If I could only learn one additional language, and I wanted to travel the world, what language would serve me best other than English or Spanish?

  • grue@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    5 days ago

    Depends on the route you want to take while traveling. For example, if you want to circumnavigate in a sailboat through the tropics, French is a great choice because France includes a bunch of tropical islands:

    French is also widely spoken in Africa, IIRC.

    • Dearth@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      5 days ago

      There are more French speakers in Africa than there are in France and the French Language Authority is absolutley SEETHING at this fact because they’re losing control over “proper French” and for the first time ever French is evolving like a language should

    • typhoon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 days ago

      I wonder if most of those countries people don’t speak either English or Spanish as a second language. As opposed to certain specific languages and countries were most people don’t have or use much a second language like for example in Japan or Brazil

      • grue@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        5 days ago

        In most of the places French is spoken, it is the second language (instead of English or Spanish). Only place I can think of off the top of my head where Francophones would likely also know English is Quebec and, I guess, France itself.

        The other languages in the sorts of places I was talking about are mostly ones like Arabic, various sub-Saharan African indigenous languages, or Polynesian.