildren will consider Chinese as necessary as most of the world considers English now.

I'd have to say Latin, but I'm biased because a) I love the language and b) I've had five years of it already..

While I also speak German (or did, before I started taking Latin *sigh*), I'd have to say that it doesn't seem widely used any more. On the other hand, I don't live in Europe, and Americans are notoriously monolingual.

Ich habe Deutsch gelernt in Schule von kindergarten bis die sechste klasse, und ich war eine auschtauschstudente in Deutschland fur drei woche.

..and my German is terrible now. Thank you, Catullus, Ovid, and Vergil.

-K

Americans are notoriously mono-lingual. At least the native English speakers are. I'm just glad I studied French long enough to understand when I'm reading it, though a dictionary often helps.

But as to the question: I would vote for Spanish (for Americans), but I see the argument for Chinese, too. I recently heard on NPR that U.S.-China trade now largely consists of us shipping raw materials to them, and China shipping finished products back to the U.S.

Draw your own conclusions...

i heard that arabic could become even more important than chinese because:

it's wrong to say that 1 billion people speak chinese. people from shangai and beijing don't understand each other, for instance and very few people speak both mandarin and cantonese.

people from arabic countries are less inclined to learn english than asian people (for cultural reasons, mainly).

the birth rate in arabic countries is huge, not in china anymore (due to the one child policy).

literary arabic is the strongest religious language in the world (whatever that means).


as for german, its days are over (even in eastern europe, i experienced it) and french (my mother tongue, godammit) has certainly suffered the biggest fall of all languages during the past century. hopefully, africa could save us.

That depends on where you live. I live in the Southwest some of the time, anyway, and Spanish is pretty useful to know if you are, for instance, applying for a service job in certain parts of the city where lots of people speak spanish.

i say it depends on where you live... speak ur native language, and, for example, in america there are many spanish people (and french in some candian parts) so you hsould learn spanish (and maybe french) in europe i would know german and french (english obniously). I dont know about latin, because ive never taken it, but people say its useful. Basically, i dont have a strait answer for this question...

I think it is imperative that one study Luxembourger.. so that you may speak to the few thousand left in that oversized postage stamp..... within another generation "natives" will be the minority..... but the Luxembourger slogan still is "We want to remain what we are".....

now there is your new word for today: oxymoron.....

well of course American English is the thing to learn.... grammar, vocabulary and syntax included...

I have to say it is Chinese. I have been studied aboard to 5 different countries and I learn chinese is the most important language after all.

Spanish
Arabian
Chinese
no particular order.

I think its hebrew...

Yes, if you say Beijingers and Shanghaiers speak different Chinese, it's true. But it's also true that Egyptians and Moroccos both speak Arabian. But they can not understand each other either. And in China, there is a national language that all Chinese people can understand. So I don't think that is a reason to consider.

is that really so, tranlatorcz?
do all educated people in china speak mandarin?
what about hong-kong and taiwan?

Music.

Of course they have dialects of their own, but in our country, a national one is promoted nationwide. That is not hard to understand, because we are of the same country. And that one(I don't know how to call it) is called Putonghua in China. It is based on Mandarin, very similar to Mandarin. And you can make yourself understood by using this language or simply use Mandarin(don't use some extremely local usage). In most of the country, it can be understood. Or how do you think the CCTV can be understood nationwide and even by Chinese-speaking countries? So that is the truth. Believe me.

yeah you are right sufp, music have no specific language... so music is the best language