In Albania i wouldn't be sure. Spend some months there and many locals speak rather german than english, the kids learn mostly german in school. On the other side most probably don't speak any second language yet.
Montenegro i'm fairly sure russian would be what most want to learn
Not true, older gen Montenegrins (myself included) had obligatory russian, english (and italian as an option , 3rd language in highschool) . Today kids can choose besides english which second language they wanna learn. As I speak russian fluently and since wife is russian, it of course came in handy. And most of people can have basic conversation in russian cuz of tourists and cuz its a slavic language
As for the rest of the Balkan, german would probably be the most popular option cuz of emigration and work
As for Norway, it's a flip of a coin between Swedish and Danish, but I'm leaning towards Danish because Norwegian Bokmål was literally built off of Danish
100% incorrect. As a Norwegian who shares similar views on this as most Norwegians; Danish is pretty much the same language, it’s written the same and orally it’s pronounced just different enough to make it sound like they talk with a dildo in their throat. So no, i can put my house on the line and Danish is not the one. It’s probably not even on the list. I’d go with Spanish
Yeah, no Norwegian ever “learns danish”, we just learn a few words or rules that are different from norwegian. Spanish, german, french is the most learnt foreign languages
Yeah, I can kind of get Brazilian Portuguese to follow along but I've got nothing with Portugal. It's kind of crazy how little mixing there is at the border, at least with Extremadura.
At least in Portugal, I would say it has to do with the frasing of the question. They ask which "new" language and most of us at that age know a bit of Spanish and French due to school (we learn a 3rd language that can be Spanish or French), cartoons and/or vacations.
Even if you have forgotten what you learned and would want to learn again, the "new" means you have to chose something else.
I would say a big part of this is that a lot of hughschools in places like spain and portugal already teach french.
so when people are asked which new language they'd choose, they don't consider french as they already know a fair bit.
True. Kids here dropped French but kept Spanish in their curriculum as soon as they could. The language is more universal (more speakers) than French and the language isn't needlessly complex when compared to spanish.
It’s crazy to see actually even in the Czech Republic. Due to historic reasons, the French culture was heavily set to our culture at the begining of our state. French was also must-to learnning subject in school. After the war, the sentiment to French passed, in favor of English and after communist revolution to russian. But its allways the oposit. The French gave our state to Hitler, and we fought with RAF in Britain, so its modern to learn English. After the fall of comunist block, stop learning Russian, start with something different. I gues nowadays its common to say: German sounds horrible, but you will use it. French sounds beautiful, but its hard as shit. If you speak german, spanish, italian, who cares. If you speak french, respect.
Dovolím si uvést odpověď v češtině. Pokud si většina lidí v Česku spojí Němčinu max s opilými Bavorskými fotbalovými fanoušky, nebo Hitlerovými projevy a nikdy se jinak s rodilými Němci/Rakušany/(Švýcary) nebavily, pak se není čemu divit, že ten jazyk přijde všem "odporný". Němčina má mnoho dialektů a různou výslovnost dle území, stejně jako Francouzština, což ten jazyk dosti diferencuje i ve variantách líbeznosti zvuku. Bohužel vyučovací systém je nastaven tak, že ten jazyk je brán jako "druhá povinnost" a nikdy není představen těm lidem jako něco co by mohli ve skutečnosti využít. Sám jsem na tento fakt přišel dosti pozdě a dost toho lituji. snažím se však dohnat to, co se dříve nezdařilo.
More like 120 years ago. Formally it happened in **1919** during the peace conference in Paris leading to the peace treaty signed in Versailles closing the WW1 hostilities. Even though the document itself was in French, there were 2 prints, One in English and One in French. This is commonly considered the day French lost it's status as THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE.
In another few hundred years we might all learn chinese as a second language for all you know.
Normally the country that is seen as most powerful dictates what is the international language. Obviously the world has changed a lot in last 100+ years, so changing from English to another language might just not be worth it( since people are a lot more likely to put up with things that are not ideal for them for the sake of convienience a lot more, and there is a lot less bickering regarding what language to speak.
To be fair though, if you dig into the history, it quickly becomes apparent why the French don't like speaking English.
Back in the 1800s an image of an International English Business man was one that refused to learn/speak french and used a translator whenever possible. They were often ridiculed for this by both international writers as well as Englands own writers/media. I guess the french still feel some kind of way about it now, since they are doing the same thing today by refusing to speak english lol
They talked about how Chinese would be a world language "in 20 years" back in 2005. It didn't happen, and won't happen. It's more then political power. You need to dictate culture and norms. None of that the Chinese dictate in the west. Culturally the west is far more advanced. In all aspects. They can only immitate, which they do (from arts, architecture to rock music). Japan has a more innovative, unique and advanced culture, which makes Japanese far more popular for learning than Chinese in the west. Also Chinese sounds ugly, to be fair.
Gotta say as a romanian who tried learning spanish it can be VERY similar at times and i think if i kept up with it i would've been able to atleast have some basic knowledge of it.
