Which language in Europe is the most useful to learn after English?
March 6, 2025
We are hopefully going to grow closer, and knowing more than my pathetic one language is a must for me
44 comments
Spanish imho, covers lots of america
English is the lingua franca. People everywhere learn English so they can communicate with people from everywhere who also learned English.
With other languages, it depends on where you want to go and who you want to interact with. But I guess German and French aren’t bad choices.
German probably?
Icelandic, we will inherit the world. As we speak, a secret laboratory is working to revive the most fearsome Viking warriors.
German or Spanish
Worldwide probably Spanish or French, if we talk just about Europe then German.
As in, in Europe? German. Then French. Most people in north/central Europe will know at least some German since Germany borders so many countries and has so many tourists and does business with everyone.
It depends where do you want to live and in which domain do you want to work. In engineering jobs German is the most useful after English.
Latin. No one will get angry because you ignore their language, which is clearly the best.
IMHO German or French
I’d say Spanish, which opens you up to learning French and Italian.
That depends a bit, on what you consider “useful”. I’d argue, the best choice would be one, that “unlocks” a lot of other languages that become much more easy to learn afterwards.
So, I’d suggest Romanian. It’s considered rather easy to get your head around and it’s a roman language – so it’s close to Italian, French and Spanish.
Start from the easiest: Finnish.
French.
By speakers inside the EU also German.
In general it’s definitely Spanish, but less because of the EU and more because it is spoken in so many countries worldwide.
The one you need. English is obviously number 1. Polish might be number 2 if you were planning to move to or do business with Poland or marry someone from there. It might even be estonian, if you were planning to do the same with Estonia.
No good for you to learn german, simply because its the language with the most speakers and biggest economy, if you are gonna have nothing to do with germany/switzerland/austria.
>Which language in Europe is the most useful to learn after English?
Depends on what you want to do. If you want to travel (also abroad from Europe), **Spanish**, **French**, **Portuguese** and **Italian**, maybe **Dutch**.
If you want to work for the EU or in a German-speaking area, **German** (also **French** might be helpful for EU jobs). If you plan to work elsewhere, probably the language of the country you intend to go to.
If you want to study Philosophy, Philology, Theology, Archeology, Ancient History, etc. – **Greek** (and Latin).
If you want something really nerdy, **Maltese**, **Finnish**, **Hungarian** or **Icelandic**.
If I go by the Dutch tourist guide order:
English,
German,
French,
Spanish,
Italian.
I think it’s a bad idea to learn German. It’s not that I don’t like my language, but it’s difficult to learn. I think you’ll get pretty far with French, Spanish or Italian.
Probably German, French, Spanish, Portuguese
If you meant the European continent, I’d say Russian (no, I’m not a Putin supporter; it’s related to the number of speakers Russian has on the continent). But since you probably mean the EU, then I’d say German.
Check for the Interslavic language. It is an artificial one, but designed based on all slavic languages together. It is really well understandable by all natives and it makes it easier to learn any natural slavic language.
It doesn’t work like that in Europe bro, it depends where you want to spent your life and live or what do you like.
But if you want to learn sth lets say by logic you should go with French or Spanish, in my opinion French because I think more countries speak them and they refuse to speak English. Spanish people are refusing to speak English as well but in Europe France and French have more influence.
Most of main German cities I have been to they speak English and they are OK with the fact to communicate in English.
So go with French
Spanish, French, English, to a lesser extent German.
The important languages of the 21st, in my opinion, may be Mandarin and Arabic. These are difficult languages but they illustrate the rise in power of these states over decades.
Depending on where you want to go, Germanic, Nordic, Slavic, or Romance.
If you speak Spanish, you can make sense of Italian. If you speak Czech, you’ll understand everybody from Poland to Croatia. The Nordic languages are just dialects with a grudge.
Russian if we don’t start to gear up for war
As others have said: French/German within Europe if we’re speaking economically/politically. Spanish if you mean a European language used globally.
French or German for business, Spanish or Italian for holidays^^
I would say it depends on which country you are attracted to. The main ones would be: Spanish, French, Polish, German, Italian. I would simply choose a country that interests you the most and learn that language
In Europe the economic powerhouse for decades was Germany. The DACH countries sum up to over 100 million, so that would be my first option. Learning German is helped on a basic level by knowing English in the first place and opens the way for the other Germanic languages.
Second would be French with 70 million speakers and that opens the road for basic understanding to the other romance languages.
Well after English
German and french if you wish to move for jobs or if you want to work in Bruxelles
Spanish and french if you’ll move outside Europe
Latin if you want to learn romance languages or if you want the basics for scientific related jobs
Italian if you’re seaking design, fashion, art, music related jobs
I would say portuguese since if you learn it, you can get a grasp of spanish as well. Does not work in the other way around.
