Which Language Should You Learn? 

The app I use to learn languages -> bit.ly/3osildR My 10 FREE secrets to language learning -> www.thelinguist.com How did you decide on your current target language?

i'm 16 months into learning German, my first motivated attempt at learning a second language. I haven't missed a day. I've taken your approach and to say it feels like magic is an understatement. It is fun everyday to learn and it doesn't feel at all like a grind or work. My language tutors are amazed at the progress I've made in such a short time. Thanks for everything Steve!

Language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly. This quote really motivated me. I am going for French and Arabic.

Toki Pona! or Arabic

Thanks. I couldn't decide, so I started the LingQ mini-stories, one per day, in several languages. It really helped. Some languages I rejected after just a few days, and some others after 20 days. I still have Turkish and Japanese. I might add Persian (not Arabic, not Korean). Thanks for the "you can always switch later" idea. It helps remove any "must decide now" pressure.

Muchas gracias por el video. Aun no lo veo completo pero se que será de gran ayuda como siempre!!

Thank you for mentioning Swahili I’m from Tanzania I’m happy to see my language going to the world God bless you Steve ❤

i'm learning english alone sence last year but some days i don't study,see you're videos make me more motivated to learn leanguages, thank you 👍

I’m surprised not to see literature as a strong motivator to learn a language. I can read books in 4 languages (including my own - French), but even for languages I know without being able to read directly in them, I always try to have the original text with me when I read the French translations. Especially for poetry of course : I cannot really understand entire poems in German or Russian, but I can feel, I can taste Hölderlin or Rilke in German, and I can cry with Akhmatova : перед этим горем гнутся горы… For me, that’s worth a lot !

I’m finding motivation sags after a while on the most different languages for me (Korean, Mandarin, Japanese), but when I take a break and return, not only do I find fresh motivation - I also find I improved my comprehension!

As always, a great video, Steve! I relate so much to what you are saying. Perhaps the biggest reason I study several languages at once is to keep the interest and motivation going. It's more exciting that way.

It's times like this that make me really grateful for the ability to adjust the speed of youtube videos

I know English, Spanish and Portuguese (native) and I want to learn a new language from zero as a hobby. I started learning French and the lack of congruence between spelling and pronunciation undermined my motivation. Now I know that my fourth language has to be a phonetic one (that is, each sound is represented by one letter and each letter represents only that one sound) because knowing how to read any word even if I have never seen it before is very pleasurable to me. I am saying this because sometimes certain aspects of the language can serve as motivation, as it is this phonetic aspect to me. Another great video, Steve!

If you like songs, lyrics, you will study Portuguese with great pleasure. Brazilian popular music has Bossa Nova and many other quality genres.

I majored in English at the only one college of languages in Taiwan 🇹🇼. Back then, the college forced us to learn the second foreign language, I chose Japanese as my second major simply because I was the Top 10 student who pass the exam of higher education system in the nation. Only the best ones had the privilege to choose Japanese. Japanese was hot here.🔥 Now, after twenty years, I have to say I was wrong. I shouldn't choose Japanese instead of Spanish.😭I was not even had resources from families to gain master degree over there or immigrate to Japan. Now I just realise how much I love Spanish songs and cultures. And speaking Spanish would be an advantage to relocate in Spain or Latin America for a middle age female. Now I am on my way of pursuing my dream for the rest of my life.✍️

I think that adding galician to lingq might be a good idea. You should try it someday it is like portuguese and spanish at the same time. I say this because i just met a spanish guy from Galicia he explained me about his language and i picked up most of what he was talking about, so i got interested on it.

I hope to learn more of the Hawaiian language in the future, the main one I mean from what I know there are a few, I think we should preserve all the languages and document them so they are not forgotten.