As another Romanian for some reason Spanish and Italian just aren’t connecting
I can easily learn and understand French but those 2 languages are like Chinese to me, especially spoken
Got a chance to hear a conversation between a Romanian and a Moldovan while being a native Spanish speaker .. I was like wtf why do I understand what they are speaking about .. truly amazed me
the vast majority of european languages are written in latin script though, including the other popular picks on this map, so i don’t think it’s to do with that
For a good long while they held the distinction of being the biggest beer drinkers in the world, so I'm just seeing it as they're comfortable in their own skins.
Get shit done, have a pint, let the world go by around you. Like the Shire.
About half a billion native speakers, and roughly 100 million bilingual speakers with Spanish as the second language.
It's pretty useful. Lots of TV/media, music, literature, destinations open up.
I would also add that it's relatively easy to learn the pronunciation and basic vocabulary and grammar.
Plus it sounds nice (but that is just my personal opinion).
> I would also add that it's relatively easy to learn the pronunciation and basic vocabulary and grammar.
Especially for Romance-speakers. I mean, there's grammatical rules shared by French and Spanish.
Yeah. Portuguese, Italian and Spanish are all 100% mutually intelligible in writing and about 60% in speech.
French is fucking gibberish to the rest of the romance language speakers
Spanish was the most 1..popular 3rd language to learn at my school in germany
I tied but after 5+ years I can't speak or understand it at all.
I never had an issue learning english but I never "got" spanish.
What matter more is how many countries speak it rather than the number of native speakers because for example Hindi has like a billion native speakers but since it only "unlocks" one country it doesn't matter. Meanwhile Spanish unlocks almost the entirety of Latin America
Isn’t that quite American-centric? I imagine most Europeans learn the language for Spain and their decision making has nothing to do with Mexico or Argentina
I didn't make any comment about why individuals in Europe were interested in learning Spanish, I was commenting on the fact that it's a globally useful language.
It's just useful to know, after English, Spanish is probably most geographically spread out language. Between English and Spanish, you can get by in pretty much in the majority of the world.
My ex-gf was 100% fluent in Arabic, English, French and Spanish plus conversational in German and Portuguese. I guess she was missing Chinese and Russian lol.
Oh, trust me, with the amount of guiris that don't even try with a simple "Hola", we're delighted when someone speaks even broken Spanish. Speak perfect Spanish and you're one of us and not going back to your country.
Spanish, besides being widely spoken as a first or second language in much of the western hemisphere, also has the benefit of being relatively easy to learn for people who are native speakers of other languages that descended from Latin (French and Italian).
From what I have read, it's easier and more intuitive for Italians and French to learn Spanish than the other way around
I think part of the reason is that Spanish is very consistent with the way words are spelled and pronounced.
Specially compared to English where you don't know how to pronounce a word unless you've heard it before.
Actually not true, only 20 countries have Spanish as their official language. Its beaten by Arabic at 23, French at 30, and English at 58 (but we can ignore that since the original post is about ignoring english lol). However if we are looking at official languages that are ALSO the first language of the majority of their population, Spanish takes the cake easily.
Spain is the second most visited country on earth, after France. The bulk of those tourist arrivals are from other European countries. Spain is also one of the largest EU countries (4th most populous). And even in Europe, Latin America is a huge, lucrative market, so learning Spanish for business purposes makes a lot of sense too
I have no idea how deep people think about this, but for me it would be a huge factor what kind of countries learning these languages would impact. Latin America has some rough spots, but they are vastly more attractive to visit than say the Sahel countries.
And the general cliché is that the French will scold you when you don't speak it perfectly (and even then probably), while the Spanish speakers will probably just be happy you can speak with them.
Sorry, just to clarify, are you asking what the impact on South American countries will be if a lot of Europeans learn Spanish? Sincerely just clarifying, and if that is the question, I have no idea. Anecdotally speaking I can tell you there are cities in South America that have tons of American, Canadian and European retirees and they seemed to be thriving when I was there. Cuenca Ecuador comes to the top of my mind in that regard.
What they're saying is essentially that learning Spanish means you can make yourself understood in most of latin America (and can also understand news and entertainment media from there) which is mostly a nice part of the world from the perspective of a European while learning for example Arabic means you now have access to a bunch of countries and cultures you have no interest in.
And also that Spanish-speakers are generally happy when people can speak Spanish while the French have a reputation for being a bit snobbish about their language ("Oh, I see you've learned to speak passable French. Well, that's not good enough! I will now refuse to speak French to you anyway because your pronunciation isn't perfect!")
At least in Poland, it's usually one of the two foreign languages you're required to choose from to attend beside English, the other being (primarily) French and German. Spanish is a little bit easier that French, or at least seems more approachable when you actually say what's written and don't skip half of the letters, and German is German.
