this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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If I could only learn one additional language, and I wanted to travel the world, what language would serve me best other than English or Spanish?

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[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 15 hours ago

By the numbers: French or Arabic, as other commenters have mentioned.

But it really, really depends on where in the world you want to travel. If you're interested in Asia, for example, neither French nor Spanish nor Arabic will help you much (save for some remaining French usage in Vietnam).

A better answer is: figure out where you want to go, then do the math on what to learn.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 15 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Depends on the route you want to take while traveling. For example, if you want to circumnavigate in a sailboat through the tropics, French is a great choice because France includes a bunch of tropical islands:

French is also widely spoken in Africa, IIRC.

[–] Dearth@lemmy.world 15 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

There are more French speakers in Africa than there are in France and the French Language Authority is absolutley SEETHING at this fact because they're losing control over "proper French" and for the first time ever French is evolving like a language should

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 4 points 16 hours ago

There are also french speakers in Canada.

[–] Amaterasu@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I wonder if most of those countries people don't speak either English or Spanish as a second language. As opposed to certain specific languages and countries were most people don't have or use much a second language like for example in Japan or Brazil

[–] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

In most of the places French is spoken, it is the second language (instead of English or Spanish). Only place I can think of off the top of my head where Francophones would likely also know English is Quebec and, I guess, France itself.

The other languages in the sorts of places I was talking about are mostly ones like Arabic, various sub-Saharan African indigenous languages, or Polynesian.

[–] Chulk@lemmy.ml 30 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Kinda surprised that no one has mentioned sign language. I feel that it's use cases expand outside the original intent, especially if other people in your circle understand it.

[–] HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world 20 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

But OP was asking about travelling the world. Sign language wouldn't help with that.

Sign language isn't one language. There's American Sign Language, British Sign Language, Australian Sign Language, Nigerian Sign Language, etc.

American Sign Language and British Sign Language are completely unintelligible to each other.

[–] Chulk@lemmy.ml 3 points 18 hours ago

That's a good point. I guess I just read the title and everyone else's comments saying stuff like "Python" and "TypeScript"

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

How many different standards are there for sign?

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 22 hours ago

Basically every country has their own sign language or an imported sign language that became standardized.

But learning any sign language will make it a lot easier for you to communicate with signers of any sign language. Not because they’re necessarily similar to each other, but because sign language varies a lot regionally anyway (and even locally depending on what method of signing you’re taught) and it will be much more natural to find ways to work around it and communicate with each other.

[–] vvv@programming.dev 46 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 9 points 23 hours ago

Early adopter of that one. ~1994 IIRC

[–] Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I'm sooooo close with French. I just need to buckle down for like a couple weeks and I'll be fluent I think. I've always heard that's a good one.

I dunno about useful but Japanese is beautiful and I want to learn it

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 10 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

If you're fluent in Spanish you can probably bullshit your way through comprehending most romantic languages so French and Portuguese (the other big colonial languages) are probably out.

Maybe Arabic for the fact that while it isn't a dominant language in most countries there are fluent communities in all sorts of parts of the world.

Alternatively, Hindi/Mandarin for the sheer number of people it'd let you communicate with.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

Plus fluent in Spanish opens up travel to pretty much all of South America, Mexico, and Spain. There are differences in dialect, and some South American countries speak Portuguese, but you'll still be able to communicate.

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 8 points 19 hours ago

Mandarain opens up communication with over a billion people

[–] N00b22@lemmy.ml 9 points 19 hours ago

I'd say French or Portuguese

[–] Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

French and Arabic are the second and third most spoken language in number of countries. Then there is the obvious Mandarin which is spoken in most of China with around a billion locutors

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I keep debating Mandarin but my issue is how the language is tied tightly to China. Helpful if I decide to explore China in depth but seemingly less so if I want to "get by" in a large number of countries. If I had an ability to learn languages quickly, I would probably learn French, Mandarin, Arabic, and Hindi, but I think I am already pushing my limits.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 7 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's the thing: "which language is spoken by the most people" is an easy question to answer, but "which language (or combination of languages) lets me communicate well enough to get by in the most places" is much harder because the statistics aren't necessarily collected in a way that lend themselves to that kind of analysis.

For example, Hindi is spoken by a whole bunch of people, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of those people also speak English, so if you already know English you don't actually need to learn it.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 1 points 16 hours ago

Yeah, that's the gist of the question.

[–] Fidel_Cashflow@lemmy.ml 2 points 14 hours ago
[–] stationary_melon@lemmy.ml 10 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Since you're interested in traveling, I would say french. It is spoken in a very wide variety of countries all over the world, you have a lot of resources to learn it and it's related to the other languages to know. Other languages might have more speakers, but if youre just interested in the visiting a lot of wholly different places, it is probably the best one.

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[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 day ago
[–] davel@lemmy.ml 6 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

You say β€œtravel the world,” but where realistically will you travel? Westerners tend to travel almost exclusively to other imperial core countries and to popular tourist spots in the periphery that cater to imperial core tourists.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 4 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

what would be your recommendation for an american reddit leftist like me who has started plans on traveling to satisfy a desire to travel outside the american empire?

i can't figure out how to do it in a way that doesn't imperil me because of the those same vulnerability minority identities that the dnc failed to leverage as a cover for the genocide and virtue signal to shut out dissent from among their ranks and costed the whole country in this election.

i have an idea of what life is like for the people at the periphery of the core in north america and i want to know how much worse it is fully outside the core. it now makes sense that why the people want to hold imperialist friendly mexican judges accountable via the ballot box in a system that's completely captured by the american empire to social engineer the masses like it does when it makes a voter in tempe, arizona wait in line for hours to go vote.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 5 points 21 hours ago (17 children)

I don’t fully understand your question, and I doubt that I’m qualified to answer, because I have virtually every privilege, and I’ve never thought about international travel but from my own easy mode perspective.

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[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Realistically, not India/Pakistan. Other than that I will likely hit the Americas, Europe, Oceania, Thailand, Vietnam, Shanghai, Singapore, maybe South Korea, Japan, UAE, Morrocco for sure, Turkey, etc. So, quite a bit I hope.

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 hours ago

Arabic and Chinese then.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The Harappan languageβ€”then you could decipher the script of the Indus Valley civilization.

[–] Iamsqueegee@sh.itjust.works 3 points 23 hours ago

D rink yo ur ov alt ine

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[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 3 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

i don't think people understand how spanish's utitity matters in the future word in light of the big role it played in the this election and i think that's manifested in vagarious forms of ai like llm's and face detection.

in the end, the fact that the global south is too brown and speaks so "humanly" holds face detection and llm ai's at bay as we descend from this election into the world orwell described in 1984; financed by popularly beloved american oligarchs; and enabled by a two party system through manufactured consent and crowd/social engineering.

and to our new big brother overloads i say this: good morning; i'm pleased to see you again and what would it be my pleasure to do for you today? lol

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I excluded Spanish because I am already relatively fluent.

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