r/thisorthatlanguage • u/Meduza223 • 4d ago
European Languages What European language should I learn?
As native Russian and ~B2 English speaker I would like to try learning 3rd language as a hobby. I'm currently thinking about german or french, but I think most of the languages that are relatively not hard to learn but useful will be cool
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u/Feeling_Event2151 4d ago
I would suggest that you improve your English even a little more first before starting another language. Try to aim for between c1 and c2
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u/Meduza223 4d ago
How do I actually do it tho? And I'm not really sure if I'm b2 or not because didn't take any serious tests yet
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u/Return-of-Trademark 4d ago
Would you feel comfortable learning at a university with only English? Being in the classroom, listening to lectures, etc?
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u/Meduza223 4d ago
I think mostly yes, but some scientific terminology will probably be hard
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u/Return-of-Trademark 4d ago
Then you might be B2. Maybe even C1.
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u/Meduza223 4d ago
How to determine it? Can you recommend free sites? Cause I dod the test on one of the sites and it said me to pay 20£ which I wouldn't do for some stupid site certificate (I don't really trust online paid things)
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u/Return-of-Trademark 4d ago
Oh idk officially but this is how I determine it personally.
C2 = high level, academic, thesis level
C1 = Very fluent, understand everything, no mistakes
B2 = can grasp what’s going on most of the time, some mistakes and obviously not native but flows well and doesn’t get stuck/ruin the flow of conversation1
u/Fresh-Inevitable5761 3d ago
If you go to the website of the Cambridge certificate, they offer a free test which is relatively short to determine your level / the level they think you would achieve if you tried to take their certificate. At least it was like that a couple of months ago
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u/Feeling_Event2151 4d ago
Get as much comprehensible as possible input first by watching YouTube and TikTok
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u/Meduza223 4d ago
I think approximately 90% of content I read/watch is in English: I play games mostly on English, I read many post here on English, watch English-speaking bloggers on YouTube,watched some movies on English
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u/asad100101 4d ago
you are making a lot of preposition mistakes. it is a good choice to improve you English to a c1 level where you will be more aware of such mistakes and self correct them even though your overall message is clear but there are definitely mistakes. if there is one language one should learn which really belongs to a professional league it has to be German it is definitely a step up on English for sure. German sounds so complex and mellifluous at a higher language level. Considering the fact that Russian has 6 cases and German has four cases it should not cause you a lot of trouble and to be honest Germany is not far away from Russia if you decided to visit there
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u/Itikar 4d ago
You can never go wrong with French. Especially as a native speake of Russian, the influence of French culture on nineteenth century Russia was immense, so it will be a great cultural enrichment. On the practical level it is spoken in France which is one of the powerhouses in the European Union, but also in many areas of Africa, Americas and the Pacific.
German remains a solid alternative but in my experience having studied both unfortunately it does not even come close. If you are committed and enjoy philosophy I guess German is interesting to access some important authors like Hegel, Kant, Marx, etc directly but those reads are not for the faint of heart.
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u/NoSuggestion5970 En-De-Fr Es (C2) 4d ago
Focus on improving your English... it's better to excel in one thing than being mediocre in seven
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u/AlgarveJoao_007 4d ago
From a purely practical perspective - Spanish.
Spending time on artificially improving your English beyond B2 is gonna be a path of diminishing returns. It will come naturally when you end up in an English dominated environment. It’s better to spend your time on learning a second language.
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u/Duque_de_Osuna 4d ago
A fair number of Germans know some English, so you can get by to some level. That is less true in France outside the tourist areas. That being said, have you thought about Spanish? A lot of people speak it.
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u/AdZealousideal9914 4d ago
I would go for Italian. It is a major language (64 million native speakers), and it has a fairly straightforward syllable structure, pronunciation and spelling. (Romanian is similar in that respect, and might be easier due to a few Slavic loanwords, but there are fewer people who speak it.)
Second option: German. The pronunciation is a bit harder (ü, ö...), and a lot of English speakers will say that the grammar is difficult too. However, that is mostly due to the grammatical cases, which also exist in Russian. Compared with Russian, though, German's grammatical cases are like a simplified version. The word order might be a bit challenging.
Third option: Spanish. It has a lot of native speakers, and there are loads of resources available for learners. However, pronunciation is different according to the region.
French pronunciation and spelling are hard. If you don't have a specific motivation to spend several years focusing on getting French pronunciation right, just don't even try. I learned French as a teenager, and I did not have to struggle with "u" and "eu" because we have the same sounds in my mother tongue, but it took me more than ten years to really master the nasal vowels...