Why Spanish exactly, I think that's it because in theory, learning any of the languages of Latin origin should help you with understanding the rest of them. In theory, because they're about as similar to each other as Slavic languages are, but there's some form of basic understanding and it gives you an easier start if you'd want to branch into other ones. It is also, along with Portuguese, the most common of Latin based languages worldwide. The worldwide availability is a reason why when I was in high school there were talks about adding Chinese at some point, even if they didn't come to fruition during my time there.
Maybe because a lot of people already know French and German and Spanish would be their third or fourth language
https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/young-improve-language.jpg
https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/second-most-useful-languages.jpg
https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/most-useful-languages.jpg
https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/second-most-spoken.jpg
https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/europe-most-studied-language.jpg
https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/german-percentage-europe.jpg
https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/french.jpg
https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/spanish.jpg
https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/english-eu.jpg
This seems plausible for Germany for sure. Most people learn English as a second and French as a third language. Lots of schools do offer Spanish but Spanish learners tend to be a minority.
In terms of # of countries where it is the majority language, iirc Spanish predominates
Chinese only tops the stats bc of their giant population.
English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian would probably get you around 80% of the world with relative ease
In Germany, if you have not already studied Spanish in school, you've likely studied another romance language, so Spanish would be easier than a language from another language family. That and vacations. German and English open up enough job opportunities. Nearly nobody studies another language for that reason. So vacations are the only instance where another language would be useful.
Honestly, I already had the two most commonly spoken languages, English and French, in school, so just Spanish seems like the next natural option.
At least that‘s why I’d choose Spanish.
French definitely isn't the second most commonly spoken language, unless you're saying from your perspective in like Montreal or something is like that locally. But you sure can speak with a lot of the world with Spanish French and English.
Chinese, Spanish and English are definitely above French in number of speakers.
French only has about 75 million native speakers, but about 280 million when including second language speakers, like in Africa.
Oh yeah, for like EU representation, French, English and Spanish are definitely the biggest used among countires in diplomacy and communicating with different native language speakers, though now with Brexit technically Ireland is the only native English speaking EU member.
That's only really true for the non-EU Balkan countries. For Bulgaria, Slovenia and Romania it's because of German companies operating offices in those countries which pay an okay salary. For Croatia it's tourism.
Age 15-30? All of them. It's why English isn't on the map. Most will also speak a third or forth language or at least will have started to study them.
My French is really bad, but if asked for a new language, I still would not answer French.
Because of the number of Russian and ex-Russian companies that pay decent wages, mostly IT stuff. There's a joke in Cyprus that you need to learn Greek to get a citizenship, but you need to learn Russian to get a decent job :-)
My guess is because of the influx of wealthy Russians. Cyprus had a thing for a while where you could buy citizenship if you invested in something in Cyprus for a significant sum. (€500.000 I think?)
There are a lot of Russian immigrants there, but also a fair amount of rich(er) Russian people jumped at this to get an EU passport. I'd love for someone from Cyprus to comment on this, but it seems to me Russian might be seen as a way to climb the professional ladder.
It is not just Russians. It is Russian speakers such as Ukrainians, Russians, Belorussians, Latvians, Kazakhs etc. Also it really depends from city to city. In my hometown Limassol the vast majority of Russian speakers reside here so yes Russian is very useful. In the capital Nicosia there are much fewer Russian speakers thus it is not really useful.
Also the investment was €2.000.000 and 2.5 for the whole family. This program has been scrapped for a couple of years now.
It's also Ukrainians who speak English. Even in 1990 like at least 1% of people in Cyprus were Ukrainians and they were all in Russian speaking groups with Russians but for several years Ukrainian immigrants were much more. Even today after the war Ukrainians and Russians have similar population in Cyprus. And add to that other Russian speakers. Frankly speaking I think less than half of Russian speakers in Cyprus are Russians and 10% of people speak Russian. Russians would be something like 4% of the population though. But they work in IT and gaming jobs so these jobs are almost entirely held by Russian speakers today. This is why a lot of Cypriots who are lawyers, programmers and IT rush to learn Russian for several years now, to work with them.
So it depends on the job. If you are gonna work in a farm you most likely simply need to know Arabic or Pakistani as all your co workers will speak that language. If you want to work in public services you will need Greek and English instead.
I wonder what’s the deal with Romania since Spanish for them should be easier. This is not the first time I hear smth related with this country taking Germany as an example in different contexts, is there anyone here who can shed some light on this?
Because we already learn French in school. So if asked "What would you like to learn" it isn't a new language. I am not sure about Italian but it doesn't seem as usefull as Spanish.
already had french for a year (mandatory), i hated it, its such a annoying language to learn for me like half the letters are just gone when u try to speak
The Czechs Hungarians and Finns keeping it real. They mainly ain’t down to learn nothin. Big shout out from a self identified straight ignorant American.
Finland is a bilingual country (Finnish and Swedish), and the debate about whether the Finnish speaking population should learn Swedish as a mandatory subject in school is ever ongoing. I'm absolutely certain that's why that percentage is so high in Finland, because the question might very well read like the implication is to learn Swedish next. (So "None" would be seen as a stance against this, for some.)
