German or Spanish? (I'm Chinese)

I'm in the happy position of not having to work, and I'd like to ask you a question here.

I've been learning French by myself lately, of course, I'll brush up on my Japanese in the near future. And I plan to choose a language (NOT BOTH) to learn between German and Spanish, which of the 2 is more helpful or more important? As I mentioned above, I live in Mainland China, please don't recommend other languages, for example, Portuguese, Russian, or Arabic. Only choose between German and Spanish. Thanks! No Spam or Nonsense!

well i'm spaniard and i need more information to advice you.

Why do you want to learn spanish or german?
what use?
where do you want to work or live or travel? europe or latin american?

what a moron guy! Do you need a forum to choose what language to study?? You must have a very weak personality!

I've been learning German for 2+ years and I also learn French from time to time. I think I'd need more time to maintain and expand my languages.... I'd actually suggest concentrating more on less languages. I'm serious. My French has taken its own toll because I didn't absorb enough grammar and vocab before I moved on.

To tell the details, I was using Assimil French with ease, and now I view it a disaster. I failed to notice that I should go to another lesson ONLY AFTER I'd already internalized all the content of the current lesson. Even for very simple word forms/grammar rules, such as how you put "a big apple", "two fifty in the afternoon", "to take the bus and then go to school on foot" in French, they require your attention for at least multiple months, given a full-time job/that you're a full-time student. You can't expect very high proficiency within a year or so if you don't study that intensively.

I started to pick up French again since yesterday after almost 6 months of disuse. Most of the basics have come back, but it's a long way before I actually acquire basic grammar and vocab completely - let's say 1500 words with most of the grammar you need in order to talk.

This is why I think it could hurt to learn too many languages.

My situation
- I don't learn Mandarin regularly now. It's almost always in disuse, and my pronunciation is OK, and since I'm also a reading native, I have no urgent need at all. Even if there is, I can get by.
- I don't learn English actively but I have to read English all the time.
- I learn both German and French on and off, as above.

If you like, take my case for study.

Sorry, folks, I always forget something after apparently finishing a post...

Another point for you:

while I say French was a disaster, I got the feeling that there's a certain threshold where you don't have to maintain French at all in order to remember some grammatical forms. Although my French suffered for 6 months, within the past months, when I was in Germany (where I didn't have time for Mandarin and English either), sometimes I could still recognize French words and some grammatical forms because I had invested just enough intensity for them.

I had namely spent 1 year dabbling with French. It was like 1 hour per day or 15 minutes or none at all every day, or every other day. When I read my French textbook for the first time seriously yesterday (新大学法语1), the French numbers, how to conjugate faire, aller, prendre, and how to greet someone, and many many pronunciation rules, they DON'T look new to me at all. I can pick up any Assimil lessons involving the past tense, the perfect tense, the either..or.. form, the modal verbs, etc, and the like. I can read a lot of French aloud, even if I don't understand it.

So an analogy is simple enough: for me, French is just being put into one of my drawers, now gathering dust. But when I open it again, I'll have removed the dust (onto my hand, so that I must go wash my hands). French got a bit rusty, but I can refresh it very quickly, since I had already accumulated some long-term memory about the very very easy parts of French. You know French and you can know what I mean.

Well if you have already learn 2+ german year i think you should continue with german...

German is more used in Europe than spanish, and it's the most spoken language in UE, but everybody en Deutscheland speak english so you can go to Deutscheland with english.

On the other hand, spanish is more spoken in the world (latin america) you can understand quite brazilian portugues with spanish, and if you have already study french, spanish is a latin language as french, they are latin sons. I don't know german but people who have learned told me it was a hard language, they think spanish is easier than german.

It's up to you, but if you often change language studying you are going to be mess and you'll never learn one at high level. Focus on one you like.

<<but everybody en Deutscheland speak english >>

Since when? I know lots of Germans who don't speak any English.

J'aime écrire ce message en français,
Bon, à mon avis, il est totalement inutile d'étudier la langue allemande en Chine, à moins que tu n'aies pas l'intention d'aller vivre en Allemagne ou des intérets culturels liés à la culture allemande, c'est à dire la musique classique, la philosophie etc. Tous les hommes d'affaires allemands sont en mesure de parler un bon anglais et donc tu n'as pas la nécessité de l'apprendre l'allemand pour travailler avec eux.

Most people under 40 year old know english at Deutschland i wanted to say.

Harman are you HItler or Franco?

?

<<Most people under 40 year old know english at Deutschland i wanted to say>>

That's more accurate. Remember though, the amount of English spoken in the former East Germany is significantly lower than the West, even among younger people.

Well, you should think about where is spoken the language, and you prefer to go, travel and live:

Spanish: Acapulco, Miami, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Madrid, Canary islands, Majorca, Buenos Aires, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Seville, Cuba, Valencia, Costa Rica, Panama, Casablanca, Manila, Malabo, and all other sunny places...

German: Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna, and all other places where all day is raining and the weather is disgusting all the year...



Another important question. The DVD's or CD's you can understand:

German: Hitler's life, the way of life in Auschwitz, the worse disasters of WWII

Spanish: Latino music of Juanes, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias, Placido Domingo, Julio Iglesias, etc. Travel DVD's like The beautiful Caribbean, the best of Mexico, the best of Spain, etc



Finally, the number of speakers, and places where is spoken:

German: 100 million (90 in the near future) in little Central Europe

Spanish: 500 million (600 in the near future) in North America, Western Europe, Central America, Caribbean, North and Equatorial Africa, South America, Philippines, etc.

Well, you should think about where is spoken the language, and you prefer to go, travel and live:


Thanks a lot for your advice. I'll choose German. In my opinion it is much more interesting and Germany has a flourishing economy unlike Spanish speaking countries

Thanks a lot for your advice. I'll choose Spanish. In my opinion it is much more interesting and Spanish speaking countries have a flourishing economy unlike German speaking countries