I’m having a bit of a language-learning dilemma and would love some perspectives!

For context, I’m fluent in Spanish, largely thanks to comprehensible input, and I’ve recently started learning French. I’ve accumulated around 300 hours of French input so far.

I moved to Rome a few months ago, which I absolutely love, and I might stay here until the end of 2028.

**My dilemma is whether to continue with French or switch to Italian.** I’m leaning towards French for several reasons:

**Motivation:** Despite living in Italy, I don’t have a particularly strong desire to learn Italian. I appreciate the language, but I don’t feel especially drawn to it.
**Opportunity cost:** Language learning requires hundreds, if not thousands, of hours. I’m not sure I want to dedicate that much time to Italian when there are other languages I’m more interested in.
**Interference:** Having worked hard to become fluent in Spanish, I’m concerned that learning Italian might cause interference between the two languages.
**Career:** I want to build a long-term career in international development, where French would likely be considerably more useful than Italian.
**Long-term perspective:** I think of languages as a lifelong repertoire I’m building over decades, not just years. From that perspective, French feels like a better investment, particularly since I don’t expect to live in Italy permanently.
**Existing progress:** I’ve already invested around 300 hours in French and genuinely enjoy learning it. Switching now would mean disrupting that momentum.

There’s also the practical reality that I work in an international environment where English is the primary language, and I can navigate most of my daily life in Rome without speaking Italian.

**And yet, I feel strangely guilty about not learning Italian.** People often seem surprised, even judgmental, when they discover that I love learning languages, live in Italy, and have no immediate plans to learn Italian.

Part of me wonders whether I’m wasting a unique opportunity to acquire a language through immersion. Another part thinks that just because I live somewhere doesn’t mean I have to dedicate hundreds of hours to learning its language, especially when my long-term priorities lie elsewhere.

**What would you do in my position?** Has anyone else lived in a country while deliberately prioritizing a different foreign language? Did you eventually regret not learning the local language?

hi yall i wanna learn American Sign Language or Hong Kong Sign Language

anyone recommendations for websites or apps?

(interested at British SL as well!

So as the title suggests I reallyyyyyy cant choose between the two. I've been interested in japanese for longer, probably every since I was around 10 years old, watch anime in the language have friends that speak it etc but I struggle so much with keeping motivation for learning the language.

I normally study consistently for around 5 months but then just really cant bring myself to carry on.

I've been interested in korean for the better half of 3 years almost haven't done much studying really besides hangul and some basic grammer/vocab but im worried the same sort of thing is gonna happen. Maybe it's just a fundamental problem with my motivation but i was curious to see what you guys think!

Hi,

I currently speak Finnish (Native language), English (C2), and Spanish(not tested but assuming B2-C1). I'm dreaming to become a polyglot some day, but I'm not sure with what would be a better strategy to start learning first.

I have studied both languages in upper secondary and Swedish also through high school. (Although barely was focusing and passing classes during that time)

Now that I'm an adult I really admire people who speak multiple languages fluently and can appreciate the skills more. Swedish is for me stronger than my French at the moment. For that reason I've been leaning towards the idea of picking up that first. Although I've during the past three years gotten comfortable in Spanish, so continuing with another Latin based language might be easier, but I'm afraid of starting to mix the vocabulary or getting confused between the languages and depreciating my Spanish skills.

I wanted to hear other peoples opinions on which would be a better option and why? (Or neither and would recommend another language completely)

I'm thinking to take a month long intensive course in the country and start watching netflix dubbed in the language I choose, as I get to speak Spanish at work.

I am a native English speaker (Chicago area), and also use Spanish almost every day. My Spanish is far from fluent but I can have purposeful conversations and communicate pretty much whatever. I learned Spanish as a second language, and would like to learn a third, debating French vs Arabic but open to other suggestions.

I am 20 years old student, economics/pre-law, interested in activism/organizing, history, and reading. My goals for the language are to open up communication to the biggest amount of people. I don’t need to become fluent, but I want to be able to use and maintain the language often, and I want to be able to travel to many places.