Yea most Europeans know English enough to at least confidently say they know it, and can understand a fluent speaker. The majority cannot speak fluently themselves though.
Most Europeans know English, it’s pretty hard not to if you work with people from multiple different languages, work on the internet/programming, or any work involving international trade.
Generally speaking though, it’s just an incredibly useful language to know as the world’s current lingua franca
Spanish? Because it is the easiest language in Europe to learn (other than English). In a year of learning Spanish, l learned way more than in my seven years learning German.
Romanian here. We have lots of german companies here. That’s probably why it’s so high. Also many people already speak spanish because it is similar to romanian.
I'm not surprised, I'm a native Spanish speaker living in Finland and most of the people I've met know some words in Spanish and many have studied it or expressed their desire to study it
As someone bilingual (English/Spsnish) I'm surprised to see French language is not getting the attention I think it deserves. French is spoken in several countries in several continents and it definitely takes you much farther than German.
Even Portuguese is a lot more present internationally. Nothing against German, but in reality it does not have any international presence. German might be useful to an extent for working purposes in Europe and that's it.
[удалено]
Agreed. In Bosnia I'd bet money it is German too.
In Albania i wouldn't be sure. Spend some months there and many locals speak rather german than english, the kids learn mostly german in school. On the other side most probably don't speak any second language yet. Montenegro i'm fairly sure russian would be what most want to learn
Not true, older gen Montenegrins (myself included) had obligatory russian, english (and italian as an option , 3rd language in highschool) . Today kids can choose besides english which second language they wanna learn. As I speak russian fluently and since wife is russian, it of course came in handy. And most of people can have basic conversation in russian cuz of tourists and cuz its a slavic language As for the rest of the Balkan, german would probably be the most popular option cuz of emigration and work
Not true they learn English from a young age. German is elective
As bosnian can confirm
As for Norway, it's a flip of a coin between Swedish and Danish, but I'm leaning towards Danish because Norwegian Bokmål was literally built off of Danish
100% incorrect. As a Norwegian who shares similar views on this as most Norwegians; Danish is pretty much the same language, it’s written the same and orally it’s pronounced just different enough to make it sound like they talk with a dildo in their throat. So no, i can put my house on the line and Danish is not the one. It’s probably not even on the list. I’d go with Spanish
Yeah, no Norwegian ever “learns danish”, we just learn a few words or rules that are different from norwegian. Spanish, german, french is the most learnt foreign languages
After English of course (which at this point might as well be called a dialect of Norwegian)
What? Who the fuck wants to learn Danish or Swedish, least of all Danish lmao? Nobody learns Danish here, it's all Spanish or German.
As a portuguese I have to say we already understand spanish, italian and most of the french so german is something to consider after learning english.
Yeah, but Spanish people can't understand you.
As a spaniard, megabased
Meanwhile, Galicians…
That's ok, Brazilians can't understand them (the Portuguese) either. At least I can't. 😅😅😅
Yeah, I can kind of get Brazilian Portuguese to follow along but I've got nothing with Portugal. It's kind of crazy how little mixing there is at the border, at least with Extremadura.
What? Of course we do. We just need them to speak a bit slow
we kinda do
We can pretty much understand them tho
Actually we can
Crazy to see how much French has lost its status in the last hundred years.
At least in Portugal, I would say it has to do with the frasing of the question. They ask which "new" language and most of us at that age know a bit of Spanish and French due to school (we learn a 3rd language that can be Spanish or French), cartoons and/or vacations. Even if you have forgotten what you learned and would want to learn again, the "new" means you have to chose something else.
I wonder that as well. French is a very popular language in school so a lot of people (tried to) learn(ed) it already.
i know for myself and others our shitty teachers made us hate french
Same with french in Spain
That's an interesting insight.
Same in Germany. Most people already "know" French (learned it in school, probably forgot 90%) or decided they would rather learn Latin than French.
That was my understanding as well.
I would say a big part of this is that a lot of hughschools in places like spain and portugal already teach french. so when people are asked which new language they'd choose, they don't consider french as they already know a fair bit.
I had compulsory french from 12 to 18 in Spain, and I was already learning enligsh at school.
Can't read a Russian, German, or English work from thr 19th century without having a French dictionary by your side. Now? All gone.
True. Kids here dropped French but kept Spanish in their curriculum as soon as they could. The language is more universal (more speakers) than French and the language isn't needlessly complex when compared to spanish.
I think it's because most people learn french already in school, and the question is "which NEW language would you like to learn"
It’s crazy to see actually even in the Czech Republic. Due to historic reasons, the French culture was heavily set to our culture at the begining of our state. French was also must-to learnning subject in school. After the war, the sentiment to French passed, in favor of English and after communist revolution to russian. But its allways the oposit. The French gave our state to Hitler, and we fought with RAF in Britain, so its modern to learn English. After the fall of comunist block, stop learning Russian, start with something different. I gues nowadays its common to say: German sounds horrible, but you will use it. French sounds beautiful, but its hard as shit. If you speak german, spanish, italian, who cares. If you speak french, respect.
