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?

If you’re interested in Chinese, I would recommend the Hello Chinese app instead of Duolingo. Same idea, but much better.

The Duolingo course I’ve liked most (they are very variable) is Latin, but maybe not a good choice if real life communication is the goal!

Another vote for Spanish, there are so many ways to enjoy it - TV, film, music and a lot of podcasts aimed at beginners like Duolingo, News In Slow Spanish and others. If you felt up to joining zoom classes online a Babbel live subscription gives you access to teachers who are native speakers from around the hispanohablante world.

Definitely Italian, the language of love.

Looks like its going to be Spanish! Thank you all for your input

Oh are you me?!

I agree with learning some BSL, but would also try Spanish. More countries to use it than Italian, although I love Italian also and both have interchangable words. Get well soon x

How about Icelandic? Yes, they all speak English and there are not that many speakers. I'd still like to learn it though!

I'm going to make a start on Spanish tonight. I will let you know how I get on. I might peek at Esperanto too

I already speak Italian, though and I think it would be an easier option if you are looking for that.

Agree, Italian is easier than Spanish because it’s so clearly enunciated that it’s easier to start hearing individual words, rather than a run of “foreign”. Easier than French because there are set rules for pronunciation that don’t change, so once you’ve learned those the accent is not difficult to approximate. There also tends to be one way to spell a particular sound, so none of that “oh” could be “eaux” or “au” or “aux” confusion. And a lot of the vocabulary is very close to French or English or both, so easy to pick up and remember.

If you’re going for Spanish, Coffee Break Spanish is a nice podcast to listen to - starts at beginner level.

I like listening to language or history podcasts on the tube while doing a bit of mindless Candy Crush!

Depends on whether you want to be challenged or just expand on your existing skills with another European language. I have learnt Cornish to a reasonable level because a) we moved here and I wanted to learn why the place names were so different and b) the structure and grammar of the language is completely different to English and it was a bit of a brain teaser. Good luck and hope you get well soon!