For an alternative, learn a smaller language: Basque, Irish, Catalan, Welsh, Elfdalian, Latgalian etc. You’ll get more bang for your buck. Think about it you turn up to France with decent french noone really notices, you turn up to a Sicilian taverna speaking basic Sicilian, theyre going to be surprised most likely, you’re going to bond better with the people and probably get to experience some really unique things.
Plus it keeps some of Europe’s culture alive, that seems pretty useful.
The local language 🤷♀️
The English fluency of locals various strongly by country. For example, you can move to the Netherlands and live there with zero Dutch skills (but of course learning is beneficial). This is hard in Italy or Spain. Germany is somewhere in between.
If I had to pick one, I’d say German, if you are thinking to move to the EU and get a job. It has the largest population and economy.
Depends on where you live. Generally German. If you live near Poland, than polish.
Cornish, because you could very soon find yourself as the last person who knows how to speak it. That’s got to have some value.
All those poor people who learned Esperanto, left out in the cold.
Frisian. Hands down. The greater Frisian empire is coming soon. Promise.
In Poland right now, paradoxcially russian, especially in business. And not because of anything political, but because many former soviet republic citizens immigrated here in recent years, not only from Ukraine or Georgia, but also central Asian countries.
I would say one of the most useful would be Spanish (also worldwide) and maybe the easiest together with Italian. Maybe then French, German would be useful in some countries and most people here are saying so, but it’s more difficult than the Latin languages and most speakers don’t really speak Hochdeutsch in their daily lives. Now, if you want some real challenge, you can learn some Slavic language, headache guaranteed, I’d say it’s more difficult than Chinese if you don’t count the writing. But you could have a basic understanding with all the Eastern block.
You mean within Europe itself? Probably German, I’d say. It’s the main language in both Germany and Austria, as well as in parts of Switzerland. I believe you can also get by speaking German in Luxembourg, though I’m not entirely sure about that. And Lichenstein too of course.
It has to be french or spanish, for the simple reason that you can speak english to a german but good luck doing the same in Spain or France
It may sound controversial but Russian will open quite a lot of opportunities in eastern Europe.
Whichever one is the one spoken where you are staying.
Knew some English guy who’d been in the Netherlands for ages and still thought it was maybe more useful to learn German than Dutch on account of the number of speakers. Like, you’re a monolingual English speaker in NL?..
44 comments
Spanish imho, covers lots of america
English is the lingua franca. People everywhere learn English so they can communicate with people from everywhere who also learned English.
With other languages, it depends on where you want to go and who you want to interact with. But I guess German and French aren’t bad choices.
German probably?
Icelandic, we will inherit the world. As we speak, a secret laboratory is working to revive the most fearsome Viking warriors.
German or Spanish
Worldwide probably Spanish or French, if we talk just about Europe then German.
As in, in Europe? German. Then French. Most people in north/central Europe will know at least some German since Germany borders so many countries and has so many tourists and does business with everyone.
It depends where do you want to live and in which domain do you want to work. In engineering jobs German is the most useful after English.
Latin. No one will get angry because you ignore their language, which is clearly the best.
IMHO German or French
I’d say Spanish, which opens you up to learning French and Italian.
That depends a bit, on what you consider “useful”. I’d argue, the best choice would be one, that “unlocks” a lot of other languages that become much more easy to learn afterwards.
So, I’d suggest Romanian. It’s considered rather easy to get your head around and it’s a roman language – so it’s close to Italian, French and Spanish.
Start from the easiest: Finnish.
French.
By speakers inside the EU also German.
In general it’s definitely Spanish, but less because of the EU and more because it is spoken in so many countries worldwide.
The one you need. English is obviously number 1. Polish might be number 2 if you were planning to move to or do business with Poland or marry someone from there. It might even be estonian, if you were planning to do the same with Estonia.
No good for you to learn german, simply because its the language with the most speakers and biggest economy, if you are gonna have nothing to do with germany/switzerland/austria.
>Which language in Europe is the most useful to learn after English?
Depends on what you want to do. If you want to travel (also abroad from Europe), **Spanish**, **French**, **Portuguese** and **Italian**, maybe **Dutch**.
If you want to work for the EU or in a German-speaking area, **German** (also **French** might be helpful for EU jobs). If you plan to work elsewhere, probably the language of the country you intend to go to.
If you want to study Philosophy, Philology, Theology, Archeology, Ancient History, etc. – **Greek** (and Latin).
If you want something really nerdy, **Maltese**, **Finnish**, **Hungarian** or **Icelandic**.
If I go by the Dutch tourist guide order:
English,
German,
French,
Spanish,
Italian.
