What language shall I start learning while in bed recovering from flu and pneumonia?

[notknowledgeable]

I'm told I will be mostly in bed for even more weeks, and I might have to go back into hospital at some stage.

I was there for days recently and was persuaded to download Duolingo. I've messed around a bit on French, which I already have qualifications in.

But what shall I choose to learn from scratch? Arabic? Spanish? These are languages with many speakers. Esperanto? I find that really exciting, again, lots of international speakers. The advantage of Esperanto is it is so easy I could be communicating in it within a few days. I do know a little bit already. Italian? supposed to be easy? Chinese? very different? One of my friends suggested Zulu, for fun.

Which one? Or a different one altogether?

What about sign language?
I started learning a while ago and I teach Dds what I have picked up.
Dd2 likes to use it alot in loud places as she is slightly hearing impared as am I.

Agree, BSL would be great.

I'm doing Arabic.

Just because it's completely different.

I'm enjoying it.

The repetition of the first words in the first few units wasn't enough for me and I had to put the words into a flash card app (which also helped my Arabic spelling!)

Mi parolas Esperanto. Mi komencanto!

Italian is beautiful and follows nicely from French.
big yes to sign language!

Language learning can be surprisingly fatiguing. I'd pick a romance language to leverage your French.

Do you actually want to continue long enough to use the language? If not and it's just for fun, maybe Romanian since that's a less common romance language.

I’d definitely go with Spanish. It’s the most useful. Grammatically easier than a lot of languages and it’s lovely.
Esperanto is a solid waste of time in my opinion when there are actual organic, useful languages out there.

BSL is a good choice. So useful.

Third (and some) BSL. There is a really good YouTube channel called Commanding hands

I'd go round the British Isles, and would try Cornish, Welsh, or Jerriais

Gaelic
Welsh

too physically energetic! I have so little energy right now I can hardly raise my arms.

Spanish is very easy to pick up if you already have French. I started it about a year ago (in similar circumstances actually) and got to holiday standard in a few months and can now manage tv with subtitles (in Spanish)

Yes I would hope to use it to communicate. eventually.

O that sounds good.

None, chill out & get better

When I've been in hospital, I've tried to learn a few words of the native language of the healthcare workers I've met - so Hindi, Filippino/Tagalog... and Polish and Romanian to chat to the carers in my MIL's care home... it's nice to surprise them with a Good Morning or Thank You in their language. But that's sort of 'holiday learning' - maybe you're looking for a deeper dive.

Be well! 😀

I’d learn Welsh if I wasn’t so lazy.

How about Portuguese if you want something a little trickier than Spanish but still romance?

and I’d go for Swahili over zulu… Zulu is a clicking language and I can’t imagine how you would learn that via Duolingo!

Italian or Spanish

well, I will when I am tired, but I spend hours in an inbetween state, too wide awake to sleep, too weak to get up, and then I Mumsnet for hours! but learning a language might be an alternative

Feel better

Makaton?

already use that quite a lot - too physical to do any more right now. Good suggestion though. If it was a broken leg I was immobilised with, then BSL or more makaton would be excellent shouts.

I’d go Italian or Spanish if you already know French. If you’re tired and unwell then I think you want something where you’ll make progress fast and get lots of little dopamine hits from recognising vocab you already know. I really like to get the audiobook and ebook of a harry potter book in any new language i’m dabbling in, you can hover to look up words in an ebook and it’s surprising how quickly you can start to work some of it out when you know a book inside out already.