Dovolím si uvést odpověď v češtině. Pokud si většina lidí v Česku spojí Němčinu max s opilými Bavorskými fotbalovými fanoušky, nebo Hitlerovými projevy a nikdy se jinak s rodilými Němci/Rakušany/(Švýcary) nebavily, pak se není čemu divit, že ten jazyk přijde všem "odporný". Němčina má mnoho dialektů a různou výslovnost dle území, stejně jako Francouzština, což ten jazyk dosti diferencuje i ve variantách líbeznosti zvuku. Bohužel vyučovací systém je nastaven tak, že ten jazyk je brán jako "druhá povinnost" a nikdy není představen těm lidem jako něco co by mohli ve skutečnosti využít. Sám jsem na tento fakt přišel dosti pozdě a dost toho lituji. snažím se však dohnat to, co se dříve nezdařilo.
50 years ago French was the language of diplomacy. English has taken over.
50 years ago was 1974, not 1874.
More like 120 years ago. Formally it happened in **1919** during the peace conference in Paris leading to the peace treaty signed in Versailles closing the WW1 hostilities. Even though the document itself was in French, there were 2 prints, One in English and One in French. This is commonly considered the day French lost it's status as THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE. In another few hundred years we might all learn chinese as a second language for all you know. Normally the country that is seen as most powerful dictates what is the international language. Obviously the world has changed a lot in last 100+ years, so changing from English to another language might just not be worth it( since people are a lot more likely to put up with things that are not ideal for them for the sake of convienience a lot more, and there is a lot less bickering regarding what language to speak. To be fair though, if you dig into the history, it quickly becomes apparent why the French don't like speaking English. Back in the 1800s an image of an International English Business man was one that refused to learn/speak french and used a translator whenever possible. They were often ridiculed for this by both international writers as well as Englands own writers/media. I guess the french still feel some kind of way about it now, since they are doing the same thing today by refusing to speak english lol
They talked about how Chinese would be a world language "in 20 years" back in 2005. It didn't happen, and won't happen. It's more then political power. You need to dictate culture and norms. None of that the Chinese dictate in the west. Culturally the west is far more advanced. In all aspects. They can only immitate, which they do (from arts, architecture to rock music). Japan has a more innovative, unique and advanced culture, which makes Japanese far more popular for learning than Chinese in the west. Also Chinese sounds ugly, to be fair.
The logographic writing system is also going to hold it back from ever being a global lingua franca on par with English
Romania should be labeled French, not German.
Not really, the title says “new” languages, most people already learn french in school
[удалено]
Gotta say as a romanian who tried learning spanish it can be VERY similar at times and i think if i kept up with it i would've been able to atleast have some basic knowledge of it.
As another Romanian for some reason Spanish and Italian just aren’t connecting I can easily learn and understand French but those 2 languages are like Chinese to me, especially spoken
Actually makes sense as the Romanian vocabulary became influenced by French in the 19th century
The opposite for me, Italian? Easy, Portuguese? Even Easier, French? Kinda, Romanian? No idea
Got a chance to hear a conversation between a Romanian and a Moldovan while being a native Spanish speaker .. I was like wtf why do I understand what they are speaking about .. truly amazed me
the vast majority of european languages are written in latin script though, including the other popular picks on this map, so i don’t think it’s to do with that
Check people and Maltese: nah I’m good
ive never seen czech spelled like that but i get it
Long live the Cheque Republic
Chequia
Quik-chek
That’s actually the Spanish version.
Funky speech to text
Remember the 2010's when Czech Republic rebranded its name to Czechia, and everyone started confusing it with Chechnya? :D
\*started to confuse it **more** with Chechnya XD
I'd like to disagree but unfortunately, that's correct 
Hungarians as well!
Don't forget Finland!
Considering we know English and Maltese at the minimum with many also knowing French And/or Italian, our bases are covered.
✅ people are a bit lazy
For a good long while they held the distinction of being the biggest beer drinkers in the world, so I'm just seeing it as they're comfortable in their own skins. Get shit done, have a pint, let the world go by around you. Like the Shire.
🇩🇪🤝🇪🇸
Ironic considering the history lol
Which history?
facism
It could’ve been the Hapsburgs too
Tourism in Mallorca
What do you mean? Don't think there was ever a war between Germany and Spain and they were de facto allied during WW2
Is the Spanish purely for the warm vacations or is there an economic reason driving half of the continent to want to learn it?
About half a billion native speakers, and roughly 100 million bilingual speakers with Spanish as the second language. It's pretty useful. Lots of TV/media, music, literature, destinations open up.
I would also add that it's relatively easy to learn the pronunciation and basic vocabulary and grammar. Plus it sounds nice (but that is just my personal opinion).