I think it’s a bad idea to learn German. It’s not that I don’t like my language, but it’s difficult to learn. I think you’ll get pretty far with French, Spanish or Italian.
Probably German, French, Spanish, Portuguese
If you meant the European continent, I’d say Russian (no, I’m not a Putin supporter; it’s related to the number of speakers Russian has on the continent). But since you probably mean the EU, then I’d say German.
Check for the Interslavic language. It is an artificial one, but designed based on all slavic languages together. It is really well understandable by all natives and it makes it easier to learn any natural slavic language.
It doesn’t work like that in Europe bro, it depends where you want to spent your life and live or what do you like.
But if you want to learn sth lets say by logic you should go with French or Spanish, in my opinion French because I think more countries speak them and they refuse to speak English. Spanish people are refusing to speak English as well but in Europe France and French have more influence.
Most of main German cities I have been to they speak English and they are OK with the fact to communicate in English.
So go with French
Spanish, French, English, to a lesser extent German.
The important languages of the 21st, in my opinion, may be Mandarin and Arabic. These are difficult languages but they illustrate the rise in power of these states over decades.
Depending on where you want to go, Germanic, Nordic, Slavic, or Romance.
If you speak Spanish, you can make sense of Italian. If you speak Czech, you’ll understand everybody from Poland to Croatia. The Nordic languages are just dialects with a grudge.
Russian if we don’t start to gear up for war
As others have said: French/German within Europe if we’re speaking economically/politically. Spanish if you mean a European language used globally.
French or German for business, Spanish or Italian for holidays^^
I would say it depends on which country you are attracted to. The main ones would be: Spanish, French, Polish, German, Italian. I would simply choose a country that interests you the most and learn that language
In Europe the economic powerhouse for decades was Germany. The DACH countries sum up to over 100 million, so that would be my first option. Learning German is helped on a basic level by knowing English in the first place and opens the way for the other Germanic languages.
Second would be French with 70 million speakers and that opens the road for basic understanding to the other romance languages.
Well after English
German and french if you wish to move for jobs or if you want to work in Bruxelles
Spanish and french if you’ll move outside Europe
Latin if you want to learn romance languages or if you want the basics for scientific related jobs
Italian if you’re seaking design, fashion, art, music related jobs
I would say portuguese since if you learn it, you can get a grasp of spanish as well. Does not work in the other way around.
For an alternative, learn a smaller language: Basque, Irish, Catalan, Welsh, Elfdalian, Latgalian etc. You’ll get more bang for your buck. Think about it you turn up to France with decent french noone really notices, you turn up to a Sicilian taverna speaking basic Sicilian, theyre going to be surprised most likely, you’re going to bond better with the people and probably get to experience some really unique things.
Plus it keeps some of Europe’s culture alive, that seems pretty useful.
The local language 🤷♀️
The English fluency of locals various strongly by country. For example, you can move to the Netherlands and live there with zero Dutch skills (but of course learning is beneficial). This is hard in Italy or Spain. Germany is somewhere in between.
If I had to pick one, I’d say German, if you are thinking to move to the EU and get a job. It has the largest population and economy.
Depends on where you live. Generally German. If you live near Poland, than polish.
Cornish, because you could very soon find yourself as the last person who knows how to speak it. That’s got to have some value.
All those poor people who learned Esperanto, left out in the cold.
Frisian. Hands down. The greater Frisian empire is coming soon. Promise.
In Poland right now, paradoxcially russian, especially in business. And not because of anything political, but because many former soviet republic citizens immigrated here in recent years, not only from Ukraine or Georgia, but also central Asian countries.
I would say one of the most useful would be Spanish (also worldwide) and maybe the easiest together with Italian. Maybe then French, German would be useful in some countries and most people here are saying so, but it’s more difficult than the Latin languages and most speakers don’t really speak Hochdeutsch in their daily lives. Now, if you want some real challenge, you can learn some Slavic language, headache guaranteed, I’d say it’s more difficult than Chinese if you don’t count the writing. But you could have a basic understanding with all the Eastern block.
You mean within Europe itself? Probably German, I’d say. It’s the main language in both Germany and Austria, as well as in parts of Switzerland. I believe you can also get by speaking German in Luxembourg, though I’m not entirely sure about that. And Lichenstein too of course.
Romansh and Ladin, of course… [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language)
It has to be french or spanish, for the simple reason that you can speak english to a german but good luck doing the same in Spain or France
It may sound controversial but Russian will open quite a lot of opportunities in eastern Europe.
Whichever one is the one spoken where you are staying.
Knew some English guy who’d been in the Netherlands for ages and still thought it was maybe more useful to learn German than Dutch on account of the number of speakers. Like, you’re a monolingual English speaker in NL?..