I understand Arabic is MSA+Dialect and will be much harder to learn, but I feel like it would be more useful living in Chicago. I also think Arabic would open doors to more people, since many French speakers also know English or Spanish. I think French would be easy-ish to learn and may be more helpful in the professional world, but not entirely sure. Finally, I have considered Portuguese because i’m interested in Brazil culture/travel, Mandarin/Hindi because of popularity, and Indigenous languages (Nahuatl, Quechua, etc.) for historical preservation. What should I do?

Hi everyone,

I'm a Software Engineer / SDET from Northern Mexico (28yo) who is looking to learn a third language, and I can't decide between German or French.

I used to learn Japanese for 3 years but I lost interest.

For many years I got my eyes on moving to Canada at some point (and I still want it to a certain degree, It was also the reason I got slightly better at English) and I read that French can be useful but apparently French is only used in the province of Quebec.

German is pretty cool, I like the way it sounds (even more than french) and apparently German is a good language to have if you work in the tech industry.

I've discovered amazing french music (Having a joy listening to L'Impératrice). On the other hand, I found more interesting german TV shows and movies like All Quiet on the Western Front, How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) and Dark.

I think what I'm looking for is to pick the language that might be useful for me overall not only professionally. When it comes to difficulty it doesn't matter to me though. (pretty sure it will be less time consuming than japanese, lol).

I am a native English speaker and it is the only language I speak with my family losing all other language knowledge throughout generations. I love learning about all cultures throught the would and have struggled to choose the languages I would like to become fluent in. I have looked through Dutch, Hindi, Scots, French, Russian, and Danish, but I always come back to Spanish and German.

With that, I live in the southern region of the United States where Spanish is the 2nd most common language due to being so close to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. I know that Spanish is also one of the top 10 most spoken languages in the world so it would definitely be useful. I also plan at some point to travel Central and South America (+Spain) which having this knowledge would be very helpful as well.

For German, I planning on doing a study abroad program in July in Germany. Even though the program is going to be in English I still think it would be respectful to know the local language.

I want to become fluent in both German and Spanish but I'm not sure which to work on first. I already have a bit of an understanding in both that needs to be severely improved on.

So now i'm learning swedish as my third language and my Level is good i'd say (B1) with a very natural accent, my Swedish friends always tell me that my Swedish is incredible for a foreigner

I can say i like German and Russian equally but i'm stucked between them, idk which one should i REALLY focus as my future language after swedish

So i can explain my reasoning for both languages:

Russian: i have tried learning this language before (lasted few weeks) i can read cyrillic (very slowly tho) i like russian and this fact that it opens doors to other slavic languages too so its pretty useful outside of russia or maybe good job opportunities in slavic countries, for me the main reason isn't all of this main reason is my girlfriend which she is from ukraine originally and since she speak russian i wanted to feel more connected to her (bcs she is learning my native language)

It was pretty much all i can say about russian

German: same as Russian i have tried learning German too i can say i wasn't serious that time ofc and i was just testing the Waters haha, i have already very good pronounciation in German as others said and swedish and German are pretty close to each other so when you know swedish a lot of rules and words automatically makes sense to you because they ar the same in german, i planned to move to Sweden for living and working but maybe Germany become my destination since it has largest Economy in the EU

I'm 19 years old and as my learning schedule, by my 20th Birthday probably i will be B2 in swedish (my goal is C1)

What’s ur favorite dialect?
Least favorite?
Easiest?
Hardest?

I'm thinking of learning a foreign language. It could be Italian, German, French, Spanish, Japanese or any other language. The whole purpose is to boost the career and also to speak a language which I can speak during an argument 🤣 , so that I can win the fight without hurting the feelings of the person infront of me 😬.

Mind you, main focus is to boost the career. For context I have a medical background, and I want to boost my healthcare career in the non clinical sector or ready to pivot into another career for better opportunities.

People any suggestions 🤓 ?

Cant decide over which language i should learn. Have been to both Korea and Japan and loved both so much for their own reasons.

I listen more to korean than japanese music.
Japanese tho has more variety i think if i were to live / visit again there.
Korean has an easier alphabet and possibly food
Japan was a less strict than Korea.
Korean people were more nice.
Japan is more “cooler” in some way
I prefer Korean movies over Japanese movies (I think)
But I prefer Japanese (game-)shows over korean ones

I dont really know what else to add to this post.

