to ask if you speak a foreign language, why you chose that one..

[Messyisthenewtidy]

was it to travel to / live in that country, because of a spouse, etc?

Also, do you find it easy? And how are the locals when you speak to them in their language?

I'm trying to get some inspiration to learn a foreign language but I'm not sure which one to choose.

I picked German to learn. I’ve been going a couple of years.

My reasons were:
Learning a language was on my bucket list and the brexit vote Galvanised me into action. If it goes tits up here I’d rather move to Europe than Australia or New Zealand. (Im Lucky that I am professionally qualified in a very in—demand career)

I chose German for loads of reasons. The main one is I love the sound of it. I am also a closet fan of a few German bands, so it was pretty exciting when I was able to understand first hand the songs and interviews etc.

There’s a lot of German language tv and music and it is readily available in the U.K. . And that is a big bonus when you come to want to start listening to the language. There are some ace documentaries and also their famous Tatort crime scene shows.

I like to travel in Europe and 5 countries hav German as an official language. So it comes in handy on holiday. I like the beer and the food. Win win.

I guess the thing that puts me off Spanish is the idea that it is full of Brits on holiday and that whenever I've heard spaniards speak it's so fast it sounds like a drill!

Well ok, not full exactly, but I heard that there were a few anti-tourist movements that they might be a tad sick of us!

I speak French quite well but was quite shocked last year when they all responded to me in English
It annoys when people do that. If a French person in UK spoke to me in English I’d answer in English.

Depends where you go in Spain, Messy. The north coast, Bilbao, Madrid - much fewer Brits. It's only really a narrow coastal strip in the south which is the costa del fish'n'chips.

heard that there were a few anti-tourist movements that they might be a tad sick of us!

In Valencia recently I saw 3 separate graffitis (bits of graffiti? Graffiti writing?) saying ‘f* off tourists’.
Apparently it’s the same in Barcelona and other cities. The people we were with said loads of tourists come, especially off cruise ships, and wander round with packed lunches and use the loos but don’t contribute to the economy.

OH Fermats you're swaying me back from German now, as San Sebastien is looking pretty divine.

Spanish, German, Spanish, German, aaagh

I speak German because my school offered French and German and I was better at German. And I was more interested in Germany than France.

I did learn some French too, and Italian because it was offered at my work and then I did a GCSE at night school.

We are just back from the Netherlands and it seems everyone speaks fluent English effortlessly. Even the primary school kids in the play parks were good with our children. We did notice that a lot of the television was subtitled rather than dubbed (even the Disney channel at times) and I wonder if that is a big influence.

I dabble with French (I did Spanish at school) and I like that I can watch films that I also enjoy.

I learnt German and French at school, and kept up with the German. Added Hebrew and Slovak as I got older.

Hebrew because I think it's beautiful and Slovak because I adore Slovakia and love to visit.

I learned French from age 6 as we had a French sacristant at my (Catholic) prep school who taught us basic French. I went on to take GCSE and A levels in it, and had it as my complementary subject at uni.

I also did Spanish and Latin GCSEs and then studied Russian (with French) at uni. I chose Russian because I stuffed up one of my A levels so couldnt take up my offer for law, and because my father was in the military and I couldn't reconcile the Russia I knew from literature to the Iron Curtain monster. Living there for a year was one of my most scary and fascinating times of my life!

My great grandmother was Italian so I can sort of read/understand it and I also took German classes for a while...!

DH is a Frenchie and we live in his home country. So I try to parler le Français, but badly.

The kids are totally bilingual, DS (5) corrects me and teaches me

I grew up native German, with fairly total immersion french from an early age (french speaking country, German family). School was mainly in German with intensive french from primary plus English (and Latin) in secondary. Left school truly trilingual. Came to UK did a degree, got a job here, now 30 years later German is a bit rusty and out of date, but speaking to my kids revived it somewhat. French is also still there and fully functional but takes a bit of practice not to have an English accent! Learned some Turkish as a adult, and it's HARD (not a Indo-European language so structure/grammar works quite differently)! Knew enough to make myself understood, get the gist of a conversation and argue with taxi drivers (worked there for a few months), but wouldn't say I ever 'spoke' it. In tourist areas people were grateful I had made the effort, in other areas it was a necessity to get by. Learning the other languages (esp. English) was a doddle compared to that!

