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If you are looking for a useful language, Spanish will definitely be on your short list. You can speak Spanish in more than 25 countries and with 330 million people who often speak nothing but Spanish. The language is spoken in a very similar way all over the world, and each hour of study you put in will bring you closer to all 25 countries.
There are approximately 75 million German speakers Germany, 7 million in Austria, 260,000 in Luxembourg, 3,400,000 in Switzerland, and about 1,500,000 in Alsace-Lorraine. There are many German speakers in Eastern Europe but the subject is quite sensitive and no statistics are available. The total number of speakers, including non-native speakers such as myself, is said to be 120 millions, but I could not verify this
French is highly useful for any activities involving travel to France: whatever great minds the French have, they are poor polyglots. If you go to France and want to understand something of the country, speaking french is a must. Speaking a few words will help considerably, but don’t expect people to applaude just because you mumbled a heavily accented Bonjour Monsieur. The French can be extremely demanding and even rude, especially in Paris, to people who do not speak French well.Speaking French will be very useful in many countries besides France, such as North Africa, Québec, and in many “black” African countries. Unless you wish to learn the local dialects, French will often be the only language widely understood (see below for more details about each country).
Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken language in the world. For many people, this is also the language of the future, with China becoming more powerful every year and a huge economy that buys and sells all over the world. There are several languages spoken in China, but Mandarin is by far the dominant language in China and is also spoken in Taiwan and by part of the Chinese community of Singapore.
Danish is a North Germanic language with around 5.5 million speakers mainly in Denmark, but also in Greenland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Canada, the UAE and the USA. Danish was the official language of Norway until about 1830 and of Iceland until 1944. Danish is now the first foreign language learnt in Iceland.
The Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium are collectively know as Flemish (Vlaams). They differ to some extent from the Dutch spoken in the Dutch Netherlands in terms of intonation and pronunciation, and there are minor differences in vocabulary, including loanwords from French and English not found in Standard Dutch.The official or standard form of Dutch is known as Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (ABN), ‘general civilized Dutch’. It is taught in schools and used by authorities in the Netherlands, Flanders (Belgium), Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. An association known as theTaalunie (Language Union) set up by governments of the Netherlands and Flanders regulates the orthography and spelling of ABN. Alternative names for ABN are Algemeen Nederlands(AN), general Dutch, and Standaardnederlands .
The choice to learn Italian is most often one of love rather than reason. Unless you have a special reason (family, travel, interest in Vatican affairs or art history), you should probably begin with either French or Spanish, two languages closely related to Italian, then learn Italian at a later stage.
If you live in Italy or want to travel regulary, a knowledge of Italian will increase your experience manifold. Many Italians do not speak anything but Italian. If they realize you speak Italian they can become very talkative – and talkative they can be! Italians do not expect visitors to speak their language and, in my experience, they are quite forgiving of language mistakes and are willing to speak more to compensate for your relative muteness. This makes for an encouraging climate for the language learner.
Swedish is a North Germanic language with around 9 million speakers mainly in Sweden and Finland, and also in Estonia, Norway, Canada and the USA. It is closely related to Norwegian and Danish and is mutually intelligible with them to a large extent, particularly in its written form.
Norwegian belongs to the North Germanic language family, and is part of what may be seen as part of a continuous series of more or less mutually intelligible Scandinavian dialects. It has an estimated 4.7 million speakers, but due to it's similarities with Swedish and Danish one may, with some effort, be able to communicate with about 20 million people using only Norwegian.
Many Japanese do not speak English at all, and those who do are often not all that fluent. This gives the foreigner who speaks Japanese immense advantage when dealing with the Japanese, both for business and tourism in Japan. The entry it provides in the sophisticated Japanese culture can be its own reward. All who visited Japan report a highly interesting country whose main default is high costs of travelling. Those who with to practice Japanese in the confort of their home can rely on a wealth of movies, books, mangas and websites (see below for more). Finally, if you work in the tourism industry, a command of Japanese is an invaluable asset when dealing with the large flow of Japanese tourists.
Moderate, unless you live in big Brazil or in Portugal. Here in Portugal people normally talk another language, be it French (old educated people) or English (everyone under 35 speaks it), or understands Spanish more or less. Ah, young people normally do not only not speak French, they also hate it...almost everyone had French at school as second foreign language.
Beauty The basic is that Brazilian and European Portuguese are very different to the ear. Saying which one is the most beautiful is a bad idea, but each "accent" has its fans. Brazilian is clearer and has less particular sounds.
A huge proportion of Finnish speakers have at least basic English, and many of them have excellent English. All in all, I couldn't say Finnish is "'useful" but if you are spending significant time in Finland, it will be worthwhile.
Beauty With soft consonants and a fine range of vowels, Finnish can be a nicely melodic language. Unfortunately, many speakers, especially men, tend to lapse into a monotone.
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