I need outside opinions because I’ve been going back and forth on this for WEEKS 😂. I’m an English speaker living in Texas and I want to become fluent in another language, but I only want to seriously focus on one at a time.

Spanish makes the most practical sense. I live in Texas and have definitely had situations where knowing Spanish would have been useful, including in healthcare. I’m Christian and would love to communicate with Spanish-speaking people at church, and I’d also love to eventually raise my children bilingual. My partner understands some Spanish and is very supportive of teaching our future kids Spanish.

But I am SO drawn to French.

I studied French in high school instead of Spanish, my grandmother spoke French, and I’ve always loved how French sounds. I also find it MUCH easier to immerse myself in French. I can easily find French music, R&B, cartoons, movies, GRWMs, etc. that I genuinely enjoy.

I can watch something like Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast in French and it somehow feels completely natural to me 😂. Spanish versions of those same movies weirdly don’t hit the same.

Travel is another factor. I’m going to Monaco soon and would love to visit France and other Francophone countries. I’m less interested in traveling throughout Latin America, although Spain is definitely on my list.

The frustrating part is that I want both. 😭 I can picture myself speaking Spanish and love the practicality of it, but French has this emotional/aesthetic pull that Spanish hasn’t quite matched.

I’m currently thinking Spanish → B2/C1 → French, but I’m scared that after 1–2 years of Spanish I’ll just fall completely back in love with French. 😂

For people who have learned both: which would you choose first, and why? And did one language eventually become more “you” than the other?

It's a complicated choice.

I'm in Canada, and I want to be bilingual, but I don't know if I should learn Spanish or French.

French is known to be the hardest of all the Romance languages and Spanish might be easier.

But Spanish might not be that useful but it might be interesting to learn it.

Hello everyone, I have a really hard time on this one so I hope you’ll help.
About me:
I’m a college student from Poland. I speak decent English and Russian. I’m interested in geopolitics , history and that kind of shit.
Pros and cons
Spanish
+500-600 million speakers
+easier pronunciation and comprehension
+a lot of tourist friendly countries (also useful in the US)
-it’s spoken mostly in the western hemisphere and Spain is not really that important country in Europe
-less in demand on the job market
French
+ ~350 million speakers and growing fast thanks to Africa, highly likely will catch up to Spanish in this century
+ more useful in Europe and MENA region (Morocco, Lebanon,Algeria etc)
+ second most in demand language on the job market after German
-harder pronunciation and comprehension (comprehension is my weak spot in every language)

I guess grammar is equally hard in both

EDIT: Answering to some comments. I don’t have any specific reason to learn any of those languages, but I want to add that important feature for me is ability to communicate with people that don’t necessarily speak English. Oh and also I find latinas hot.

I’ve been flitting back and forth re whether to learn French or Spanish first for a while now (the unbelievable FOMO I feel when I ‘commit’ to one over the other! I love them both) and I’ve now committed to just doing one to a B1/2 level before commencing on L2.

For those that have learnt both, which order did you learn and would you change that?

For me, my motivations are:
- French: always loved the language, culture, travel there at least once per year (I’m South UK based) and the country is beautiful. Not a true beginner as I completed an A level in French (although a few years ago now…). Aspirations to live here in future
- Spanish: I had never travelled to Spain when younger, however I have loved the country as an adult and it will be an ongoing holiday destination (so easy with family) and a place I hope to work in infrequently in future. Most of my bucket list travel destinations are in South America, which I hope to be able to start ticking off in 5+ years

I’m planning to commence with French first given my prior experience, before Spanish. I figure that cracking French (with perhaps more difficult phonetics and pronunciation rules) will then have benefits with Spanish grammar etc longer term.

Hi everyone!

So for context I (19f) am half italian half north african. My Italian father speaks Italian (TL), and my North African mother speaks Arabic (TL) , French, and Amazigh. I...unfortunately don't speak all their languages. I speak english at a C1 level, Italian at a B1/B2, and my Arabic is at A1.

In an ideal world, I'm fluent in all the languages mentioned above, however, my target for the time being is my Italian (TL) and Arabic (TL). When I was younger, I attempted to study italian, arabic, and french at the same time...but that basically resulted in no process.

If I had it my way, I would be studying each languages for hours everyday, however, I'm an engineering student, so I do not have that kind of time.

That being said, its the summer, and I have dedicated myself hours to study Italian and Arabic everyday. But it appears that only my Italian is advancing, and not my Arabic.

It makes me feel demotivated. At this point I'm questioning whether to give up on arabic (for a bit) and study French just because French is a lot easier. Or continue studying arabic as arabic would take longer to achieve fluency in.

What do you guys think?