Please ask questions that might help open up my Korean/Japanese third eye

Puedo leer cirílico sin problemas (tengo A2 en ruso) pero me cuesta trabajo recordar los verbos

Tengo acceso a suficiente material en ambos idiomas

Pronuncio ambos idiomas con buena dicción (dicho por hablantes)

Admiro la cultura rusa, me intriga lo críptico del albanés. Me encanta la elegancia del ruso, me atrae lo flexible del albanés

Escucho sus comentarios y sugerencias.

I'm eager to learn languages, but I can't decide which one to learn. I have an interest in all of them. (I know English and Turkish.)

(French, Korean, Japanese, German, Russian, Italian)

I think the Indian subcontinent is a really interesting part of the world, so I have been passively consuming Hindi media for the past decade+. I can read Devanagari, and know a little bit of Hindi (enough to haggle at a market and understand a little bit of the Hinglish I hear on social media). Because English is so widely spoken in India, I have never felt the need to learn Hindi, as it wasn’t necessary for communication on trips, talking to my friends, etc.   

However, my fiance’s parents are from an Urdu-speaking part of Pakistan, and moved to the US about a decade ago. Their English is good enough for simple conversations, but we can’t really talk about more than just “small talk” subjects without utilizing my fiance's interpreting services lol. More specifically, it seems like the primary barrier in our interactions is my lack of Urdu comprehension, because they understand more English than they can speak. I also get the sense that my fiance is better at translating English to Urdu for his parents than he is Urdu to English for me. While I don’t anticipate being super close with my future in-laws, as my fiance likes to keep some distance due to lifestyle/religious differences, my long term goal is to be able to fully and directly communicate with all of my family members, and hopefully teach our future children Urdu. In the short term, I would like to be able to at least understand 80% of what my fiance and his parents are talking about on their weekly whatsapp video chats (I sometimes make an appearance, but I usually don’t because there isn’t a whole lot we can say to each other).  

With this context, you may be wondering why I would consider Hindi if understanding Urdu is the long term goal, but I am considering focusing on Hindi for a few reasons: 

1. Availability of high quality learning resources. There are just soooo many more REALLY good resources for Hindi, including textbooks, premade anki decks, and forvo audio recordings for words. There is also just *more* Hindi media/art I actually want to consume. While I obviously can't use pop media to do the heavy lifting in my language learning journey, fun TV shows and music definitely help keep me motivated to learn.
2. I can already read Devanagari and am having a hard time with the Urdu script and Nastaliq font (I used to be able to read Arabic script for the one semester I took in college, but Nastaliq is so slanty it’s harder for me LOL. And I know the Urdu script comes from Persian… but I think my point still applies). Maybe I’m just a dumbass… but I also struggle with the fact that vowel markers in the script are implied, whereas they’re explicitly written out in Devanagari. 
3. More accessible > more likely to follow through? While I could grind it out with the more limited Urdu resources available (and yes I know there are many available on this subreddit), I am wondering if the plethora of Hindi resources, especially those that I find fun to engage with, could mean I’d be more likely to practice consistently. 
4. Once (if?) my Hindi reaches a certain level of proficiency, I’ll have enough baseline knowledge to kind of slip the Urdu versions of words into the preexisting Hindi slots in my brain?? Does that make sense?? Also, I live with my fiance, who could help me figure out the Urdu equivalent of the really Sanskirtized Hindi words I come across pretty much anytime I’m studying. 

I am also aware of some of the downsides of this strategy. Formal Hindi resources generally use more Sanskirtized words, which are unhelpful in my longterm quest to understand Urdu. However, I’m wondering if this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that colloquial Hindi seems to incorporate more words that are mutually intelligible, so this might not be an issue depending on my source material. 

I would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks for reading my novel lmao

I just finished my chemical engineering studies in France. I speak Portuguese (native), English, French and Spanish.

I want to learn another language, both for the fun of it and maybe for it opening more career opportunities further on.

I'm choosing between Italian or German (I'm interested in Arabic also but I decided to keep it for later since it's a whole different way of writing).

Italian would be easier since I already speak some romance languages/can understand a little already (I started the Short Stories book and understood well).

