If I could only learn one additional language, and I wanted to travel the world, what language would serve me best other than English or Spanish?
Morse code
Depends on the route you want to take while traveling. For example, if you want to circumnavigate in a sailboat through the tropics, French is a great choice because France includes a bunch of tropical islands:
French is also widely spoken in Africa, IIRC.
There are more French speakers in Africa than there are in France and the French Language Authority is absolutley SEETHING at this fact because they’re losing control over “proper French” and for the first time ever French is evolving like a language should
There are also french speakers in Canada.
I wonder if most of those countries people don’t speak either English or Spanish as a second language. As opposed to certain specific languages and countries were most people don’t have or use much a second language like for example in Japan or Brazil
In most of the places French is spoken, it is the second language (instead of English or Spanish). Only place I can think of off the top of my head where Francophones would likely also know English is Quebec and, I guess, France itself.
The other languages in the sorts of places I was talking about are mostly ones like Arabic, various sub-Saharan African indigenous languages, or Polynesian.
If you don’t know where you’re going: French is probably the most wide spread after that.
Mandarain opens up communication with over a billion people
I’m sooooo close with French. I just need to buckle down for like a couple weeks and I’ll be fluent I think. I’ve always heard that’s a good one.
I dunno about useful but Japanese is beautiful and I want to learn it
Mandarin
I just (I mean an hour ago) gave up on learning japanese via Duo Lingo. On and off for years but didn’t make considerable progress. I know about 20 hiragana symbols and a bit of vocabulary but I think I won’t ever grasp order of words or how they communicate without plurals or genders. It’s so different from germanic languages. I love the japanese culture but I just don’t have the time anymore.
I instead started spanish. After a few lessons Duo Lingo rated me as a super learner. Don’t know if it’s because they want to sell me a subscription but I really flew through the lessons (even when I had to type out the sentences). I’ll stay with it and will add dutch soon.
Python
Early adopter of that one. ~1994 IIRC
Kinda surprised that no one has mentioned sign language. I feel that it’s use cases expand outside the original intent, especially if other people in your circle understand it.
But OP was asking about travelling the world. Sign language wouldn’t help with that.
Sign language isn’t one language. There’s American Sign Language, British Sign Language, Australian Sign Language, Nigerian Sign Language, etc.
American Sign Language and British Sign Language are completely unintelligible to each other.
That’s a good point. I guess I just read the title and everyone else’s comments saying stuff like “Python” and “TypeScript”
How many different standards are there for sign?
I’d say French or Portuguese
You say “travel the world,” but where realistically will you travel? Westerners tend to travel almost exclusively to other imperial core countries and to popular tourist spots in the periphery that cater to imperial core tourists.
Realistically, not India/Pakistan. Other than that I will likely hit the Americas, Europe, Oceania, Thailand, Vietnam, Shanghai, Singapore, maybe South Korea, Japan, UAE, Morrocco for sure, Turkey, etc. So, quite a bit I hope.
what would be your recommendation for an american reddit leftist like me who has started plans on traveling to satisfy a desire to travel outside the american empire?
i can’t figure out how to do it in a way that doesn’t imperil me because of the those same vulnerability minority identities that the dnc failed to leverage as a cover for the genocide and virtue signal to shut out dissent from among their ranks and costed the whole country in this election.
i have an idea of what life is like for the people at the periphery of the core in north america and i want to know how much worse it is fully outside the core. it now makes sense that why the people want to hold imperialist friendly mexican judges accountable via the ballot box in a system that’s completely captured by the american empire to social engineer the masses like it does when it makes a voter in tempe, arizona wait in line for hours to go vote.
I don’t fully understand your question, and I doubt that I’m qualified to answer, because I have virtually every privilege, and I’ve never thought about international travel but from my own easy mode perspective.
i’ll restate my question: where can i travel to oustide the american empire where my treat monster american nature won’t get me arrested, imprisoned, punished, hate crimed, etc.?
I don’t know what a “treat monster nature” is. I haven’t traveled much outside the core, so I can’t speak to this first-hand, but my impression is that most of the world is mostly a safe place to visit. There aren’t a lot of places that are going to punish you for renting hotel rooms and eating at restaurants as an American. Most people around the world know how to distinguish between America the empire and a civilian American spending money into the local economy.
“a treat monster” is sort of like “tankie” in reverse; it describes the kind of american consumerist that is placated/bribed away from revolutionary thought with treats like big suv’s & social privileges and they’re monsters because they support genocides.
