which language shall I learn and why?

[nextdoorneighbours]

I am off sick and likely to be for months. Which language do you think I should start learning? And why that one? Anything from duolingo really. TIA

Are there particular cultures you're interested in?
Places abroad you often go to ?
Friends or relatives from a particular culture?
Could it one day help for work or to relocate abroad?

not really, its just because I am stuck in bed for a long time and maybe though I could work towards another GCSE

I got the idea from another thread, but that one is about Chinese - I am not against learning Chinese, but am just looking for other options and opinions - its a nice idea, I like learning langauges, and it is something to do

Spanish. It's pretty easy compared with a lot of languages. Or Italian.

Depends what languages you know already and what motivates you. Something which has films subtitled that you might want to watch might be good perhaps. Somewhere that you’d like to visit. Or is it the challenge of getting a gcse in this time. Is Latin on duolingo? As a mental challenge it might be interesting and a good foundation for Spanish and Italian. I looked at my DC’s GCSE papers and thought it looked quite doable having only studied Spanish.

Or what about Japanese, again probably not as hard at early stages as might be thought and fun to learn some characters and there are probably animations that show how they developed from a picture of an object. Lots of online resources for learning I’d imagine and interesting to learn a non-European language eg verbs change by level of politeness but I don’t think there is subject verb agreement. You could watch Studio Ghibli films and if you did ever go there any effort to speak it would in my experience be appreciated and often is really useful. Sounds a great plan, good luck and hope recovery goes well!

Also, meant to say that Japanese is not tonal so easier than Chinese in that way.

Tok Pisin, for the simplicity of it.

I would look at where you would like to plan a holiday to for when you are well again and starts to learn the language of that country. That way it's learning for a purpose, gives you focus and is something nice to look forward too as well.

Spanish, because then you can travel easily off the beaten tracks in South America and discover some truly amazing places.

Go for it! Just pick and start. I have been trying to decide between French and Italian for the past three years.....

German. It's not too hard. Lots of very high quality resources, many of them free online, because the German government supports learners of the language. Resources are important as you won't want to spend all your learning time on Duolingo. Very strong tradition of classical music song, so you can learn by listening to beautiful music. Huge quanties of amusing cheesy pop music also available. Online courses including GCSE and IGCSE easily available. Great holiday opportunities in DACH (Germany, Austria Switzerland) area.

British Sign Language. It's an amazing language to learn!

I was also going to say BSL as it is useful for jobs, or Welsh if you're likely to work there.

I think both Spanish and Italian are quite easy, and they are also nice places to go on holiday if that’s what you wanted to do at the end of your studies. There are many videos on YouTube in both languages as well, and you could always try watching a show on Netflix, if you have it, in one of these languages as well.

or, and this might be one you hadn’t even thought of, but British sign language, and that one would be useful in the UK

I'm a year into Swedish on Duolingo. No particular reason why, but there are some really good Swedish TV shows on Netflix that I'm enjoying trying to pick up on things I've learnt!

It's been relatively easy so far as it seems a fairly 'logical' language, and there's quite a bit that feels familiar in terms of sentence structure from GCSE German days.