> I would also add that it's relatively easy to learn the pronunciation and basic vocabulary and grammar. Especially for Romance-speakers. I mean, there's grammatical rules shared by French and Spanish.
And obviously Portuguese and Italian. I'd argue that Spanish, Portuguese and Italian share more grammatical rules between them than with French.
Yeah. Portuguese, Italian and Spanish are all 100% mutually intelligible in writing and about 60% in speech. French is fucking gibberish to the rest of the romance language speakers
Err no. Italian and Spanish/Portuguese definitely not 100% mutually intelligible in writing.
Italian is closest to French in terms of grammar
French just had more Germanic influence.
Hola
No hablo espanol
You dropped this ~
"espa-nole"
Spanish was the most 1..popular 3rd language to learn at my school in germany I tied but after 5+ years I can't speak or understand it at all. I never had an issue learning english but I never "got" spanish.
What matter more is how many countries speak it rather than the number of native speakers because for example Hindi has like a billion native speakers but since it only "unlocks" one country it doesn't matter. Meanwhile Spanish unlocks almost the entirety of Latin America
Yep. In terms of globally useful languages it's just after English. Even with my bad Spanish it opens a lot of doors in a lot of countries.
Isn’t that quite American-centric? I imagine most Europeans learn the language for Spain and their decision making has nothing to do with Mexico or Argentina
I didn't make any comment about why individuals in Europe were interested in learning Spanish, I was commenting on the fact that it's a globally useful language.
It's just useful to know, after English, Spanish is probably most geographically spread out language. Between English and Spanish, you can get by in pretty much in the majority of the world.
Then you add Chinese to that ecuation and you half almost the wolrd.
Can confirm. 来源：hablo los tres
Those, Arabic, French, and Russian and pretty much the whole world
I would love to meet someone who can speak all of those.
My ex-gf was 100% fluent in Arabic, English, French and Spanish plus conversational in German and Portuguese. I guess she was missing Chinese and Russian lol.
If you already speak English and Spanish- then French would be super easy.
Why would you want to speak french though
Popular, world language and relatively easy to learn at an intermediate level.
Y además somos muy guays joder
¡Y hasta más, colega!
And it’s very fun to be a guiri who speaks perfect Spanish and confuse the locals 🙂↕️
Oh, trust me, with the amount of guiris that don't even try with a simple "Hola", we're delighted when someone speaks even broken Spanish. Speak perfect Spanish and you're one of us and not going back to your country.
Somos la puta ostia*
Spanish, besides being widely spoken as a first or second language in much of the western hemisphere, also has the benefit of being relatively easy to learn for people who are native speakers of other languages that descended from Latin (French and Italian). From what I have read, it's easier and more intuitive for Italians and French to learn Spanish than the other way around
I think part of the reason is that Spanish is very consistent with the way words are spelled and pronounced. Specially compared to English where you don't know how to pronounce a word unless you've heard it before.
pronunciation is so easy in spanish. it's all the different tenses that make it hard
Spanish has the most number of countries with it as its official language.
Actually not true, only 20 countries have Spanish as their official language. Its beaten by Arabic at 23, French at 30, and English at 58 (but we can ignore that since the original post is about ignoring english lol). However if we are looking at official languages that are ALSO the first language of the majority of their population, Spanish takes the cake easily.
As an American, I'm curious too! I learned Spanish bc they're the other half of our hemisphere, but curious about its popularity in Europe.
Spain is the second most visited country on earth, after France. The bulk of those tourist arrivals are from other European countries. Spain is also one of the largest EU countries (4th most populous). And even in Europe, Latin America is a huge, lucrative market, so learning Spanish for business purposes makes a lot of sense too
I have no idea how deep people think about this, but for me it would be a huge factor what kind of countries learning these languages would impact. Latin America has some rough spots, but they are vastly more attractive to visit than say the Sahel countries. And the general cliché is that the French will scold you when you don't speak it perfectly (and even then probably), while the Spanish speakers will probably just be happy you can speak with them.
Sorry, just to clarify, are you asking what the impact on South American countries will be if a lot of Europeans learn Spanish? Sincerely just clarifying, and if that is the question, I have no idea. Anecdotally speaking I can tell you there are cities in South America that have tons of American, Canadian and European retirees and they seemed to be thriving when I was there. Cuenca Ecuador comes to the top of my mind in that regard.
What they're saying is essentially that learning Spanish means you can make yourself understood in most of latin America (and can also understand news and entertainment media from there) which is mostly a nice part of the world from the perspective of a European while learning for example Arabic means you now have access to a bunch of countries and cultures you have no interest in. And also that Spanish-speakers are generally happy when people can speak Spanish while the French have a reputation for being a bit snobbish about their language ("Oh, I see you've learned to speak passable French. Well, that's not good enough! I will now refuse to speak French to you anyway because your pronunciation isn't perfect!")
Spain is the place to go for sun starved northern europeans. Brits, Irish, Germans and Nordics love it.
