what is the best second language for a native english speaker

>>1156899
Dutch

>>1156899
depends on where you want to travel ...?

>>1156899
Western Hemisphere = Spanish
Africa = French

Asia = don't bother for travel, if working/expat then your country of residence. English is fine

Europe: From a business perspective, probably German. But English is fine

>>1156903
Pretty much this, except I'd say French is as equally useful as German in Europe.

French/English is a pretty godly combination because there are still pockets of the world where French is still the preferred second language. People also seem a lot more impressed with being able to speak French than Spanish for some reason, women are extremely into it. Plus France as a fluent French speaker is a totally different experience, one that may be worth learning the language for alone.

But if you're planning on spending considerable time in the W Hemisphere then it's Spanish. Shit Spanish is useful even in the USA.

I don't think Korean, Japanese or Mandarin (particularly Mandarin) is worth the insane effort unless you are weebus maximus for those places. Russian is an interesting choice though, not as hard as it seems but still fairly difficult (any new language will be). Standard Arabic has some value.

>>1156909
Nah, as a Dutchfag working for a multinational, German tops French big time. It's English > German > French in Europe. They don't even give a shit about Spanish.

>>1156899
Really depends on where you intend to travel. Most commonly used languages (based on number of countries where it's an official language) are: English > French > Arabic > Spanish. I'd say if you speak those 4 you are set for the whole world minus East Asia.

But as I said, it's where you're interested in traveling. For example I have next to no interest in the Arab world because BOMB so I don't give a shit about their language. But at the same time, someone who's not interested in Latin America probably doesn't have Spanish high on their priority list.

>>1156903
spanish is only useful for south america. you won't need it at all for america or canada

>>1156909
french is only useful for africa, which almost no one goes to. could be a bit useful in north africa, but as big as it appears on a map, the amount of settled area is actually quite small

I agree that russian is a good choice purely for travel. it will give you decent access to most of eastern europe and large parts of central asia, like kazakhstan, and even mongolia

I disagree that china is a bad choice though. china is fucking huge. russian is better though, purely for travel.

>>1156963
Mexico/Central America which is North America,, and in areas of SW USA it does come in handy. Also Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

>>1156903
End of thread. Pack up boys, we're done here.

>>1156968
you know what I mean though.

I think anyone with an interest in spanish would have already learned it. putting it up as a suggestion for someone, when the context of its utility is obvious, and has already been declined repeatedly over the course of a person's life, hence the purpose of the thread, its just kind of silly.

and no, its not useful in the SW unless you want to work in fast food or tour a barrio. even most of the carribbean islands speak english.

anyway, I'm just going to reiterate my vote for russian, which gives you access to probably more variety in culture than anything aside from english and french. and unlike french, the places you'll want to go are not warzones.

>>1156963
What about central América fucking estupido gringo

>>1156899
Spanish gets you South America.
French gets you Africa.
Russian gets you the ex-USSR.

At that point you're pretty much set when it comes to bulk deals.

imo
russian, spanish, german

>>1157110
It's not possible to racially slur the best race. Laugh at this shitskin's feeble attempt to forget for a solitary moment that he'll never be white.

>>1156899
If I wasn't learning Spanish for my home country, and I was an East coast type, and didn't want to travel to all C. and S. America and the Caribbean. I'd be more likely then to go to Europe, than say Asia. So, if I wanted something fresh to add to my English-Spanish core language needs, it'd probably be German (rather than French). French is N. Africa which is a no-go zone, and then just France. Bleh. If I was monied, I would probably pick up a "scandinavian" language and return over and over. If I had very lengthy holiday time from work (10 days is even hard for me), I would take a stab at central european dialects, some czech, hungarian, polish.

All that said, you can have a damn nice time in Italy, over and over, for years, even decades before you see it. And it's pleasant to learn, has a lot of great translated papers to immerse in, a great film industry with subtitled movies to enjoy, easy to speak, and sounds lovely and romantic too.

>>1157130
French is many sub-saharan African countries, but they may not interest you as well

>>1157131
Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't expand N. Africa and no-go zones to also mean "sub-saharan Africa. My bad. Is it relevant to me or anyone else in this discussion? Not at all. Note I didn't name countries. I grouped them all as something a traveler wouldn't be interested in (during this decade if not longer).

>>1157134
Well, I'm doing the whole coast of africa soon so would be cool to know french. Will try to pick up some in morocco atleast. Btw north africa is beutiful this time a year.
You come longer with french to, me being q filmnerd I love the classic french films and would love to understand them. France might have the best indiefilms to this day, maybe after the belerux countries.

>>1157134
Yeah, but a lot of travelers are interestedin those destinations. About 60 million international tourists visit the continent annually and has been increasing every year for years. Look how many African threads are on the board right now. Morocco alone gets over 12 million annually, and French is widely spoken there. Learning Scandinavian languages, from a utilitarian perspective, is largely pointless since most speak English.

>>1156899
i would say
French and Spanish

just compare the list of country these are spoken with any other, besides english

french is not only africa, switzerland is part french, france obv, corse, oversea stuff of france like guadeloupe etc.
and spanish even more

>>1156909
>French is as equally useful as German in Europe.
no german is the most speaken in europe and only by white, french is the language of african and it's hard to learn, don't bother

t.actual french

Pretty sure Dutch is quite easy for English speakers

>>1156899

Where do you want to visit? I learn Russian, so hopefully i'll be able to have a much easier time in the ex-ussr countries, and in Russia of course.

Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, and Mandarin

100% Spanish

In France you can get around quite well with English, they might not like you much but you can do it. The only place you'd actually need French is west Africa, which is one of the most dangerous and least interesting (for tourism) places in the world, so it doesn't matter.

In Asia there are decent numbers of English speakers around, such that even in China, the place where the least English is spoken, getting around on English alone is still quite possible. And China kind of sucks for tourism anyway. The rest of Asia has enough English speakers scattered around that you can get by too.

In South America you truly do need Spanish to see lots of things that are even on the tourist track. The Latin American world is so large that people can travel around, meet people from other countries, everything on only Spanish.

Right now for example I'm in an airport in Colombia, and just buying a flight ticket or checking into a flight is impossible without using Spanish. Not even the check-in people or the flight attendants speak a word of English.

There are other cases for similarly insulated large areas - like Arabic for the Middle East, or Russian for the ex-Soviet bloc, but those languages are considerably more difficult to learn than Spanish because they're so distant from English.

>>1156900
/thread.

You want the language with the most locations and eventually second tongues.

It mainly depends on your spheres of interest.

Central+south America=spanish
Africa=arabic, french
Central, eastern europe=russian, german
Asia=english and nothing else.
Middle east=arabic

Spanish wins by having the most countries speaking it.

>>1156899
Magyarul best language.

>>1157680
Outside of Île de France and the mega touristy parts in PACA you're not going to find many English speakers in France. I went from Aquitaine up through to Normandy and it was the first time in all my travels where I could communicate better by butchering the local language than by the locals butchering English. Even the young people, absolutely zero English skills.