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[kaijyuu]

I wouldn't mind learning a language (or 5) if it weren't for the sheer time investment. Hell, I still don't know all that much about English, and it's my native language. I've already tabbed to Google 3 times today to look up English words I didn't recognize.

[Flying Dice]

My problem with English is that I've learned more from reading on my own time than in a formal setting, so I'll often understand what a word or phrase means but not be able to define it properly.

[kaijyuu]

Haha yeah, me too. Sometimes I use a word here or elsewhere in a formal debate, read it over and think to myself "am I actually defining this word right?"

Worse for me though is I read/type a lot more than vocal speaking, so I mispronounce a ton of words. I used to pronounce "convoluted" as "convulted" until someone asked what the hell I was saying one day. It's even worse with those wacky fantasy names, since I'm not going to spend 10 minutes figuring out all the syllables in "Nynaeve" or whatever and will just come up with a rough approximation in my head.

[scriver]

Learn to speak Chinese, German, English, and Afrikaans, and you'll be able to speak with probably over half the world population.

Wait, German? I think Spanish or French would be more suitable. I mean, they hardly even speak German in Schweiz and Austria, let alone anywhere else

I'm also not sure what Afrikaans is even doing on that list. Did you mean Swahili?

[Oliolli]

I really wish I could get myself to learn sign language... I don't know why.

[Flying Dice]

Haha yeah, me too. Sometimes I use a word here or elsewhere in a formal debate, read it over and think to myself "am I actually defining this word right?"

Worse for me though is I read/type a lot more than vocal speaking, so I mispronounce a ton of words. I used to pronounce "convoluted" as "convulted" until someone asked what the hell I was saying one day. It's even worse with those wacky fantasy names, since I'm not going to spend 10 minutes figuring out all the syllables in "Nynaeve" or whatever and will just come up with a rough approximation in my head.

I'm honestly half-convinced that Robert Jordan came up with his names just to fuck with the obsessive fans and give them something to argue about until the next Age.

[kaijyuu]

That name in particular? My brain came up with "Ny-na-veen." Don't ask me how.

[i2amroy]

That name in particular? My brain came up with "Ny-na-veen." Don't ask me how.

It's actually NIGH-neev. Robert Jordan might have been horrible in some of his other habits, but at least he includes a glossary with the correct pronunciation for almost every strange name or word at the back of his books.

[RedKing]

Learn to speak Chinese, German, English, and Afrikaans, and you'll be able to speak with probably over half the world population.

Wait, German? I think Spanish or French would be more suitable. I mean, they hardly even speak German in Schweiz and Austria, let alone anywhere else

I'm also not sure what Afrikaans is even doing on that list. Did you mean Swahili?

By my calculations, you would actually need to learn the top 14 languages in order to speak with half the world's population.

Mandarin
Spanish
English
Hindi
Arabic
Portuguese
Bengali
Russian
Japanese
Punjabi
German
Javanese
Wu (eastern Chinese dialect, sometimes called Shanghainese)
Indonesian/Malay


In order to pass written notes (without Romanization), you'd also need to learn at least seven different writing systems:

Chinese characters (Mandarin; Wu)
Arabic (Arabic; can also be used for Malay and Javanese)
Latin alphabet (English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Malay, Javanese)
Bengali (Bengali)
Devanagari (Hindi, can be used for Punjabi)
Cyrillic alphabet (Russian)
Hiragana + kana chracters (Japanese)

[Karnewarrior]

Learn to speak Chinese, German, English, and Afrikaans, and you'll be able to speak with probably over half the world population.

Wait, German? I think Spanish or French would be more suitable. I mean, they hardly even speak German in Schweiz and Austria, let alone anywhere else

I'm also not sure what Afrikaans is even doing on that list. Did you mean Swahili?

Well, Spanish or French would work just as well, as would probably Italian. They're all very widely spread languages. I chose German since it's more central and differentiated from English. Russian was there originally, I guess that would work too. I was trying to think of the most widespread languages avoiding overlap, thus no Spanish.

Yeah, I probably meant Swahili. Africa has been sadly neglected in my studies. I'm not sure which language is most likely to be understood over there.

It's also taking into account most countries are bilingual to some extent. The vast majority of people on Earth at least speak English, I imagine Chinese is widely studied in Asia where English isn't taught, and a few fallback languages like Spanish, German, Russian, or French could get you understood most places in the world.

Everyone here speaks English but I think Americans are a minority if you count some of the other countries together. The Scandinavians for example are all over these boards.

Learn to speak Chinese, German, English, and Afrikaans, and you'll be able to speak with probably over half the world population.

Wait, German? I think Spanish or French would be more suitable. I mean, they hardly even speak German in Schweiz and Austria, let alone anywhere else

I'm also not sure what Afrikaans is even doing on that list. Did you mean Swahili?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

By my calculations, you would actually need to learn the top 14 languages in order to speak with half the world's population.

Mandarin
Spanish
English
Hindi
Arabic
Portuguese
Bengali
Russian
Japanese
Punjabi
German
Javanese
Wu (eastern Chinese dialect, sometimes called Shanghainese)
Indonesian/Malay


In order to pass written notes (without Romanization), you'd also need to learn at least seven different writing systems:

Chinese characters (Mandarin; Wu)
Arabic (Arabic; can also be used for Malay and Javanese)
Latin alphabet (English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Malay, Javanese)
Bengali (Bengali)
Devanagari (Hindi, can be used for Punjabi)
Cyrillic alphabet (Russian)
Hiragana + kana chracters (Japanese)

Woah. You mean in their native tongue, or are you taking Bilinguals into account?

Also, damn Chinese you scary!

[10ebbor10]

Actually, German is pretty similair to English. You'd have more luck with French

[i2amroy]

Yeah, I probably meant Swahili. Africa has been sadly neglected in my studies. I'm not sure which language is most likely to be understood over there.

There isn't really one. The three largest used "official" languages are arabic, french, and english, but if you are looking at "common" languages then there are over six different families of languages. Africa as a whole has some 2800 or so different languages that are spoken within it, and as a result every person usually ends up learning several different languages as they grow up. If you are looking to be understood by the maximum amount of Africa, your best bet is to simply learn arabic, french, and english and then forget about counting all of the various bush people and smaller tribes.

[kaijyuu]

My (admittedly very meager) understanding of African languages states that most those languages are akin to heavy dialects. There's even less of a division between the languages than European ones have, so someone who knows one could pick up others in the same geographical area quite easily.

[miauw62]

Learn to speak Chinese, German, English, and Afrikaans, and you'll be able to speak with probably over half the world population.

Wait, German? I think Spanish or French would be more suitable. I mean, they hardly even speak German in Schweiz and Austria, let alone anywhere else

I'm also not sure what Afrikaans is even doing on that list. Did you mean Swahili?

Afrikaans is a sort of super-dialect of Dutch.

[scriver]

Karne, Spanish/French still isn't more like English than German

Also, @RedKing, that doesn't seem to take multilingualism into account at all... For example, if I remember correctly, you can get along better with English than Hindi in India because almost everyone spekaks it, while far from all speak Hindi.