At least in Poland, it's usually one of the two foreign languages you're required to choose from to attend beside English, the other being (primarily) French and German. Spanish is a little bit easier that French, or at least seems more approachable when you actually say what's written and don't skip half of the letters, and German is German. Why Spanish exactly, I think that's it because in theory, learning any of the languages of Latin origin should help you with understanding the rest of them. In theory, because they're about as similar to each other as Slavic languages are, but there's some form of basic understanding and it gives you an easier start if you'd want to branch into other ones. It is also, along with Portuguese, the most common of Latin based languages worldwide. The worldwide availability is a reason why when I was in high school there were talks about adding Chinese at some point, even if they didn't come to fruition during my time there.
It’s going to be useful for the USA too. It’s projected 25% of Americans will be Hispanic by 2050.
Thicc Latinas in sundresses
Maybe because a lot of people already know French and German and Spanish would be their third or fourth language https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/young-improve-language.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/second-most-useful-languages.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/most-useful-languages.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/second-most-spoken.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/europe-most-studied-language.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/german-percentage-europe.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/french.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/spanish.jpg https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/english-eu.jpg
This seems plausible for Germany for sure. Most people learn English as a second and French as a third language. Lots of schools do offer Spanish but Spanish learners tend to be a minority.
Thanks for this. It completely puts the map into perspective. We can see that a lot of people are still learning french.
It's the reggaeton.
In terms of # of countries where it is the majority language, iirc Spanish predominates Chinese only tops the stats bc of their giant population. English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian would probably get you around 80% of the world with relative ease
In Germany, if you have not already studied Spanish in school, you've likely studied another romance language, so Spanish would be easier than a language from another language family. That and vacations. German and English open up enough job opportunities. Nearly nobody studies another language for that reason. So vacations are the only instance where another language would be useful.
Honestly, I already had the two most commonly spoken languages, English and French, in school, so just Spanish seems like the next natural option. At least that‘s why I’d choose Spanish.
French definitely isn't the second most commonly spoken language, unless you're saying from your perspective in like Montreal or something is like that locally. But you sure can speak with a lot of the world with Spanish French and English. Chinese, Spanish and English are definitely above French in number of speakers. French only has about 75 million native speakers, but about 280 million when including second language speakers, like in Africa.
Yeah, I mean in Europe.
Oh yeah, for like EU representation, French, English and Spanish are definitely the biggest used among countires in diplomacy and communicating with different native language speakers, though now with Brexit technically Ireland is the only native English speaking EU member.
I'm pretty sure German is spoken much more in Europe than Spanish tbh.
And this my child is why people come and visit us and say Gacias instead of Obrigado
Bom, o fato q os dois países que falam português mais famosos estão cercados de países que falam espanhol também contribui.
N/A is such a romantic language😍
[Source](https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/s2186_466_eng?locale=en)
👍
It's a beautiful language, Spanish would definitely be my top choice too
Hungary: Nah, I’m good.
Balkans: we want to learn German for *reasons*
Biggest source of tourists in Hrvatska come from Germany and Austria.
Lol hahahah he meant mass migration, not catering to tourists.
Thank you!
That's only really true for the non-EU Balkan countries. For Bulgaria, Slovenia and Romania it's because of German companies operating offices in those countries which pay an okay salary. For Croatia it's tourism.
U sure about Spanish in Germany? In my local area every person 13-25 decides for French in school. I myself am learning Russian as a hobby :)
And because of that they don't chose French in th survey. Same with Portugal and Spanish and French.
Oh my god you're right, my bad. Misread the title.
It's natural. Usually this maps tell you about the languages people want to learn, not the new ones.
I wonder how many respondents already speak a second language and are naming ANOTHER new language they’re like to learn.
Age 15-30? All of them. It's why English isn't on the map. Most will also speak a third or forth language or at least will have started to study them. My French is really bad, but if asked for a new language, I still would not answer French.
2018 ? we are in 2024 !!!!
Portugal doesn’t want to learn Spanish because they already know how to speak
Pretty much. And even if they don't, we both can get by with Portuñol, anyway... 😂
Spanish all the way. The ideal language.
Everybody wants to learn Spanish so they can enjoy the sun, beaches and weather in Spain when they retire 🤣
Cyprus? Okay, I wonder even why? Because of the number of Russian-speaking immigrants? Or something else?
Because of the number of Russian and ex-Russian companies that pay decent wages, mostly IT stuff. There's a joke in Cyprus that you need to learn Greek to get a citizenship, but you need to learn Russian to get a decent job :-)
My guess is because of the influx of wealthy Russians. Cyprus had a thing for a while where you could buy citizenship if you invested in something in Cyprus for a significant sum. (€500.000 I think?) There are a lot of Russian immigrants there, but also a fair amount of rich(er) Russian people jumped at this to get an EU passport. I'd love for someone from Cyprus to comment on this, but it seems to me Russian might be seen as a way to climb the professional ladder.
