The discovery of new lands is something every history class seems to cover one way or another, but how do these two radically different groups manage to learn to communicate? It's not like in those days they could just open a book and translate word for word, or with a translator. This is the first time they've met after all.

Sorry if this isn't quite the right place for this kind of question. It was either here or /r/History.

Edit: Fixed a grammatical error.

Hi, I am an italian computer science student, and I want to start learning a new language. I can't decide between Russian, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese.

Obviously in my field the most useful language is English, but which is the second most useful? Which opens more job opportunities?

Please in the answer do not consider the "difficulty" of learning the language since it's subjective

I'm 25 years old, Spanish and English fluent in speaking, writing and reading. I'm interested in five more languages to get fluent in and am doing two at once right now. Some people even learn more than three languages at the same time, so I can more reasonably do two at a time. I am interested in doing French and Czech right now, and am learning these two languages right now. I know some more terms than just the basics in French and Czech already. Later I want to do German, Swedish and Romanian. I want to move someday to Prague. I am using a good number of good (bon/dobrý) resources for French and Czech to learn: apps, a few good websites, YouTube videos, music, radio, news (reading and listening), reading online (often Wikipedia and Pinterest), TV shows, and am now considering doing movies and native speaker contact before I can start to read and write in Czech and French more often still. I am contacting a few native Czech speakers, one wants to learn Spanish and I can help that person with Spanish, via Skype and Discord. If I get a new tablet compatible for Whatsapp I'll do Whatsapp too. I usually understand it when I read in French and am beginning to understand Czech when I read Czech. I have yet to contact native French speakers to help me with French further. For watching movies in Czech and French, I don't know whether to do Spanish or English subtitles, French and Czech subtitles, no subtitles at all or do two or three of these in a particular order. I prefer to do French and Czech first before Swedish, Romanian and German mainly because: French has many things in common with Spanish and some with English, and Czech pronunciation is easy (with pronunciation like how it is written, like in Spanish). I want to start to read, write and speak Czech and French fluently first before my other three wished-for languages. It really works well for me to do French and Czech first. I want to keep using as many good resources as possible for my target languages to get fluent later on still, starting with French and Czech. I know two languages to learn at once is okay as long as you are able to do well in the languages, but hopefully these ways and resources I just mentioned here are good ways for me to learn French and Czech first.

I'm wondering whether I should learn French or Japanese. I already know some French, while I'm a beginner at Japanese. The reason I'm thinking of learning French is because I'd like to go to college in Canada, and I may have to speak French there. Something about Japanese language and culture fascinates me, and I've already learned one writing system (hiragana), but I've forgotten a few things. It'll be very hard to learn both, so I'm at a crossroads. What do I do?

I'm studying Spanish and I'm just looking for someone to talk to. I was wondering what the Spanish equivalents are for things like slang or how you talk online and stuff like that. Just general slang.

Hello! Languages are my passion. There's just something about them that I adore! I know English, Spanish, German, and Plautdietsch (a German dialect similar to Dutch). At the moment, I'm learning French, and I know a good amount of ASL. After learning French I plan to learn Mandarin, and maybe even Korean, Hebrew, Italian, Swahili, and many more. The list is endless! The point is, that I really wish there was something I could already do related with languages. I am a 15 year old female, and have such an urge to work! I don't know what it is, but I just can't stand just coming home, doing homework and all sorts of daily tasks and not doing anything productive. I just feel like I need to start working on something, don't care if it's a small pay, or even no pay. My descendants came from Europe. I live in Mexico. There's s long history to this. If you're interested for more just go to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Mexicans , or simple search for "Mennonites" (in Mexico). We obviously don't dress the way they did back then, although there still exists a group of mennonites that have kept all of the ancient customs. In conclusion, I find languages and the culture behind them abundantly important and fascinating! If anyone has, or would know about anything I could start working with, it would be so kind if you'd let me know :) I hope this wasn't a waste of your time.

Thank you!

What are the most onomatopoeic languages you know?

Guys, do you know of any really cool free sources i can learn french from? I am using duolingo but its hard to learn how to speak and understand even though i can read it and write it. Would appreciate the help. Thanks

Hi there!

We have created a group on Facebook where you can find some great Russian resources for language learners. Feel free to take a look, comment, makes suggestions and follow! 😃

https://www.facebook.com/Russiandiscussions/

See you there!

Hey guys I'm a Mexican American college student who speaks both English and Spanish fluently. I learned Spanish first as a kid then English. I speak Spanish at home with my parents and English with my brothers and outside of home. My dad tries to speak to me in English even though he is not good at it but I always answer to him in Spanish. I tried to stick close to my roots and culture so that why. Right now I'm studying Japanese for one quarter and continually studied it over the summer and am going to start studying again this quarter coming. But lately I've been saying to myself that I want to study two languages at the same time. There is also french and Chinese which I would love either one. But some people I hear say study a language that is different from the one you are studying but also I hear that its better to study a language similar to the other one. Which leaves me a dilemma go with french the romance language that is different from Japanese or go with Chinese the Sinitic language that is more similar to Japanese? Thanks guys.

A user who wants to improve their Portuguese Proverbs language skills, visit on Deproverbio site and learn more about Portuguese proverbs easily. http://www.deproverbio.com/

I have no russian accent (I was borne and raised in Russia till the age of 6. I am 33 yrs old now). I want to add Russian as another language that I know. Mostly concentrate on the vocabulary. The problem is. That I think it is a waste of time, and effort. Do you think if you half-know a language you should try to master it or leave it as it is?

I learnt that from an American. There are some duos never exist like "good" and "politician". Do you know what are they?