What language should I learn?

Normally I'd suggest Spanish, but in Minnesota? Probably not too many hispanics there. In that case I'd go for Chinese, because while it's easy enough to pick up romance languages from native speakers, Mandarin (I assume) is a totally different beast, and you'd benefit immensely from learning it in a classroom.

 

If I had the opportunity you have got I would go for Chinese (mandarin I presume). So much more to it involved in not just the words but the hanzi also. That or ASL would be a beneficial one in life believe me. The amount of people that use it that would appreciate running into somebody else who use it are gargantuan.

I'm looking to begin learning Japanese this year. Can't wait

 

Ever since I flipped the bird to my whole class on accident while doing sign language, I like to pretend it doesn't exist.

I'd choose French out of those.

I never took language in high school, besides in middle school when we had a half semester class we HAD to take it (and we learned German, French, and Spanish) as I'm not interested in the languages they teach.

 

German! German is amazing. I'm trying to get fluent in it at the moment, so that's probably why I think it's amazing.

But seriously: it's very similar to English, and it is extremely logical. There are very little "WTF why does it work that way" moments that you'll definitely come across in Chinese and the other languages, which you probably already know.

The "when will I use it in my life?" question is a great one, but I think the more important one is: "which one will I do better with?". As in, which one will you find easiest to do well in exams? Which one is the easiest to get a grasp of? I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't say German.

But if you're to ask: "when will you use it in your life?" ... I mean, that's up to you. You can visit Germany when you're older. I mean besides Spanish which is kind of commonly spoken a bit more in the U.S., I think you can ask that about all the other languages. You have to make the opportunities for yourself to use it.

Germany is a great country and you could definitely visit it. But then again, I'm from Europe and it's much easier for me to say that.

 

I agree with the guy above me. German is a really fun language to learn. I've studied it a LOT in past years. I've also taken French and Spanish but German is defiantly my favourite to learn.

 

I would go with chinese. Chinese is one of the most spoken languages in minnesota, next to english of course. However, chinese has no alphabet system, there's hundreds of characters to learn if you're planning to take all four years of chinese. If you feel that you can't handle that amount of difficulty, german or spanish would be a good alternative.

 

Personally I would go with ASL.

 

I think Chinese would be very difficult but I don't know enough about that to give a valuable opinion, nor with ASL. Although I do have quite a few friends who have learned and enjoyed ASL. My recommendations would be either Spanish, French, or German. Spanish is the most common used in the USA and also one of the easiest foreign languages to learn. French is harder than Spanish, but easier than something like Chinese. Also very useful if you plan on going to Europe. German is the one that's most closely related to English and has very similar words but the grammar is different. I would go with either Spanish, French, or German. Good luck with your studies!

 

Personally, I would go with ASL.

 

I took Chinese and I highly recommend it. It's difficult in some aspects, but atleast the grammar is easy. And it is a beautiful language. If not Chinese then go for German. I took German as well and am planning on studying it again soon. It's an easier language, and very fun to learn.

 

Chinese might be smart, with China becoming a world superpower and all.

 

我的一个欢迎我们的新中国的霸主

 

If you are serious at learning a language and becoming fluent in it (not just getting the high school credit) then I would suggest learning Chinese. No doubt it is a hard language but as Rivers mentioned already, China is not going anywhere anytime soon. If you would prefer a European language I would suggest French. French is the "language of diplomacy" and is spoken throughout the world. After all, at the Olympics they speak in the host country's language, French, and English. If you didn't wish to pursue French I would say German, only because I am taking that right now :icon_bigg

 

I AGREE!

But Chinese as in Mandarin.

 

CHINESE! Defiantly!

 

I'm going to recommend against Chinese unless you're really serious about going into the study of Chinese culture, or passionate about studying and learning languages. It'll be really difficult and in two years you won't get a good enough sense of it for it to be very useful. If you're just taking a foreign language to get the requirement out of the way, I'd go with Spanish or ASL.

 

I studied German for almost seven years and lived with a host family in Germany for a month. It is a fun language although I didn't get to the level of proficiency I had hoped (maybe I'll start taking classes again one day). If you like it, take it. Don't care about its usefulness, fluency in a foreign language is admirable in itself. Learning a language is rewarding.
If I were in your position I'd definitely take Chinese.

 

I think Chinese and German are the most useful ones out of those