German on the other hand might be more rewarding like "whoah I thought myself German"/useful for jobs.

For the start I plan to learn it on my own, but would be up to take classes later on.

This should be an easy question for me to answer, but it’s really not.

First is I’m terrible at learning languages!

Due to many years of dabbling in French, I know many words and phrases and I can generally follow a conversation. I do like French but really, you can only speak French in France. I love French cinema and culture.

Spanish seems to be more practical. I go to Spain more than France. I love Spanish history, food and general Way of Life. But I find my starting point much harder than French.

Given trying to them both would be, for me at least, impossible, is there any advice? I realise this is a subjective decision but still any pointers would be most appreciated.

Hi, i know english and turkish and am looking to choose another 2 languages to learn. I am torn between spanish or Portuguese AND chinese or japanese. i am kinda on the fence about committing to learn a language solely because i dont want to just learn and forget it over time. I want to choose a language that can help me socialize or help me in my soon to be career field (im studying something with lots of math and coding) or just unlock a different and maybe a helpful part of internet? I have seen a post online about the piracy stuff online is usally chinese+portoguese+russian and learning even one can help access to lots of interesting information. What can you recommend or how was your experience with these languages?

Hi, I’m really struggling in choosing which language I should study so I figured I might come on here to get some advice. Right now I’m doing a degree focused around three languages: French, Irish, and Italian.

I really enjoy all three; I’m most fluent in French (around B1/weak B2) and spend most of my time casually engaging in French media and literature, and just really enjoy French in general.

I’m Irish and would really love to be fluent in the language as it is supposed to be our native one, however the language classes for Irish have been rather lacklustre so far (despite it being an “advanced irish” class, the professor has been teaching us pronouns and when a word is a noun or an adjective etc, as if we haven’t been learning all this since we were four years old), but I’m hoping the quality will improve.

I took up Italian just this year and I do enjoy it, it’s a lovely language, especially the pronunciation. However, because it’s so similar to French, and job-wise I’d love to go into translation, Italian has been a little less interesting for me.

I have always been interested in languages with non-latin scripts, and my university does offer (Mandarin) Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and I’m occasionally teaching myself a bit of Arabic as my best friend is from Syria, however the Mandarin course (as that’s the one I’m most interested in) seems to be a lot less developed than the Italian one. For example, in 2nd and 3rd year, Italian offers a lot of modules around its culture and history, while Chinese only offers 2 modules around business and China in the 21st century. I’m also not sure if I have the willingness to commit to a language as challenging as Mandarin, especially since I do still enjoy Italian.

I originally chose French, Irish, and Italian since they are all European languages, and to be an interpreter in the EU is a dream of mine, however I also love the idea of travelling to China in a diplomatic role, or interpreting in the UN, where Mandarin would be helpful.

I’ve asked if I could sit in on one of the Mandarin lectures, but the final date to decide if I want to transfer is this Friday and I’m not sure if I should or not. I do also really enjoy my Italian classmates and lecturer.

Any advice is helpful, thank you!!!

TL;DR: trying to decide between doing Italian or Mandarin, both of which would be helpful for my future but would lead to different paths.

Know:
English
Arabic

Learning:
Spanish

Want to learn:
French
Italian?
German?
Turkish?
Idk I’m too indecisive

family is gujarati, i understand a lot but cant speak. duolingo and most apps only have hindi. is it smarter to do hindi first because of resources, or go straight to gujarati with worse resources? anyone done this with another small family language

Shimaore is a minority language spoken by a community in my area.

But I kinda find the other 2 more interesting idk.

Decide for me please.

​

I know this has probably been posted with different particularities but I really want to discuss from a literary and artistic point of view.

I am a portuguese native speaker and am fluent in English with rudimentary notions of French (not conversational, can understand some readings at most)

I have decided to pursue improvement in french but I really would like some language with a complete different structure. As arabic, mandarin, Cantonese, hidi, Japanese etc. Basically a non European/Latin language.

I ask this not with a professional intent in my mind. I want to learn for the challenge and the intellectual gain.

What the title says! I love lots of genres like fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc. not really a fan of literary fiction. I’m talking books, graphic novels and anything else you can think of. Which languages would give me the most original books of various genres - other than English ofc!