I’m learning now Swedich. It sounds so beautifuly! And it’s pretty easy if you already know English

I started learning Portuguese last November. I took private lessons 1-4 times a week on Italki or preply and I’ve used lingq, duolingo, babbel, and anki . I’m now at a C1 level for reading and listening comprehension but B2 for speaking (I’m a C1 level in Spanish so that helped). I have taken two breaks during this time studying Portuguese just to recharge my batteries and rest. And after those breaks I felt really motivated in interested in resuming my studies. I’ve been dabbling in Italian and I think that will be my next language. After Italian I hope to learn French. Thanks Steve for the advice

Very helpful! Thank you so much for the video, Steve! It's just what I needed

English and Spanish...

Steve! Your videos and your passion for learning languages is fantastic!! Thank you for sharing with the world your love for languages. I myself love to study languages and have been learning Japanese since I was twelve years old. Eleven years later and I am now fluent in the lanugage (still learning of course!) and now, I have been interested in learning Russian for the past couple of years. I feel like I am now at the beginning stages (in Russian) I used to be at back when I was learning Japanese when I was around 14/15. Really cool to see so many lovers of languages! Good luck everyone!!!

So far I’ve been learning Spanish for a year, and I am pretty confident in it, but not fluent, so I feel like it’s time to study a language alongside it

I like your videos Steve, thanks. I'm learning English yet and sometimes is hard for me understand to the peoples talking, but I'm studying every day, I'm trying and I hope to win this hard fight one day. I know that I can do it!

The answer is Latin, Greek, Arabic(Egyptian), Czech.

THANK YOU. The canadian foreign language curriculum SUCKS. I have learned the same thing in french for the past 8 years. I barely know how to introduce myself in french. WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO CHOOSE. I am from Manitoba

i know arabic,,,korean,,,, English,,,urdu,,,,punjabi,,,,a little bit of chinese and japenese (hiragana,katakana)

I unashamedly confess I am learning South American Spanish in order to understand the Mexican RU-vid "ovni" channels(!)

Belgian Dutch is a nice one

Catalan, please! Although.... it would be a challenge, because there are many spaniards who have lived in Catalonia for 50 years and there is no way for them to learn it. 😢

The answer to "which language should I learn" is NONE. If you don' t already have a compelling reason to learn a language (be it practical like you need it for your job or cultural like you are curious and fascinated by that language/culture/nation or you are travelling there..) then you don' t have the motivation to go through with such a challenge. Re-think it... and find out if you have a true passion or that was just a whim.

Right now i am learning Spanish. After it, i will learn French. I think learning Spanish would help to go with French later. What you think of friends?

Very informative and helpful tips. Thanks so much sir.

Imagine if every canadian were forced to learn a native language like Inuktituk. As a canadian, I would love to watch it.🍿 Perhaps it could provide a motivation for native people to learn their own languages

Hi Steve, how are you? It's a pleasure being here on your channel as always. I've been interested in learning French because it's a beautiful language but I'm not learning it properly due to several setbacks I had recently. The same thing goes for Russian which is a lovely language as well. Italian is also one of my target languages but guess what? I have no enough time to do so. Learning German is one of my goals too but I don't know how and where to start studying it. And the list goes on lol. I think I have to be more organized and patient to get into the language learning field confidently because it's such a long-term commitment which I gotta work little by little without being stressed out. Learning any language from scratch requires a huge motivation, mindfulness, dedication, planning, practice and an endless interest.

Speaking of Asia (im asian myself, from a ethnic thai/chinese mixed family in thailand) , most ppl just want to learn japanese especially (bcs of kpop music ,korean) at least if we speak of the younger ppl between 15-30 y/o. In THAT case id find it nice if ppl wouldnt be only interested in east asias languages, like vietnamese or burmese (southeast asian) or even farsi (spoken in iran ,which is in west asia) or even mongolian , kazakh etc. Personally i wanted to learn masri years ago (the egyptian arabic language) or vietnamese, but never took the time to start really. I speak at least 4 languages since i was born bcs of my parents (which are zhuang, a south chinese dialect very different from mandarin chinese, then Lao, Thai and english). My husband is South Asian (from india) who speaks hindi, punjabi (north indian dialect) and english ,and since we live mainly in india i just try to learn hindi for now, as i live here… other than that i would only start with vietnamese (and able to speak at least on a basic level) the interested was mainly bcs most of my friends were vietnamese (and noticed some similarities between lao thai and viet language throughout the years.) There was also a time where i wanted to learn japanese, as i am a huge anime fan, but decided not to JUST bcs of some series that i like, as i otherwise dont have mich interests for japan or anything related to the country except anime.

