Which language would be most useful to learn in middle age?

[chillinchill]

What would be a great and useful lanagueg to learn?
Am middle aged and am not terrible at learning languages.
No particular interest in any specific country or culture open to all.
If you have a suggestion thats not on the poll, please share!

I picked Latin.
I guess none of them will be necessarily useful if you have no particular interest in a specific country, but Latin is the only one you’ve actually singled out to express a specific interest in (on this thread at least). But if you’ve always had an interest in it then I think you should do it :)

Oh I meant to add, I also thought the suggestion of BSL was a great one and could be useful one day, you never know!

I'm learning Welsh and am really enjoying it. It's quite difficult compared to a lot of European languages due to the mutations, but this also makes it fascinating and fun.

Useful is definitely misleading. I like the sound or idea of all the languages in the poll. Hindi as I have met many nice families through the school years and like hearing it. Italian as I love the sound, food, country. Latin as intrigued since school, Arabic as it's widely spoken in the world and is very different but probably a bit unrealistic for me as is Mandarin. I suppose the useful part of the question is about what lanagueg would be really contemporary to learn in the world we live in now with AI translate yet global powers shifting, just interested.

Maybe Italian and BSL would be a good combination. @Willowcat77 Welsh is also a good idea.

I second sign language - I struggled to learn new spoken languages in my 30s despite studying two at university. BSL has been really fun, made me look at English in a while new light too. You learn a whole new culture and it has more potential to be useful than Spanish for example (eg I might go to Spain once on holiday for a week and likely won't come across many non - English speakers anyway but BSL could be genuinely regularly useful at home in helping bridge gaps between deaf or hard of hearing people and the hearing world.

Just Google Level 1 BSL courses. There are a lot of online / Zoom courses, make sure they are accredited by Signature (the nationally recognised awarding body for all BSL qualifications ) as a level 1 course.

None of them. I love the English and French languages. That will do for me.

A language is only useful if you use it for something. Plus, it’s hard to keep any level of fluency unless you get a chance to speak/read/write the language.

So, if you’re in England or Wales, Welsh. If you’re in Scotland, Gaelic.

I learned Latin from my early 30s, and modern Greek from my mid-30s, and love knowing both. However, I do sometimes end up inadvertently speaking a random hybrid of both, which is entertaining for others.

I'm a language enthusiast, former ESL, French and Latin teacher. Currently, I am taking a German class and a Greek class. They were both on offer at my local FE venue. I studied German at university and also learned some Homeric/ancient Greek.

By speaking population the top 3 are Mandarin/Arabic/Spanish. For a western person, Spanish is going to be the easiest to learn.

Latin is pretty straightforward and contributes to all other languages either by structure (cases - useful for other languages) or vocab or both.
Greek - I'm doing that now but classmates are finding it tough. The new characters/alphabet are tricky for them and those letters are not pronounced as expected. Most of them seem to have no idea about noun/adjective cases and the teacher, as are most, is unhelpfully cagey about the concept rather than just presenting it.

Personally, I'd do Mandarin b/c it interestes me and I can already fake-read Spanish/Italian and Greek.

French, Spanish and Italian are easy to learn if you've studied Latin. I chose Greek at evening class, that's bloody difficult 😅 But useful

Knowledge of Russian helps with Greek script. (But not language, plus overall is harder so not a recommended shortcut.)

The most useful language is the one you decide to learn and use! It's no good trying to gauge the usefulness of a particular language unless you have plans about when and how you might use it. So the best thing is to just pick one you fancy. Latin would definitely not be useful though (and I say that as a person who did Latin A Level!). I teach several languages. Out of your voting list, Italian would be the easiest because you learned French at school. Spanish would also be good. Or brush up your French.

Italian is only spoken in Italy, Greek in Greece. The majority of Hindi speakers you encounter will also speak English. Latin is quite a cerebral rather than a practical choice.
The easiest and most useful languages for a European to learn would be Spanish (nearly all of South and Central America plus Spain) and French (France, North and West Africa, Quebec). Very useful but perhaps trickier would be Arabic, Mandarin- maybe Russian?

(My second language is Italian 🤔)

Spanish. Because South America is just the most fabulous continent to explore, and the better your Spanish, the easier it is off the beaten track.

If you are interested in Latin learn Latin! I learned it as an adult and loved it. I love the word etymology and I recognise a lot of words in Spanish, Italian etc because of it.

I tried to learn Arabic from Duolingo but didn't get much beyond the alphabet. I've got back in to French instead after going to Morocco and France last year. Going there definitely motivated me more than anything else.

Italian is so beautiful. Alora..

Japanese. Easier than Mandarin to learn.

It opens up a culture that is both traditional and quirky and embeds a different way of thinking.

What about Persian? It looks like Arabic but it's much more similar to English and French than Arabic. Once you get past the initial hurdle of the different script, grammar and pronunciation, it's actually not so hard to learn as the grammar is relatively easy.

I think Arabic isn't a great choice as there are so many different variations and it's a really hard language to learn.

What do you mean by 'useful'?

I would agree with this. It's the language I have needed most as an adult. I know a bit but not much and I wish I knew more.