Countries

Several languages are spoken throughtough the world, some because of colonisation like english or spanish, other because of emigration like chinese or yiddish. This is a very important asset to consider when choosing your language, especially if you like to travel. For example, the bold traveller who speaks spanish has half a continent to discover in the best conditions (people like that you speak their language), where the speaker of basque must content himself with a small area where many people don't understand this intriguing language. The top languages on this criteria are english (understood everywhere by at least some people), spanish (latin America and more) and to a lesser extent french and portuguese. The value minded language learner will notice that three of these four languages are in the same linguistic group, romance languages heirs to latin. You can learn easily the others when you know one well, so why wouldn't you begin there?