At school, most Russians learn one foreign language and use spanish translator. Most often – English, less often – German, French or Spanish. At the university, students continue to learn the same language that they studied at a secondary school. The exception is graduates of specialized gymnasiums and lyceums and students of language universities, where the curriculum includes several languages at once. Many adults get bored with the main language after years of study and want to try something new. What language to choose as a second foreign language? It depends on the goals.
Tourism
For people traveling the world, the main criterion for choosing a second language is its prevalence. Therefore, first of all, you need to pay attention to English, if you have not studied it before. Even in places where locals speak only their own language, English will come in handy, because tourism workers are trying to learn at least the basic phrases necessary to communicate with tourists. If you already know English at a sufficient level, you need to choose based on where you plan to relax. People who travel frequently to Latin America should try to learn Spanish, and those who prefer Asia should try Chinese.
Work
If you decide to learn a second language in order to work as a translator, you have two options. The first is traditional training, which lasts for several years, and then the improvement of skills and great competition with those who have been learning a language all their lives. If this does not scare you, you can choose any language that is in demand. If you are an adult, accomplished person, for whom being a translator is more of a dream than a way to earn money, it makes sense to try to learn some rare language: Burmese, Lao, Swahili or Punjabi. In this case, there will be practically no competition, and it will be possible to learn the language at the level of working translators, because such languages are not taught at Russian universities.
“Flexibility of Mind”
If you need to learn a second language as an exercise in mental flexibility, try to choose a language that is radically different from your native language. For this, for example, Chinese is perfect. Everything in it is different from Russian: grammar, tinted syllables, and the system of hieroglyphs itself. If you are not yet ready to overcome such difficulties, you can try to stop at learning German. Its main difficulty is in a huge number of rules, and even more exceptions, but at the same time, practicing pronunciation will not be any particular problem. Another option is Hebrew. This is not a very difficult language in terms of grammar, but you will have to get acquainted with the new script, learn to pronounce sounds that are not in Russian, and read from right to left. Do not think that the languages more familiar to us do not contribute to development. Learning any language forces the brain to actively create neural connections, which means it can think faster, maintain memory, and even prolong life.
“For the soul”
Some want to learn a second language just like that, “for the soul.” Some like the sound of a language (such as Spanish or Italian), others like the spelling (Chinese or Japanese characters, Hangul, or the Thai alphabet). Someone just wants to read books by authors from other countries in the original language. This is not the best motivation, because, as practice shows, such interest often fades when the first difficulties arise in the study. However, this is a great opportunity to broaden your horizons and communicate more freely in a foreign country. In such cases, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are often chosen as the second language.
