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I live in a small country, surrounded by Germany, France and the UK, so we have to learn four different languages in high school (Dutch, French, German and English). Two more are optional (Latin and Greek), but I dropped those since I found out I was more of a mathematician than a linguist.

There isn't much emphasis on French and German though and I wished they just let us pick one and get deeper into that one instead of focusing everything on reading text only.

Anyway, it's definitely good to learn at least one language other than your own. It will look good on your CV and might open your eyes to different cultures.

At 10/30/10 09:59 PM, DeIirium wrote: French and Spanish are useful languages to learn because they are actually spoken more than English, they're just not as widespread. I've studied French for 2 years.

French? I think that's only spoken in France and some parts of Africa and Canada. It's just in the top 20 in number of native speakers.

Perhaps it's spoken in a wide area, but in the touristy parts of Africa and in Canada I'm sure you'll be fine with English as well. I really doubt it's all that useful. You're better off learning Spanish instead.

See this is why it is good to be born in a multi lingual family, easier language learning

At 10/31/10 06:18 AM, Auz wrote: I live in a small country, surrounded by Germany, France and the UK, so we have to learn four different languages in high school.

aight Nederland represent! grieks en latijn!?whoah jij bent zeker zon vwo slimmerik xD.

At 10/31/10 06:18 AM, Auz wrote: I live in a small country, surrounded by Germany, France and the UK, so we have to learn four different languages in high school (Dutch, French, German and English). Two more are optional (Latin and Greek), but I dropped those since I found out I was more of a mathematician than a linguist.

Yeah, but it's not terribly hard to go between those four languages. I can understand all these languages with a bit of effort. You don't really need to go terribly in-depth and you can probably pick them up if you really wanted to. Latin and Greek are somewhat more of an effort to learn, mainly because they're much more different than English. First of all, they're much more highly inflected. Greek has a different writing system. And so on.

There isn't much emphasis on French and German though and I wished they just let us pick one and get deeper into that one instead of focusing everything on reading text only.

Well, obviously you are quite proficient in English, so at least your schooling hasn't failed you. Imagine taking 5 years of French or Spanish and not really learning anything beyond the first two years at all.