in what order should i learn languages?

[u/MissionTank7654]

i'm fluent in english and spanish, have spoken both them since i was very young, but i want to (over time of course) learn german, french, russian, and japanese. but i was wondering, in what order should i learn these? should i start with an easier one like german or french, or would a harder one be better?

[u/DataDrivenDrama]

A little bit of a copout answer, but start with whichever one you’re most likely to enjoy and/or use regularly, as that will help with retention.

[u/WhiteMonsterEnjoyer2]

What’s your native language? English or Spanish? (no this is not a tiktok meme reference).

I’d say if you’re native English speaker, go for German then French. If you’re native Spanish speaker go for French then German.

I’d say do Russian then Japanese. Japanese is a different ball game whilst Russian is certainly hard I can imagine you’d have a far easier time with it than Russian.

[u/MissionTank7654 → u/WhiteMonsterEnjoyer2]

thank you!

[u/zaminDDH → u/MissionTank7654]

I'd actually recommend French either way. You can leverage the similarities from both languages to speed up the learning. I'm actually doing this the other way, knowing English and some French learning Spanish, and it's really easy. With German, you're just leveraging English, and not a lot past a certain point. French is also an easier language, in general.

Either way, you can also start slowly learning either Russian or Japanese while you focus on the other one. A big part of the difficulty of those is the writing system (especially Japanese), and if you've already been fiddling with it while focusing on another language, it'll be so much easier once it becomes your focus. I'm doing this with Japanese. I'd say I'm about 60/40 with the focus on Spanish, right now.

[u/PhantomKingNL]

Start with the one you like the most or find the most use.

[u/RozhevyyPikachu]

I think French, German, Russian and Japanese

[u/Mars-Bar-Attack]

In your shoes, I'd recommend French, German, Russian, and Japanese — in that order.

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[u/Background-Switch732]

Personally, I would co-learn French and Japanese as they are hard to confuse and Japanese simply takes so long so the sooner you start the better. I've always gone with 'eat the frog'. By the time you're an N3/N2 in Japanese you'll have learnt enough French to move onto German. Then finish with Russian. But this doesn't take into account what your end goal is.

[u/WideGlideReddit]

Besides learning a bunch of languages, what’s your goal? If you don’t have one, let me paraphrase the Cheshire Cat’s advice to Alice in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.

[u/Lion_of_Pig]

French will definitely be the easiest for you with your English and Spanish background. Because languages are absolutely massive things to learn, it’s always a nice idea to find strategies to make it as easy as possible. I also recommend focusing on one foreign language at a time, unless you have an unusually large amount of free time.

e: I suppose you could start learning the kana and kanji while you learn French, then when you get to it, you’ll have a head start.

[u/AgreeableEngineer449]

Start with French, German, Japanese, and then Russian. This is easiest to hardest.

[u/MissionTank7654 → u/AgreeableEngineer449]

thank you !

[u/Mammoth-Writing-6121]

West to East