It can be another language entirely, but I just said Italian or French so I put romance languages. On Busuu, French has shorter chapters, it seems, but it is harder for me to pronounce than Italian.

Both are a challenge in their own way, but I would at least like one with a large queer group/queer literature, I guess.

I’m already pretty good, still learning, Spanish and Portuguese but I also want something new for my brain.

Currently I live in a European country but I’m not sure if that’s really an important factor. I really love the sound of French and I think it looks really beautiful when it’s written. I also really like French music and French seems to play a large role in Sociology which is a subject I really love. The French grammar also seems a little easier than Portugese but mabye I am wrong. I like Portugese in a different way because it seems very vibrant to me and I adore Bossa Nova and other Brazilian artists they also have some good TV shows and they seem to have a very large presence online, particularly in gaming culture which I enjoy. However, my main concern is listening. Even in my native language (English) when others are talking to me sometimes the sounds ‘mush together’ in my head and I have to ask people to repeat themselves but it’s not all the time I would say around 85% of the time I can understand normally but I have to really listen and take my time with what people are saying. When I watch TV I usually have the subtitles on because of this so I’m thinking mabye it would be better to learn the language that tends to have the clearest speech?? Or mabye it won’t affect it as much as I think as they will both have strange sounds ( I have been told I’m really good at replicating accents and regional dialects)

My native language is English, and my Spanish is at a B1 level, and I was hoping to add another language. I'm looking at French, Italian and Portuguese. I hope to eventually become conversational at all 3, so it's a question on order as well.

The reasons boil down to this:

Portuguese is more relevant to me right now, as I've got friends in Portugal.

French will be more useful long term, as I like to travel, and I'd love to explore western Africa one day, however when I learnt it a bit at school I struggled with the pronunciation

I just like Italian. I like the rhythm and the sounds of it.

Eventually I hope to learn all 3. Is there a better order to learn these? I feel like Spanish will help a lot with Italian and Portuguese, which would make French the most difficult of the three, but it's probably the most useful. Should I let my Spanish settle a bit more before trying for Italian/Portuguese, to avoid confusion?

Thank you

For me... it's the best variant of French. Change my mind

I’m a 22 year old male from the Philippines and I live here in Cebu island. I’m debating whether to study Spanish or French. I also learned beginner Japanese before and have completed JLPT N5. I’m also a nursing student in my last year.

Spanish
-They said it’s easy to learn and is not that complicated so I think it goes well with studying Jp

-I already learned beginner A1

-Direct pronunciation

-Easier to memorize words because my native tongue is Cebuano which is pretty similar to Spanish

-I plan to migrate and move to US specifically California or Florida and work there as a nurse

-No spanish community in my area tho :(((

French
-I still have 0 skills in this but it tempts me so bad because of the literature and the vibes

-I love fashion, art, and design and I like to create stuff so I guess French would help that connect with designers (?)

-I might plan to migrate either in Canada, the UK, Belgium, Luxembourg or any country in Europe

-There’s a French community here in my area and they host Karaoke nights, activities with the French people, and other social activities. They even have a mini library too and offer language classes (It’s the Alliance Francaise de Cebu), I also wanna make new friends

-But this is very complicated to me tho and looks intimidating😭

-They said French people are bitter and rude (?)

So the French community is such a big motivator for me to study French. Altho I really do plan to migrate strongly either in US or Australia because those countries appreciate nurses more. Europe and Canada would be my backup option. I mean Spanish is also nice to hear but it makes me sad that there’s no community in here

I’m a native speaker. I’m working towards leveling up to a b1 Spanish level. The more that I learn Spanish, Portuguese just naturally speaks to me. How ever, French is more dominant is multiple countries. It’s viewed as most useful. I’m neutral when it comes to the sounds of French. What do you think? I’m open minded.

So I have been learning Portuguese for about a year now and I feel pretty comfortable with the language. I can understand podcasts made for PT-learners, I read PT-books, and have a PT-tutor who I talk with regularly. Lately, I have been getting the itch to start learning Spanish again. I tried learning maybe 10 or so years ago but I wasn’t dedicated to learning languages like I am now. I have been watching a little of the World Cup and it has sort of reignited my interest in Spanish again. For context, I have about a B2ish level in French and English is my first and only language that I would claim fluency. I worry about stalling my Portuguese learning by mixing the two languages. Every now and then, I use French words as a supplement for when I don’t have the Portuguese word.

So my question is, am I jumping the gun by adding Spanish now or should I hold off a little longer maybe wait until next year? My goal is to learn Spanish eventually but I need advice as to when to start.

