3 ms·

> I recommend people learn a second language, but I recommend they find one that they'll either consume a lot of media in, or have a lot of people they can talk

• jodrellblank 7y ago
  For us English native speakers there is no single language as compelling as English is for other Europeans. English gets you (from Denmark?) access to all of American commerce, Hollywood media, mainstream Western computing/programming, international airline language, much scientific work, an official UN language, travel to America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, UK, other former-British-colonies such as parts of India. Danish gets me travel to Denmark, and Danish media of which I can't name any authors or similar off the top of my head. Unless I had a personal family connection or interest, the benefit to me of learning Danish is much less than the benefit to you of learning English. I think the parent comment's recommendation to learn a second language is targetted more at people like me (pick one and learn something) rather than people who already have done that and are reading in their second (third, etc) language. That's also partly why I ended up at Esperanto - it avoids the problem of "well I learned Danish so I'd better travel to Denmark every holiday from now on, just to make it worth while" and the problem of "if I have to spend a decade learning a language.." by being much simpler than natural languages. It's more of an interest than a commitment.