I need advice

I'm going to be starting my first year of college next year, and I'm wondering which language I should study. I studied Mandarin for 4 years in middle school/high school because my Mother is Chinese, but I didn't like it very much. I spent my junior year in high school studying in Italy, learning Latin and Italian and living with an Italian host family. I got nowhere near fluency, but gained a basic understanding of the grammar and vocabulary. This is my senior year in high school and I'm studying Spanish. I like it well enough, though I feel more of an affinity for Italian culture since half my family is Sicilian.
I really love ballet and French film, and I've always wanted to take French. I seem to have a little trouble with the pronunciation of French words. I want to attain some level of fluency in whichever language I choose. I guess I'm mainly trying to decide between French and Italian.
I would greatly appreciate whatever opinions anybody has on the subject!

You should learn Swedish.

I don't think Swedish is an option at the college I'm planning to attend. But my friend from Finland speaks some Swedish and it sounds very musical. :)

如果你的法語發音不是太好，建議你學習發音明朗的意大利語。我是這樣認爲的。

If you couldn't speak French by rule and line, then you can learn Italian.

French is by far a more important language than Italian -- but not half as important as Spanish -- but Italian is definitely easier to learn, easier to pronounce for most sepakers, and a very musical language.

Now ballet is of course not singing, but a personal affinity to music, plus the family history reasons may prompt you to go for Italian, even though there is of course also French ballet.

However, with English and the basic Putonghua plus what you know of Spanish and Italian, you do not necessarily need another major language, so you could opt for anything available including smaller languages.

I think Japanese, Hindhoe, a Slavonic or a Scandinavian language would come handy as an auxilliary subject, but in your case probably not as a major.

Serbo-Canadian in China

Spanish is not only easier to spell than Italian and French, but also easier to pronounce than French, but not than Italian.

西班牙語要比意大利語和法語更容易拼寫，也要比法語更容易發音，但不比意大利語發音簡單。

the most important languages in the world are:
english
chineese
spanish
russian

then french, german, italian,

it's quite easy to choose. just think how many people speak spanish or chineese and compare it to eg italian. the choice seems to be obvious.

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http://www.e-angielski.com - english for polish ;)

I know this has everything to do with personal preference, but in general which culture do you prefer: French or Italian?

In my opinion, Italian and French are both my most favourite Romance languages. But if I have to give up either of them, I will unavoidably give up French and probably choose to learn Italian with heart and soul. Of course, Italian is considered less important than French or Spanish, but I prefer Italian to Spanish for Italian's euphonious pronunciation, and prefer Italian to French for Italian's passional character. Although French sounds very beautifully too, but it always makes people feel gloomy and dolorous due to its special pronunciation, so I would like to advise you to learn Italian, though you like French very much too. just think it over!

dddd
<it's quite easy to choose. just think how many people speak spanish or chineese and compare it to eg italian. the choice seems to be obvious.>


Whether a language is of great importance or not, doesn't only depend on its population amount, we should also count in so many respects of this country, such as economical power, national power, military power, and especially per capita GDP. So your rank is not absolutely correct.

Even if you speak poor Italian in front of Italian people, they always give you much encouragement and like to talk with you actively.

But if you speak poor French in France, you probably meet with some trouble......and would be considered as a foreign clodhopper.

Yeah, I've heard that the French are less forgiving when you mangle their language, whereas when I was in Italy the people seemed genuinely pleased that I was making an effort to try at all.
I still can't decide though! I've never been to France, so I don't know how it compares to Italy. I like Italian food :)

« Whether a language is of great importance or not, doesn't only depend on its population amount, we should also count in so many respects of this country, such as economical power, national power, military power, and especially per capita GDP. So your rank is not absolutely correct »

You place a great emphasis on the importance of per-capita GDP. Since you said this in response to someone suggesting that Spanish would be the obvious choice over Italian, I'll assume that your going back to your 'Spanish is the language of the third world' argument again.

But if we're looking at Spain compared to Italy, the difference is insignificant. In terms of GDP per-capita measured in purchasing power...

$41,399 USD — United States
$30,579 USD — Germany
$30,470 USD — Britain
$29,316 USD — France
$28,760 USD — Italy
$26,320 USD — Spain
$12,994 USD — Poland

Trying to use that as a means of determining whether to choose Italian or Spanish seems utterly pointless as the difference is negligible.

In China, there's an adage, "A starved camel is bigger than a horse". It means that when the mighty falls, he still command more respect than the man in the street. Perhaps Spain and Latin America could overtake Italy and France, or keep up with Germany and USA in the future, but it would take a long time for Spanish and Latin American to make an effort so that they could create some miracles, although there's only a little difference in terms of per capita GDP and national power between Spain and Italy, as well as between Spain and France. If somebody really wants to dig into the Spanish or Latin American language and culture only for personal interest, that'll be fine to make a success in linguistics. But if you try to learn Spanish only for getting a good job or some applied skills, I would say that, you may as well learn German and Italian, or French and Japanese, and this notion is just from the fact of CHINA.

« although there's only a little difference in terms of per capita GDP and national power between Spain and Italy, as well as between Spain and France. »

Precisely. This could easily change in a few years time. Literally a few years ago, the GDP-per capita in Germany and France was quite a bit higher than in Britain; now it's virtually the same. Equally, Italy's economic growth rate is currently 0%, whilst Spain's is 3.4%. Not to mention that Argentina's is 9.4%