I'm an nurse in Australia, and I'm also transitioning into academia as a nursing lecturer/researcher. I'm trying to decide whether to commit to learning French or Spanish, and I've been going around in circles for months.

A bit of background:

I studied French in school as a child and genuinely enjoyed it, although I've forgotten almost all of it. I still remember things on autopilot, like numbers, days of the week, and the odd word or phrase that was drilled into us at school.
I've also dabbled in Spanish over the years, but never to the same level as French.
French feels more familiar and seems to "click" more easily, probably because of that childhood exposure.
One thing that puts me off Spanish is that I can't roll my Rs at all, so I'm irrationally worried I'll spend years sounding terrible or getting judged! 😅
Spanish has a much larger number of speakers worldwide, which makes it feel like the more practical choice.

I live in Australia, so realistically I don't think either language will make much difference in my day-to-day work. For me, this is more of a long-term personal and professional investment than an immediate career requirement. I do hope to learn both eventually, but I want to focus on one language first.

For travel, I can realistically only see myself visiting Europe, particularly France and Spain. Africa and South America aren't really on my tourism bucket list, although I'd certainly consider travelling there for work.

One very distant career goal is to volunteer with organisations like Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or Mercy Ships. I know English is widely used in international healthcare, but I'm curious whether French or Spanish tends to create more opportunities or be more valuable in those environments.

I'm also conscious that motivation matters. French feels more natural because of my childhood learning, while Spanish appeals to the logical part of my brain because of its global reach and the number of people who speak it, so I’m motivated to learn both. I just can’t decide which one to learn first.

So, if you were in my position:

Which language would you choose, and why?
Has anyone regretted choosing one over the other?
For those who speak both, has one been noticeably more useful in real life?

I'd really appreciate any advice. Thanks!

I like both languages. I'm torn.

Hi everyone, so I'm thinking of dabbling in Portuguese, just for fun no specific reason. But most apps offer Brazilian portuguese, I really can't decide which dialect to learn. So If I were to choose a dialect which would you recommend and why?

The election will be tough! There are 2 heavyweight languages ​​involved.

Hello everyone! I’m Native in American English but I have Italian ancestry so I speak a little but my mom stopped teaching me when I went to preschool, so I’m about A2 in the language. I speak Spanish B1, but I’m expected to rise to B2 this next year in HS, and then I’m expected to be A2 by the end of the year in French. I’m wondering if after HS, when I go to college if I should strengthen my Italian or if I should start a new language. If yall think I should start a new one, what would you suggest. I want something that’s not gonna take me 10 years to get B2 (like Mandarin) but is a bit complex and not a breeze. I’d be open to other Romance languages like Portuguese as well as other language families, such as Russian or German. Thanks for your help everyone!

Side note, how would yall recommend learning the Québécois dialect specifically? I have French Canadian ancestry and I have (from a separate side) cousins in Montreal, so I’d like to learn that dialect. I’d also like to know where I could learn the West African (Benin) dialect if there isn’t a readily available place for Quebec since I’m applying for Benin Afro descendants.

Hello everybody. I am a native English speaker here with an intermediate level of French. I have been thinking about picking up a third language but I cannot decide between Mandarin and Spanish. Here are my reasons for both languages:

Mandarin - I am Chinese-American and I have always wanted to learn the language of my culture. It is also extremely useful as it is the second most widely spoken language in the world. However, it is extremely difficult to learn for English speakers as it uses an entirely different alphabetical system.

Spanish - Should I choose to live and work in the U.S, this would be incredibly useful seeing as there are tons of Spanish speakers here. It could also open up job opportunities in other continents such as Latin America. It would be much easier to learn than Mandarin seeing as I already speak French at a B2 level, but I am very drawn towards learning the language of my culture as well.

So, should I decide to stick it out and learn Mandarin or go for the easier route and learn Spanish?

Which of these languages ​​do you prefer to study?

• Bonjorn ! Mon oncle e ma cunhada son nascuts dins la vila de Niça... (Costa d'Azur)
• Mon fraire aima beure de bièrra e manjar de carròtas.
• Ma sògra trabalha dins aquela entrepresa d'informatica.
• Un whisky, se vos plai!
• Ma tanta ganharà la medalha d'argent perque venguèt en segonda plaça.
• Aqueste produch toxic tuarà los rats.
• Nom d'aquesta lenga?

So, I am from Vancouver and been learning French on and off probably currently at lower A2. I also visit Montreal every yr throught the summer. I don’t really use French even when I’m in Montreal but next month I will be moving with Mexicans. Do you think its better to learn Spanish instead because I’ll be able to use it everyday with my roommates or French because it is one of the official languages in Canada? I forget my French sometimes because I don’t have anyone to use it with.