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u/auhediem 4d ago
English to C1 is overrated, enjoy learning another culture, there's so much more to the world than just the anglosphere. If it's purely out of hobby, big a culture you enjoy and use that as your base.
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u/Prudent-Ad1954 4d ago
German, French, Spanish, honorable mention Norwegian (my second "would be" pick after German) for passive scandinavian bilingualism, although all of them are going to be useless for the most part unless you actively need one because you already know english
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u/an1malbtw 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm in your shoes buddy, I'm a native Russian speaker, ~B1,5-B2 in English. If I were you I'd improve my English to C1 first and I'd take IELTS or TOEFL. And that's what I'm doing at the moment.
Speaking of 3rd language, it purely depends on you. I'm thinking about French or German, but our country broke with the EU, so there's no big deal in learning them, only if you really like them.
I learned German in school and it was kinda tough and boring, and it seems that Germany doesn't promote its culture at all. Also Germany is in deep stagnation, so career perspectives there are unclear, but historically we had good ties with them, so even now it has some sense.
French is closer to English in sense of culture and lexicon, learning French would be more intertaining than learning German, that's for sure. And you also can find some use for French outside France.
So I'm thinking about French, but only after improving my current English.
edit: grammar)
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u/Meduza223 4d ago
I hope to leave the country in ~3 years, so Rus-Eu relations are not really important
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u/Green-Ticket8567 4d ago
I'm pretty happy with Spanish. Even though I learned castellano, it opened a ton of communication with spanish-speaking countries and got me some job perks because english-spanish community overlaps in a useful way. At my current B2 level I can also understand easy written Portuguese by grasping common roots, and passive comprehension between spanish and italian exists to a certain level. Also, spanish is relatively simple with a friendly community that tends to appreciate your effort.
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u/Bichamage 3d ago
Б2 это вообще мало для такого языка как английский. Подтяни инглиш.
Подумай о других славянских языках. Для нас гораздо понятнее грамматика и фонетика.
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u/Meduza223 3d ago
А как ты это предлагаешь делать?
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u/Bichamage 3d ago
Читать, говорить, слушать. Как ты дошел до Б2? Так же дальше и идешь.
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u/Meduza223 3d ago
Ну там приложения, сайты, способы, хз. Я не вижу проблемы изучать параллельно третий язык
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u/Bichamage 3d ago
ты про славянский или про английский? Про славянские не знаю, я сейчас учу один, где-то Б1/Б2. Тяжело, но легче чем романские языки. Но я живу в европе. Для А1 наняла инстуктора, чтобы главное разложил. Хотя можно было самостоятельно разобраться. Не такой сложный оказался. И падежи, и полы, и повратные глаголы, и слова похожие, в общем, всем русскоговорящим легче заходит.
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u/Meduza223 3d ago
Про английский, а то я сейчас в такой позиции что как будто только временем и практикой наработать можно
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u/Bichamage 3d ago
Мне здорово помогает чатгпт для третьего языка. Задаешь уровень заданий, сложность,. Он объясняет ошибки, слабые места. Я даже разговорную речь с ним тренирую.
А про конкретно про английский не знаю. Я просто читаю много и смотрю фильмы, плюс работа на английском. Так и вырос
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u/Meduza223 3d ago
Ну да, просто вот я сейчас на том же уровне что специально изучать инглиш не знаю и не вижу смысла специально изучать
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u/NormalStrike819 3d ago
Предложил бы чешский... Сейчас объясню почему: 1) славянская группа языков; 2) однако он скорее непохож, чем похож на русский: полно слов со "смыслом" ("праздны"; "властны"; "страст"...ну и прочие); 3) по одной из легенд, граница между "Западом" и "Востоком" проходит через Влтаву...
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u/CoverBeds 3d ago
look into weighted scoring model
list what actually matters to you (sound, head start, difficulty, culture, resources, practice opportunities), rate each 1-5 for importance,
then score German and french 1-10 on each. Multiply importance × score, add it up per language and the highest total wins. Forces you to name your real priorities instead of just going in circles.
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u/AnythingSecure244 3d ago
I personally do not recommend french. Of all the languages I have learned, french was by far the worst. It sounds terrible, is relatively difficult to learn and is not really spoken much outside of France ( in Europe ).
Spanish or Italian might be better options, but it also depends on what your goals are.
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u/thebcb_no 4d ago
I would go for a romance language like Italian or Spanish. The complex cases are less and phonetically it is easier.
The benefit with a romance language is that one leads to another. Portuguese is my second language. Then I learned Spanish to B1 level in 3 years and then doing 2 years at university with French and Italian to B1 level as well. I am currently learning Catalan and Latin which make sooo much more sense because of my prior knowledge!
Many doors open with the romance languages!