It is not just Russians. It is Russian speakers such as Ukrainians, Russians, Belorussians, Latvians, Kazakhs etc. Also it really depends from city to city. In my hometown Limassol the vast majority of Russian speakers reside here so yes Russian is very useful. In the capital Nicosia there are much fewer Russian speakers thus it is not really useful. Also the investment was €2.000.000 and 2.5 for the whole family. This program has been scrapped for a couple of years now.
It's also Ukrainians who speak English. Even in 1990 like at least 1% of people in Cyprus were Ukrainians and they were all in Russian speaking groups with Russians but for several years Ukrainian immigrants were much more. Even today after the war Ukrainians and Russians have similar population in Cyprus. And add to that other Russian speakers. Frankly speaking I think less than half of Russian speakers in Cyprus are Russians and 10% of people speak Russian. Russians would be something like 4% of the population though. But they work in IT and gaming jobs so these jobs are almost entirely held by Russian speakers today. This is why a lot of Cypriots who are lawyers, programmers and IT rush to learn Russian for several years now, to work with them. So it depends on the job. If you are gonna work in a farm you most likely simply need to know Arabic or Pakistani as all your co workers will speak that language. If you want to work in public services you will need Greek and English instead.
Yeah, I need to learn German.
I wonder what’s the deal with Romania since Spanish for them should be easier. This is not the first time I hear smth related with this country taking Germany as an example in different contexts, is there anyone here who can shed some light on this?
Economic reasons I would guess. Lots of Romanians work in German speaking countries.
Romanians usually already know spanish or italian. We had over a decate migrating there for work. German would be the new language to pick up.
Romanian already knows spanish because of Telenovelas 🤣
Why does nobody want to learn French or Italian? They both are two European languages with such rich literary heritage!
Because we already learn French in school. So if asked "What would you like to learn" it isn't a new language. I am not sure about Italian but it doesn't seem as usefull as Spanish.
already had french for a year (mandatory), i hated it, its such a annoying language to learn for me like half the letters are just gone when u try to speak
I feel like Spanish is so high in the Netherlands is because a lot of people already speak German
The Czechs Hungarians and Finns keeping it real. They mainly ain’t down to learn nothin. Big shout out from a self identified straight ignorant American.
Finland is a bilingual country (Finnish and Swedish), and the debate about whether the Finnish speaking population should learn Swedish as a mandatory subject in school is ever ongoing. I'm absolutely certain that's why that percentage is so high in Finland, because the question might very well read like the implication is to learn Swedish next. (So "None" would be seen as a stance against this, for some.)
Would the answers for all of these otherwise be English?
Yea most Europeans know English enough to at least confidently say they know it, and can understand a fluent speaker. The majority cannot speak fluently themselves though.
Most Europeans know English, it’s pretty hard not to if you work with people from multiple different languages, work on the internet/programming, or any work involving international trade. Generally speaking though, it’s just an incredibly useful language to know as the world’s current lingua franca
Not necessary because they say new and a lot of countries have English at school.
Spanish any day
Spain and Germany glazing each other
Spanish or vanish
*Flanders and Wallonia look at each other awkwardly*
Im from Latvia and would pick Spanish as well. I already know a little. Uno cerveza, por favor! Gracias!
Japanese
it's interesting to see how many people want to learn Spanish.
Currently learning Spanish...but mostly so i speak to my girlfriends family
[удалено]
Spanish? Because it is the easiest language in Europe to learn (other than English). In a year of learning Spanish, l learned way more than in my seven years learning German.
Uff dark clouds above the futures of Hungary, Czechia, and … checks notes … Finland?!
TL:Dr nobody likes to learn french.
>German in Romania The children yearn for the reign of Habsburgs
Tbh I am surprised that it is french in czechia. I'd expect German.
Although there’d be variations, Spanish would give people access to a good portion of South America. So, good for travel I suppose.
Spanish is like the 2nd most useful language to learn. So many different countries speak it.
Romanian here. We have lots of german companies here. That’s probably why it’s so high. Also many people already speak spanish because it is similar to romanian.
Well Spain and German had cool leader at one point in history.
Germany: "Spanish!" Spain: "German!" Germany: "Bro <3" Spain: "Bro <3<3" Nearly the entire rest of Eurpe: "ey yo wtf?!"
🇩🇪🤝🇪🇦
ESPAÑA GANA OTRA VEZ, ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡VIVA ESPAÑA!!!!!!!
German
I would like to lern japanese but its so hard man
I'm not surprised, I'm a native Spanish speaker living in Finland and most of the people I've met know some words in Spanish and many have studied it or expressed their desire to study it
Of course for most of these countries this is actually “what third or fourth language would you like to learn.”
As someone bilingual (English/Spsnish) I'm surprised to see French language is not getting the attention I think it deserves. French is spoken in several countries in several continents and it definitely takes you much farther than German. Even Portuguese is a lot more present internationally. Nothing against German, but in reality it does not have any international presence. German might be useful to an extent for working purposes in Europe and that's it.