Thank you for the advice.

That's right Sir. I'm fluently able to speak French but I would like to have a better English. The reason why my English is weak, it's because I was forced to learn French, and the system in Quebec province didn't let me learn English at a young age. :/

I am studying German now for one of the weirdest reasons you may have ever heard of. It is because I feel like I understand it? I have tried to learn many languages (and I mean, "many"). I have tried, over the years, to learn Japanese, Indonesian, Tagalog, Russian, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Welsh, Hebrew, Spanish, and even Jamaican. All with varying degrees of excitement and motivation, some with formal classes, some on my own. But I have failed in all of them for one reason or another. With German it feels different. I have no German ancestry to speak of (actually a very tiny little bit that I only discovered recently through DNA). I was not raised around anyone German, Yet I remember from childhood that German was the first foreign language I could count in. When I hear it spoken I can pick out words here and there that I know. One of my favorite movies is "The Longest Day", I'd say almost a quarter of the movie is in German, yet when I watch it I seem to understand every German word. Now, I don't believe in past lives or anything like that but it is really strange to me that of all the languages I have tried to learn, German seems to come easily and quickly to me. I am a religious man so the only thing I can think of is G-d wants me to learn it. Hehe, how's that for a reason?

I learned english, so I speak spanish and english now. Trying to choose and add a third one, and is obvious which language it is gonna be: French. But for some reason german has always been so easy for me, and attractive the pronunciation, im so upset. And french pronunciation has always been difficult for me. But french is the one that has more points in which languages I should learn because of entertainment traveling, work, population, etc. Im sad to not learn german which seems to stick better with me in pronunciation, but it does not bring me as many things as french. Okay, i sounded so decisive, but it is because I really wanna get commited to learning one language like I did with english, and not jump from one language to another. I want to commit to only one

One year ago I decide to move my French from B2 to C1 with daily listening and work. I started German five months ago, only 30 minutes a day. I wanted to try a second language, but French would be my main focus. I hope to get the basics of German, and build up a framework. In a year or two I hope to take it more seriously and get to a good B2 level. It’s fun, but one needs a lot of time devoted to language learning if one wants to progress. I can see why children succeed whereas most adults either fail, or develop poor pronunciation and grammar.

Whatever you are interested in.

The ones you're interested in

Keen about japanese Usefull is french and German Improving English is also an option

I've put a bit of effort into learning Swedish and have a native speaker to practice with, but sometimes I kind of want to switch to Danish because my father learned it and my favourite film series is originally from Denmark, or I want to go with Norwegian because apparently they understand the other two the best. But I'm not sure if those reasons are going to motivate me enough or be worth it considering what I've spent on Swedish already.

I think you‘ re absolutly right with the time in another language to recharge motivation for your first. I‘ m somewhere in the long B in Spanish and lost my motivation to go on (approx 44.000 word in LingQ), so I switched to French (my 2nd school language) and neglected Spanish. I did about 18.000 words in French with LingQ, did the general Babbel Course and tried Assimil (quot disappointing). And now, I‘ m newly motivated to plunch in Spanish again and let French sleep again. 😊

I find myself highly motivated to learn Uyghur, but unfortunately there are very little resources to learn it.

Great video - especially your point about just doing what motivates you at the moment, especially since it helps fight decision paralysis, but I disagree you can necessarily learn a language faster if you only study one. I can study 4-6 hours a day if I study multiple languages but there is no way with my ADHD that I could spend that much time with one without getting bored and quitting. So I study up to what I know my tolerance level for time daily is with each, filling the time I have in my day with the languages I most want to learn.

