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> an extra language I learned spanish at a young age and I find it pretty useless. The last time I used it in the past 20 years was watching Casa De Papiel
by fnord77 4y ago
> an extra language
I learned spanish at a young age and I find it pretty useless. The last time I used it in the past 20 years was watching Casa De Papiel
Really wished I learned something like German or Chinese instead
- School-Cotton 4y agoProbably depends on where you live or want to travel. Spanish is of limited use in Europe and Africa, of almost no use in Asia, and massively useful in the Americas.
- yosito 4y agoGlobally speaking, German is useless, unless you're European and trying to find a job in Germany because it pays better than your home country. The only German speaking country is full of educated people who also speak fluent English. You'll never meet an internationally minded German who doesn't speak excellent English. Spanish, however, is spoken in an entire continent, which also has a very low level of English, plus several other countries and is closely related to other latin/romance languages, giving you a head start on learning/understanding those. Chinese/Mandarin might be super useful if you're living in China or a nearby country, but a) why would you want to live in China if you're not Chinese? And b) the language of international business in China is still English.
- wheels 4y agoI agree that German isn't especially useful globally, but you're wrong on a couple points: - There are several countries with German as an official language, and a few other with German-speaking minorities. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and Belgium all have it as an official language (though the last few are not terribly significant). There are also around half a million native German speakers in Italy. It's also useful as approximately the root language of Germanic languages, and makes it faster to pick up e.g. Dutch and to a lesser extent the Scandinavian languages. - All internationally minded Germans do not speak English. Large swaths of Germans speak no, or only basic travelers' English. That everyone speaks English in Germany is an illusion that English speakers experience in Germany because they largely mix with only one social class, and the non-English speakers are invisible to them. (I'm a native English speaker and fluent German speaker who's lived in the US and Germany for equal amounts of my life. My girlfriend, for example, is not comfortable in English, nor are quite a few of my friends, particularly those that are blue collar, somewhat older, or from the east.)
- tick_tock_tick 4y ago> All internationally minded Germans do not speak English. That means they aren't internationally minded then.
- wheels 4y agoYeah, you're totally right. Angele Merkel was definitely not internationally minded. (She does not speak English well, nor did her foreign minister.) It's also a pretty terrible thing to assume that everyone who wasn't born into the upper class isn't internationally minded. Again, my girlfriend doesn't speak English well because she's from a working class family from the east, but she's been to a couple dozen countries, and manages a team of people from several countries.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- yosito 4y agoGood point about the other German speaking countries. I don't really know why that slipped my mind. But the social class thing you mentioned is kind of my point. I think it's pretty much true in all of those German speaking countries, that if you only want to interact with service workers in cities and professional, college educated, internationally minded people, you will have plenty of people to talk to and might not ever feel a need to know German.
- fnord77 4y agoEveryone says learn Mandarin but actually I'd rather learn Cantonese than Mandarin. It's the 3rd most spoken language in the US
- eru 4y agoYou can learn Cantonese for fun, but Mandarin is more useful for business or travel. > It's the 3rd most spoken language in the US That's interesting, but why would that influence your decision which language to learn? Almost all the Cantonese speakers in the US probably speak English, and there aren't that many in the grand scheme of things? (Especially compared to total number of Mandarin speakers.)
- GuardianCaveman 4y agoIt's all subjective. I learned Spanish at the defense language institute and then used it extensively in South America and Mexico for work and travel and it opens so many doors. One thing is that I'm not hispanic so people see me speaking it there and it blows their minds. For hispanic people if they don't speak it they are judged and if they do, they're judged somewhat if it's not up to snuff so maybe your experience in those situations is different. I had friends who went through the same language school for Chinese and German among other languages and they never used it. All the German linguists got reclassed into other languages like Spanish in the 90s. Last year I went on vacation to Puerto Vallarta and it was so useful even in a tourist heavy place like that. But I am sorry you do find it useless and I don't doubt it based on whatever your daily life is like and hobbies. On a separate note it's not too late to learn Chinese or German!
- zirgs 4y agoWill it blow their mids to see someone from Spain or Argentina speaking Spanish?
- MrGando 4y agonit: It's "Casa de Papel", just made me curious about how deep your Spanish goes.
- fnord77 4y agoheh oops, Papiel is a brand of papel https://i.imgur.com/g5atMOs.png https://i.imgur.com/g5atMOs.png
- cpursley 4y agoShow me any German native speaker under 50 who’s not fluent in English. Language groups with small numbers of English competency is going to get you much further.
- eru 4y ago> Show me any German native speaker under 50 who’s not fluent in English. I know quite a few of them. Comes with growing up in Germany.
- Vuizur 4y agoI think this applies to people with a university degree, it is rare for them to speak bad or no English. (Many speak it absurdly well.) But an average young nurse will probably only speak bad English and can maybe say a few broken sentences.
- jononomo 4y agoWhy don't you spend a year traveling in Central and South America?