mikester

spanish is the next logical choice. its so close to french, even I picked up a lot of it when I used to take lessons.

seriously, take it. then you've learned the 3 major languages, as well as some of the most spoken on the earth.

Z500

learn japanese. sounds cool when you speak it, looks cool when you write it

KoopaFanatic

Z500-san, mata nihongo-o hanaseru
Actually, I'm sort of back-dooring some Spanish by watching Telemundo and Univision. I speak some Portuguese, which is even closer than French, so from time to time I can piece together what they're talking about. Unfortunately, Spanish seems to always be spoken about twice as fast as Brazilian Portuguese (as I was taught it, anyway), so it's almost impossible to actually pick out more than one word at a time

Thanks for the input, everyone! At this point I think I'm going to go with either Latin or Spanish. The utility argument is winning me over for the latter, and the former is the preferred example in many linguistics texts I've read

copernicus

I think that you need to distinguish between "most widely spoken" and "language with the most native speakers". Right now, English is hands-down the most widely spoken language in the world, and it is not seriously challenged by any other language as the world lingua franca. Do not forget that the majority of English speakers today are not native speakers of English.

Mandarin continues to be the language with the most native speakers in the world, and I doubt that it will be overtaken by Hindi-Urdu, even if India's population exceeds that of China. Millions of Indians do not speak Hindi as their first language, and English is a thoroughly-established lingua franca even in India, where some nationalists may see more benefit to promoting English rather than Hindi as the official language of India. If you have ever watched Hindi films, you will notice that speakers often break into English at the most bizarre times. That is because almost all educated Indians are at least bilingual Hindi-English speakers. And some Indians that I have met speak better English than Hindi, particularly if they are from the southern states.

Lingua francas are interesting phenomena. Spanish, German and French are certainly very useful languages to know if one spends time in Western Europe. Russian is useful in countries that were formerly under Soviet control, but it can also be a political liability to speak Russian. For example, I once travelled through Croatia and discovered that people seemed to "understand" German better than Russian. Serbs, on the other hand, seem to "understand" Russian better because of the history and politics of that region. Serbo-Croatian is, like Hindi-Urdu, roughly the same language with different spelling systems.

In Africa, Swahili is the best lingua franca for eastern countries, and Hausa for western countries. Swahili is a very beautiful language, IMO, but it is not native to any particular national group. It has always been a trade language throughout recorded history. Ditto for Hausa. Regional politics have turned Swahili into the official language of some countries that emerged out of the colonialist period.

BTW, mikester, if you or anyone else out there really likes foreign languages, I strongly suggest that you also study linguistics. Not only can linguistics satisfy your urge to know about language in general, but it can be a distinct help in your attempts to master foreign languages.

KoopaFanatic

Plus, it's easily the most fun and interesting of the social sciences.