Thank you ... I learn languages for enjoyment, however I live in a city with a large Spanish speaking population and am often asked "si hablo espanol" for information or assistance. I majored in Spanish in high school and can get the drift of what I'm hearing, but have difficulty coming up with an adequate answer quickly. I WANT to connect with them and feel MOTIVATED to focus on Spanish now. (I grew up in a bilingual home and not buy into the notion of forcing "Official English" on newcomers to the US.

Someone here who love japan as me also love japanese culture i guess, he/she learning English as me. However, i should focus on my English learning because English is the most used, that's why, i know japanese a little bit too, i'm learning English not because of a force, i'm motivated to learning English.😊

Indeed, motivation is very important But sometimes you are forced to learn a language As is the cas the world with the English language I have to learn it even though it's boring

I’m learning Arabic and english

I had to go to Iceland to learn my fathers, mother tongue. I returned to Canada some years ago and don’t know anyone else who speaks it here so it fades quickly. It comes back when I visit there fortunately

I am studying listening skill with your videos~ this video is super easy. But many of your videos are still difficult for me. I will keep studying

"Tasting different languages......" Great analogy :)

와 선생님 여러개의 언어를 하시니 대단하세요 and you're smart. 私は日本語を勉強して現在N4자격증 취득했고 türkçe öğreniyorm. Şimdi A2-B1 kitaplarıyla çalışıyorum. 일본과 터키여행 가기위해 퇴근후 태권도 ve 헬쓰운동과 함께 일본어 そして 터키어를 열심히 공부합니다.

I had lived in Singapore where there are four official languages. they have an interesting mother tongue policy. You're supposed to learn English plus the language of your racial group. Chinese are supposed to learn mandarin. Indians are supposed to learn Tamil. Malays learn Malay. There are non Tamil Indians that want to learn Chinese instead of Tamil. Mandarin is really a step mother tongue for Chinese that speak different dialects. One person I know was not allowed to study Japanese because she didn't know her mother tongue. It's hard to get around all of the social engineering whether it's the government making English speakers learn French or speak English plus their racial group language.

Just learn everything. Every language. Simple. 😇 🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓

شكرا على الفيديو

I'm learning English Espanol, french, Italian.then I want to learn Korean, Japanese, Chinese, German, Cantonese and little Hebrew

Pues soy de Londres y por lo tanto hablo Ingles perfectamente, asi que he eligido aprender Italiano. Digas lo que digas, lo escribo muy bien.

Hay Steve just saw ur channel on witch language should I learn to be honest i like Japanese I hope sometime to visit Japan in the near future like learning from manga I try and study when I have time injoy ur language learning also Domo arigato

Thank you ❤

the choice is simple, Japanese, people who can speak Japanese generally has the longest life span on the earth.

Now I am learning three languages -german, french and Italian -- at the same time! All going ok so far now!

If you’re a native English speaker, for fuck’s sake, learn Dutch. It’s incredibly rewarding and not very difficult IMO. Go to Suriname!

As I learned to read in English first, there are a lot of words I know the meaning, but I don't know the pronunciation when I need to talk. Not to sure about how can I fix it.

7:38 it made me clearly to do decisions

Russian of course

Listening to music motivated me to learn Mandarin, and learning Mandarin motivated me to want to go to Taiwan

thank you

Anime language

The problem is - i would love to explore many languages at same time. Not to focus on one, then another one.

Personally I think people should just go with whichever language they have the most passion for, regardless of “usefulness” or difficulty. The one exception being English. It’s the global lingua franca and is way too useful to not learn for anyone who doesn’t already speak it.

I've been learning English and Russian

Sei tornato a Vancouver... benissimo! scambio linguistico per la comunità qui?

Fedt at du også lærer dansk! Det bliver sikkert ikke så svært fordi du allerede kan svensk. Hvad skal du i Danmark?