Hungarian as I was born into it.
French, I can converse and remember it all from school —from 28 years ago— funnily enough we’re going to Nice next week. I have been complimented on my French in Paris

I have a cracking poster in my room that reminds us that being an amateur in Languages is an area in which being an amateur is worthwhile: it prevents you from returning to Milan rather than going to Rome, for example.

I lived in France so I’m bilingual and then picked up Spanish in Uni. I was very poor with Spanish until I associated with a lot of South Americans in London. Very useful when visiting Miami. I slide between the three languages constantly, French and Spanish colleagues and of course I teach both 6 hours a day.

I learned French and German at school - did A-levels in both. I can read and write French very well and I have a good accent but I can find it hard to understand spoken rapid French. I did old style A levels where there was much more emphasis on writing and reading and translating. My German is pretty much disappeared through lack of use. I lived in Italy for a few years and my Italian is fluent. It’s a lovely language. I can get by in Spanish and Polish. I’ve been learning Russian for years but find it hard. As soon as I take a break from it I forget it and have to keep starting from the beginning again. I like grammar - it’s one of the things that I find interesting.

Ooh, if you like mountains and sea and trains and chilling in cafes, I would recommend learning Norwegian (bøkmal).

It's definitely one of the easier languages to learn and it's a sister language of Swedish and Danish - it sits between them, in a sense, so you'd find it easier to then pick up Swedish or Danish than starting a brand new language. Plus it just sounds cool.

If you have an Alexa, ask her to play the radio station NRK P1.

Spanish for me, been learning on and off for 10 years but am not fluent. I have travelled extensively in Latin America and Spain so the useful choice for that. Northern Spain fits your bill, San Sebastian is lovely plus mountains in Asturias and beautiful beaches in Asturias and Galicia. Really not a Brits on holiday vibe at all. I had lost of conversations with locals about my daughter.

Ack, I mean Norwegian bokmål, not bøkmal.

Bavarian German - as I lived there and had to learn it pretty sharpish!

My husband is American. I’m trying to learn the language but it’s a struggle . I think he should learn proper English.

French was the first foreign language I learned because it was what we were all offered at my school. Eventually ended up with a BA and a post-graduate qualification in it and have used it in my career. Through a quirk of school changes and different timings for second languages, the next one was Russian which was quite difficult but very interesting and, even if you forget a lot of the grammar and vocabulary, it is still something to be able to make out the alphabet! I sometimes wish I had taken it further. Then in quick succession I learned German (quite easy if you have got the idea of inflections from Russian and also picked up quite a lot of vocabulary already from another interest I have), Spanish, which I now consider my second-best language, and Welsh because I went to university in Wales and it seemed like a good chance to do something interesting. Being a celtic Ianguage, in some ways it is not like any other language you have come across but aspects of it are quite simple. I sometimes consider either going back to Russian or learning another east european language but not sure which!

Only certain bits of Spain are full of British tourists. And on the speed front - almost any language spoken in a chat between native speakers will sound incredibly fast to a non-speaker.
German grammar is much harder than Spanish (trust me - I've spent decades trying to teach it to people ). French pronunciation is much harder than Spanish (too many silent letters and weird vowel combinations!).

I am a native English speaker. Learnt French and German at school as that was what was on offer.

Moved to Norway and learnt Norwegian as I live here. Now I am functionally bilingual English/ Norwegian.

Recently I have been learning Irish Gaelic, as it is part of my cultural heritage.

I learned French and Spanish in high school and German in college. My mother is German and I grew up with some basic German at home, so the words and accent have come easily. I lived in Germany for a bit so I became fairly fluent. But that was many years ago and I haven’t used it since.

I found that when I lived in Germany and spoke German, people wanted to respond to me in English. I think part of the reason was because I’m American and they didn’t get to speak with too many Americans there.