Three Smart Second Languages You Should Study

If you have always wanted to learn a second language, now is a great time! In addition to traditional classes and private coaching, mobile apps and other digital technology make it easier than ever before to study as many languages as you want, at your own convenience!

Of course, simply knowing that it is easy to learn a new language is not enough: you have to pick a language too! So which Robotel language lab should you study?

SPANISH

If your native language (your first language, the one you learned first and grew up speaking) is English, Spanish is probably the easiest language for you to learn.  While English is Germanic in origin (and Spanish is Romantic, in origin), the two languages really only differ in morphology (word formation) and phonology (word pronunciation).  They also share the same alphabet (though the Spanish alphabet has two additional letters) and they share pronunciation as well.  It helps, too, that Spanish is the easiest to learn of all the Romance languages.

One reason to choose Spanish as a second language, though, is that Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world.  It is either the official or national language in nearly four dozen countries across the globe. Furthermore, the US is actually the second-largest Spanish-speaking country!

FRENCH

French can also be easy for native English speakers to learn, but not because these two languages are similar: as a matter of fact, they are quite different. Instead of sharing etymological roots, they actually share historical roots. Still, It is a smart language to learn because it is a native language to 75 million people across 40 countries where it is the official tongue.

PORTUGUESE

Similar in modern use to Spanish, and sharing linguistic roots, Portuguese could also be an excellent second language to learn.  It is the official language in nine countries.  Just as Spanish is pretty easy to learn for native English speakers, so is Portuguese, particularly because English and Portuguese have similar interrogative forms.  This similarity lies within the fact that you do not need to restructure a sentence to ask a question: you can add inflection instead.

For example, in English and Portuguese you don’t have to restructure the sentence “We are going out for dinner” if you want to make it a question.  By changing the period to a question mark, it informs the speaker to simply use upward inflection at the end to indicate a question.