I'm not with you on the Canadian example: if you are proud of being Canadian, learning French should be a strong motivation

You are my idol, Steve 🤩🤩🤩

I really want to learn Latin, but no-one speaks it...

I learn English and Spanish simultaneously

As a hobbyist I view language learning like layering a cake.

Excuse me, but i have to sincerely disagree, i was FORCED to learn english from 4th Grade to Grade 11th and today i am grateful as i am fluent. The french language is a fundamental part of canadian culture just as english. I feel like french should remain mandated. A more billingual canada will help mix the two cultures. I think we should force to learn a third language and let them choose the third one. Nothing is better than being allophone canadian being able to experience the full spectrum of what it is to be canadian forced not. Bad example.

About Canada statement, with all due respect, I disagree. What they should do, they should have two foreign languages. One that is French (for English natives) or English (for French natives) and one language of choice. Because it’s only fair. If we say the same statement for French natives, that they shouldn’t learn English, then most of the people would claim how they are ignorant for not wanting to learn English.

Mexican or Brazil, both are great languages of Europe

عالی بود مرسی❤

Thank you, mister Kauffman!

Amen❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉😊😊😊

My suggestion never say a language is easy before you know it from within learn a language with ease calmness act cool in tougher situations and circumstances be positive don’t watch things based on negative intentions do good karma when a person learns a language he does for the purpose of survival or for the purpose of helping someone. Take a bath shave clean your house listen to positive frequencies that prevent negative energies clean your house and everything will be fine I would just say be clean like the japanese.

En mi opinión el idioma seleccionado puede ser por iniciativa propia, por deseo de evolucionar, por trabajo . Pero en todo caso, es imprescindible hacerlo con dedicación y cariño. Para que sea aún más provechoso 😊

Since i was an adolescent i have been learned the arabic either Moroccan or Egyptian dialects . And also now i try to learn the original of arabic . Now I have not the ability or the luxury for learn either spanish or Dutch we cant learn in our country. We are already so far from going to their countries and their culture so it's hard and more challenging for me . But i promise my self that i will use atomic habits rules to learn ones of the languages that i mentioned before ❤❤❤❤

Persian (Farsi) is the richest if you're into literature or history.

I've pretty much just decided to go ahead and learn West Frisian. 'Any advice on resources or strategies?

What is taught in school is "mandatory", in france we're supposed to first learn... english.? And this is NOT at all the "second official language" here. This gives the exact same result as when you push someone to learn french in canada, at least in canada, there is quebec, and this is "a reason" that you have to learn to speak french. At school. In france ?? there is no peculiar reason to learn english (at school), more now than ever, as even the great britain as now left the european union. So.. yes, i do think people should be free to choose, and yes, even if my kids were "forced" to learn english, not per personal "love" of the language, they've also learn italian and spanish. Still, they don't really choose (there is 4/5 languages available in class), because when you're young and at school theses are not exactly the same reasons that are "pushed" to choose english first and.. some other languages from the european union. I've firstly choosed to learn german because i really do enjoy music/musician from germany since the seventies. You can find whatever is a good reason to you.. and practice, a bit, every day or more if you have more time, your way is what suits to you. Also, to use enlighten advises from M. Kaufmann too !

Hello stive good evening I want learn french and Italian it's very good, see you next.

i started korean because i wanted to visit, i loved kpop, movies kdramas etc but i found the language too tough and stopped. I picked it up today and realised i have no interest in korean culture anymore. Now I am stuck in what to learn.

Cześć Steve! Gdzie będziesz w Polsce? Można będzie Cię gdzieś zobaczyć? Pozdrawiam z Polski

Hi Steve, it’s my dream to travel around Russian and South America. Should I learn Russian and Spanish at the same time, or I should focus on one first. My native language is Chinese and I can also speak English.

Should one learn an easier language first to make learning your language of interest easier? If your LOI is phonetically challenging to you, why not learn a phonetically easier language first?

Kibembe,Swahili,French,English.