What would be a good language to learn if you had time?

I am fluent in English and Spanish, and I know some French. But I'm interested in learning another language, since I have some time and I thought I should be productive.

What is a good third language to learn? Which language are "economically useful" or useful for travel?

I'm thinking of looking into learning chinese.

I just like the way it sounds. :)

German isn't too far off from English. Obviously, Chinese is more difficult, but it is a beautiful language.

Mandarin
Hindi
Spanish
English
Arabic
Portuguese
Bengali
Russian
Japanese
German

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

(There are languages in the top 20 that I have never heard of. :o )

;)

First, if he were asked to translate for many China sites, he would be unable to do so -- while Cantonese and Mandarin aren't as dissimilar as, say, Mandarin and English, there are distinct differences.

Second, he sees what abuse even our not-so-great Spanish speakers get -- if you know a foreign language in a retail support environment that has international sites, prepare to spend about half of your day speaking it.

He simply refuses even when a site is in an area that speaks mostly Cantonese.

Yup yup.

Or Gaelic. :)

Easier to learn than Chinese (not tonal), and almost as useful. At least you can make progress in it without having a native listen to you, which is not always the case in Chinese.

A friend while was in NYC was about to get married to a Portuguese national -- he spoke very fluent English but she wanted to be able to speak fluently with his family. It is truly a beautiful language.

Me, I married a German/Romanian and didn't even remember enough of my early German to say a blessed thing. I could verify phone numbers over the phone (I can do that in Japanese, actually, which can be helpful for work, but I just listen to make sure what I said is what is translated -- there are courtesies that are important in dealing with Japanese speakers as a non-native speaker who only learned her numbers from taking Aikido, it would seem somewhat rude to me for me to speak the phone number in Japanese, like I was too proud of my knowledge or was showing off.)

I took Latin in high school (Catholic school) and while I remember almost none of it, it was helpful in studying Spanish and figuring out some French conversation.

"Chinese" is pretty broad - narrow it down to Mandarin or Cantonese.

mark

I'm also thinking Japanese or German.

I'm sort of torn, lol. There is too much to learn...I need more than one lifetime.

They even have a website!

http://www.kli.org/

I'm sure they have some good pickup lines.

Get back to my roots. Get invaded by Russia. What have you.

:rofl: :P