[Heinrich von Geobbels]

I believe learning a new language keeps the brain more alert and resistant to the challenges of growing older.

Of course, I do speak my native English, and I have almost mastered Spanish, but now looking to take on another challenge.

However, I'm saddled with a small problem. I am hearing impaired and tried my hand first at Mandarin Chinese and then French but discovered the nuances of tone to currently be beyond my capabilities. I am debating between German or Latin, but thought I'd bounce my question off an international community and get some other input.

Thoughts?

[ElFlaco]

Not sure if this is a serious question, but if your motivation to learn a new language is to 'keep the brain alert', you won't get very far. Languages are tools for communicating and connecting with people and cultures. I recommend finishing what you started: mastering Spanish. Better yet, take up chess.

[rudebwoy]

Mandarin or Cantonese or Russian.

They will have the power in the next few years.

[Messer]

If you don't care about practicality of a new language you are about to learn but only looking at intellectual exercise I'd suggest Latin. It's a mother of all western languages, it's very logical, easy phonetically and you can read Roman works in its original form which are usually quite distinctive and articulate. English isn't my native tongue but having studied Latin in primary and secondary school helped me a lot with learning English and German later on. Also Latin was considered great intellectual exercise through Middle Ages up till Early modern period.

[jayko]

I guess German is your first choice based on your nick

[bleaknight]

(02-24-2016 10:42 AM)Heinrich von Geobbels Wrote:  

I believe learning a new language keeps the brain more alert and resistant to the challenges of growing older.

Of course, I do speak my native English, and I have almost mastered Spanish, but now looking to take on another challenge.

However, I'm saddled with a small problem. I am hearing impaired and tried my hand first at Mandarin Chinese and then French but discovered the nuances of tone to currently be beyond my capabilities. I am debating between German or Latin, but thought I'd bounce my question off an international community and get some other input.

Thoughts?

I am guessing by challenge, you're looking for increased difficulty? Japanese is notorious for very hard to master. It has its own alphabet and uses kanji as well, but it is not tonal at all with straight forward pronounciation (IMO anyway). I personally like the culture and food so learning it is more of a fun past time.

I saw an interesting link from the forum that might be of interest for you in terms of language difficulties. http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com...difficulty

[LeeEnfield303]

(02-25-2016 07:09 AM)jayko Wrote:  

I guess German is your first choice based on your nick

Gott in Himmel, beat me to it.

[PolymathGuru]

Just study a language you want to learn. That is it. You will stay motivated by doing that.

[F1l1pV]

Well, if you want a language that you're going to be able to use while traveling in Europe I would recommend German. I've been in Europe a couple of times with my family and my father speaks German fluently. Alot of people seem to understand and speak German in countries like Spain and Italy since tourists from Germany are common there. Also I think German is the most commonly spoken European language ( although I'm not entirely sure ).

[fortysix]

Learn the language of the women that you would like to meet.

[therealpoder]

Since you don’t seemed concerned about learning a language because you want to live in a certain country, get a certain job or date certain women so just pick the language you want to learn the most. I'm sure there is a language or two that appeals to you more than others so go with that.

Keep in mind that you are going to be spending hundreds if not thousands of hours learning a language, and spending even more time enjoying and using the language after you’ve learned it. So the language you learn should be very enjoyable to you. That way, you will motivate yourself to learn the language, and make more progress than if you focused on a language that you aren’t really passionate about.

[Seth_Rose]

^^^ This.

If you learn a language for the sake of learning a language, you will undoubtedly fail. You need to fall in love with the language you're learning to get the most out of it.

[marty]

This is not the right way to choose a language. You can't ask someone to tell you which language to learn next and then spend years practicing it. It just doesn't work that way. You have to find your reasons why acquiring a certain language would be beneficial to you. What would you use it for? Do you like how it sounds? Are you interested in its literature, movies, music, etc.? Do you have friends who speak that language or can you easily meet people who do? You have to first decide what you would like to do and then choose a language that actually interests you. It can't really work without passion.

For example: Latin might be a good choice for you. There's not much spoken Latin around (with the exception of some podcasts and audio recordings and a small group of people who can speak it). If you're not interested in history and/or the origins of Western culture or Christianity, there's not much incentive to put in the hours.

Same thing applies to other languages. First I like to check out the wiki page of the language I intend to learn and go from there (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_language). It gives you an overview about the sounds (if you know the IPA /which you definitely should/) and grammar of the language. This gives you an idea of what to expect. And please don't choose based on number of speakers or someone suggesting how useful it is. It doesn't matter if a billion people speak Mandarin if you're living in the US, don't plan on visiting China and you don't care about the culture.