ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6321 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French
| Message 49 of 52 31 January 2011 at 3:44am | IP Logged |
Specifically for travel? Hmm, well then:
1) English
Self-explanatory
2) Spanish
Widely spoken on the Americas + Spain.
3) Arabic (MSA, if not dialects as well)
Gives me access to the vast Arabic-speaking world, stretching across Northern Africa to the Middle East.
4) Russian
The vastness of Russian territory as well as the formative influence of the language and country on many different regions of the world from Eastern Europe, to Central Asia.
5) Mandarin Chinese
Certainly the most spoken, but also very widely spoken. If I get lost and can't find English speakers, I'll almost certainly find a Chinese speaker!
French just missed the list. It would give me further access to Africa.
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98789 Diglot Groupie Colombia Joined 5048 days ago 48 posts - 55 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English
| Message 50 of 52 03 February 2011 at 4:40pm | IP Logged |
My list:
1. Spanish (I already speak it, so I must include... anyways is a good language if you want to travel to America or Spain -and is so similar to portuguese that you can go to Brazil, Portugal or any other lusophone country using Spanish... I think- )
2. English: I almost speak it and obviously is the world's lingua franca... is a must...
3. Arabic: North Africa, Middle East ... Nice places to visit... really an useful language.
4. Swahili: It's spoken in big part of Africa... combined with English and arabic ... Africa is mine =)
5. German It's the top language in European Union and it gets you in wonderful countries like Austria, Switzerland, Namibia, Liechtenstein and obviously Germany !!
-Not russian or Chinese because most of the countries where those languages are spoken are comunists -_- ... and China kill lots of animals, they're cruel people ...
-Not french because I hate their unrealistic pronunciation (specially been a "romance" language ... and French is just useful for Africa (wich my conbination of swahili and English may suply) or France (Country I'm not too interested in) ... in other parts is just a secondary language...
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Desacrator48 Groupie United States Joined 5313 days ago 93 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 51 of 52 05 February 2011 at 1:08am | IP Logged |
98789 wrote:
Not french because I hate their unrealistic pronunciation (specially been a "romance" language ... and French is just useful for Africa (wich my conbination of swahili and English may suply) or France (Country I'm not too interested in) ... in other parts is just a secondary language... |
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What exactly do you mean French's "unrealistic pronunciation?" Do you mean for learners of the language?
I know it isn't terrible hard for English speakers to pronunce if they work on it (like me), but I do it is somewhat hard with the R's for Spanish speakers like yourself.
Edited by Desacrator48 on 05 February 2011 at 1:09am
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RealJames Diglot Newbie Japan realizeenglish.com/ Joined 5129 days ago 37 posts - 42 votes Speaks: French, English* Studies: Japanese
| Message 52 of 52 05 February 2011 at 5:24am | IP Logged |
English - most widespread, hard to argue that one
Mandarin - while it's pretty isolated to Chinese people, they can be found almost anywhere you go
Spanish - it's astonishing how many people speak it!
French - here's to colonial times spreading the french language!
Russian - I just like the way it sounds. :)
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