southernhybrid

Spanish would probably be the most useful language to learn if you plan to work in the US. Why not be practical.

Monkeybot

You don't like the sound of Chinese???? Freak.

(Actually, I'm just mad 'cuz that's what I was going to suggest )

I'd have to agree with ju'iblex. Avoid Latin. It's just not fun enough to put up with all those stupid little pedantic grammar rules. On the other hand, if you want to excel at grammar of all kinds, Latin may be a very good language to learn; it really forces you to think about whether something is the object, the indirect object, or bla bla bla bla bla... it actually is kind of helpful both in English and in learning other languages in that respect.

My vote would go to either Spanish (very useful) or Arabic (really neat writing system).

wally

I too would suggest Spanish, there has been many times over the years I would love to know some Spanish. There are many similarities with other languages that will become evident once you get into Spanish - Italian, Portugese, and many others from south america.

Vietnamese is tough to learn, very tonal, but I think it would be handy too, only because there are lots of them here in the US now.

Ju'blex, my sweet, If I were 30 years younger and female, I would be trying to find your door to introduce myself, doublepost or not!
Wally

Shake

Well, I really only said Russian, because I just like how it sounds, and would like to learn some eventually. Being more practical, I said Spanish ... it seems like it's becoming a second language here in the US. Otherwise it depends on why you might want to learn another language.

Demosthenes

Lojban!

I studied/am still studying Italian and I love it, it's part of my heritage and it sounds so beautiful.

Friar Bellows

Swedish. I love the way that language sounds.

Some Slavic language would be good because from there you could learn a number of Slavic languages fairly easily, and be able to talk to half (maybe closer to a third) of Europe. For starters, I suggest an easy one like Croatian. Then you could quickly get up to speed on Serbian (just like you could quickly get up to speed on Norwegian if you knew Swedish), except you'd need to learn the Cyrillic alphabet, but see then you could do Russian, which also uses a Cyrillic alphabet, except it's a bit different. Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Belorusian, Kashubian, Sorbian and even Old Church Slavonic would be within your grasp!

KoopaFanatic

Hmm... Actually, I think Latin might be the way to go. I love pedantic grammar stuff Thanks Monkeybot! (Yes, I am a freak. You nailed it there.)

While Spanish is becoming more common in the US, I've found Portuguese to be an adequate substitute on those rare occasions where I've needed it.

I spent some time in Prague, and remember loving all the place names. You just can't beat "Czerny Most" and "Karly Most" for bridges. (And yes, that's the extent of the Czech I picked up -- in Prague, everyone speaks English except for the mass transit ticket inspectors.) So, maybe something Slavic after all. But then, I remember the hell that my friend went through taking Russian in college. He actually envied the simplicity of Japanese

ju'iblex

well, dont be bitching when it starts getting hard if you choose Latin. And if youre interested in some private tuition/help <i wont charge you > then you can always ask me anything.

but these are the books i learnt from for 4 or so years, i now work from actual Roman authors.

http://www.cambridgescp.com/oap/oa_b1.html

Theyre really very good.

Eudaimonist

Sindarin or Quenya. (J.R.R. Tolkien's invented "elvish" languages.) You hear some Sindarin in the Lord of the Rings movies. They are beautiful languages.

Right now, I'm learning Swedish and I enjoy the language.

I also studied ancient Greek briefly, though all the declensions and definite articles in Greek are overwhelming. Proceed only if you are prepared to put in a lot of time, and have a good tutor!

Sakpo

Anyway, "speaking" one dialect of Chinese doesn't mean you can orally communicate with speakers of other Chinese dialects, so the whole numbers argument doesn't work so well anyway. Anyway, I live in an immigrant Chinese neighborhood, and I've gone from hating the sound of Cantonese to actually liking it. Except Chinese people are so loud!

Chinese are just plain loud, whether they explain their screaming as being because they come from a small village (where it's normal to shout, especially to cover distances) or from huge cities (where they say they have to shout all the time, no matter where they are, just to be heard).