Most people around the world know how to distinguish between America the empire and a civilian American spending money into the local economy.
this is the reason why i ask this question.
my strong american accent makes it clear that i’m a clueless american and that gates my efforts to travel to places outside the core that don’t speak english or spanish. to me; all of the cultures that speak both languages belong to the same hegemony as the american empire and i’m aware that my nature will result in harm coming to me if i can’t atleast speak the language of where i’m visiting.
I don’t think this concern is justified in most cases, but I’m not really in position to argue. If this were a common problem, I think I’d have heard about it, but outside of the occasional sensationalist news piece or Hollywood/TV thriller, I haven’t.
I do know an old joke, though: Before visiting a foreign country, it’s important to memorize three phrases in the local language:
- Where is the restroom?
- How much is it for one night?
- Power to the people! I support your revolution!
I don’t think this concern is justified in most cases, but I’m not really in position to argue. If this were a common problem, I think I’d have heard about it, but outside of the occasional sensationalist news piece or Hollywood/TV thriller, I haven’t.
the cases i had in mind were in the reports from federal inquiries investigating the aftermath of the iraqi invasion for non-existent wmd’s after 2008: they detailed HORRIFIC accounts of sometimes weeks long episodes of iraqi lbtq slowly bieng tortured to death while everyone did their best to pretended not to see it happening in front of their eyes. my strong accent already immediately outs me as an american and that’s taught me that the people who live in the periphery of the american empire’s core can all recognize i’m american easily and that’s resulted in experiences like me paying higher prices as a tourist at the most common and inconsequential end of a spectrum of experiences that also includes the iraqi-lgbq-torture example at the other more extreme & uncommon end of that same spectrum.
my experiences in talking to refugees & people of privilege from/in the middle east; south asia; & europe paints a picture of lgbtq communities that resemble the ones in latin america and living in this country as a member to niche several groups within the lgbtq umbrella teaches me that some of my identities have little to no communities at all outside the imperial core like it is in latin america and in large parts of the core itself. i think that my experiences as a gay cis american have turned me into a treat monster and not planning accordingly when traveling outside the imperial core seems like a bad idea if i can’t atleast speak the language to mitigate the social faux paus caused by my neuro-divergence.
i also now wonder if the fact that i learned about the iraqi-lgbtq example from gay subreddits is another manifestation of my identities being used as a virtue signal dog whistle in the dnc’s failed attempt to bank on the presidential election and left us with the genocide, facism and an impending country wide abortion ban among a FAR rightward lurch and i wonder how that’s going to impact the MLK jr timetable.
the numbers of the casualties from the gaza genocide rival those of the hiv/aids crisis per year back in the 1980’s and i think that it’s fitting that it the controversy back then also came at another time where my government also did little more than public displays of support while they strategically allowed thousands to needless die in service to the MLK jr timetable; but this time gaza’s impact is open-secretly-couched as harris not “separating” herself enough from biden as en explanation for the presidency & senate losses rather than plainly admitting that the voter turnout pushes with beyonce et al. succeeded in distracting from the losses of voters abstaining from the election over the genocide.
The Harappan language—then you could decipher the script of the Indus Valley civilization.
I got excited for a moment. Like when you learn Spanish and get most of Italian and Portuguese for free.
Since you’re interested in traveling, I would say french. It is spoken in a very wide variety of countries all over the world, you have a lot of resources to learn it and it’s related to the other languages to know. Other languages might have more speakers, but if youre just interested in the visiting a lot of wholly different places, it is probably the best one.
i don’t think people understand how spanish’s utitity matters in the future word in light of the big role it played in the this election and i think that’s manifested in vagarious forms of ai like llm’s and face detection.
in the end, the fact that the global south is too brown and speaks so “humanly” holds face detection and llm ai’s at bay as we descend from this election into the world orwell described in 1984; financed by popularly beloved american oligarchs; and enabled by a two party system through manufactured consent and crowd/social engineering.
and to our new big brother overloads i say this: good morning; i’m pleased to see you again and what would it be my pleasure to do for you today? lol
I excluded Spanish because I am already relatively fluent.
i saw that and i shared in the hopes of creating discourse that’s both relevant to the “interesting” times we’ve been living in these last few days and add a new perspective for everyone to help encourage engaging with you through your post.
