Which language to study next?

Has anyone gone on to learn another language after German? I am nearing the end of the 3rd Rocket German course and thinking about what I'd like to learn next. I will, of course, continue using German by reading books, listening to music, watching movies in German, etc. I am mostly considering either Spanish or French. Which one is closer to English and German? Which of these is most useful? I know that here in the U.S. Spanish would be very useful, but I'm also considering doing some travelling when I retire in a few years.

Hallo Bikeophile, Prost Neujahr! Bonne année! You could try Rocket French, but it's about the same quality as Rocket German. Having almost finished, can you tell me something? Do you find a lot of errors in these lessons like I do? For example, I wanted to see if I could find "Prost Neujahr" and some other expressions. Phrase Finder to the rescue. Unfortunately only one short lesson: 14.5 Christmas Vocabulary. Here is the phrase: Der Weihnachtsbaum is immer voller Weihnachtsschmuck. What is that "is" doing there? Does anybody notice this stuff? They make it really hard to me to fix this stuff. I have to send emails and wait two days. I just want to type right on the screen and fix it like wikipedia. Oh well. Prost Neujahr! Where's all the fun stuff that I see in Germany? Wer ist die Feuerzangenbowle? They serve der Glühwein in pottery with a sugar cube on fire. Very fun! For your travel ideas, try out this web site for the holidays. It has some great ideas and they have the site in German too (of course): http://www.tourism-bw.com/Christmas-Markets Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Jason

Oh there are errors but it is much better. I've gone through all 3 courses too. I'm on my second pass. You should have seen it a few years ago. I personally have sent in over 200 corrections, mostly just little typos and inconsistencies but occasionally careless translations. What always annoyed me the most was gratuitiously adding adverbs and adjectives to the translations or leaving them out when they should be there.

Thank you Jason and Byron for your responses. Yes, abolutely there are many, many errors hroughout all three levels. At first, I reported the ones that really irked me, and in all fairness, the Rocket German staff did respond quickly and did fix them. After awhile though, I just congratulated myself on being able to spot errors in another language and worked around it. Byron, I agree that the most difficult ones to work around are where the translation is not as close as possible. Yes, of course some things cannot be directly translated, but making it different for no apparent reason should not be done. All in all though, I think this is a wonderful way to learn and do plan on doing other languages in the future using this method. Maybe the Rocket Languages people should give some kind of incentive for people to report errors so they can fine-tune their product to prevent complaints like this and to make it as easy as possibble for students to learn. Perhaps a dollar off on the next program purchase for each error reported? That would motivate me to not just overlook the errors and avoid just enduring the frustration.

Hi Bikeophile, I had aspirations of catching up to you someday, but you just keep pulling farther ahead. Maybe if you stop with German and take another language, I can catch up in another year or two. I've been through all 3 levels once, but now I'm going back though again and doing the Write It and Play it sections which weren't available during my first pass. Good suggestion for error correction. Regarding another language, I'm not sure which one I would choose. Probably Spanish because as you noted, it is the most common language other than English in the U.S. You would have a lot of opportunity to use it. Congrats on your Platinum level. I've got nearly 50,000 points to go. Wish the goal line wasn't quite so far.

That's great that you have made it through the course. I'm still on level one of the Chinese lessons. I have found it very hard at times to learn and have going and stopping for quite sometime. I live in China but my wife is Chinese and sometimes find that its easier for her just to translate what I am saying. But I am giving it another try. One question I do have for everyone on this past is, What do you do when you feel that it isn't worth the time to learn? Is there anything that keeps you going? When it comes to the next language I either one would be good. Both of these language come from the same branch on the tree so they will have some similarities. But I think that Spanish would be the best, mainly because as you and others have stated. You will probably find more people in the U.S. speaking the language.

Thanks Austin. I'm sure learning Chinese must be levels of magnitude more difficult than German. What keeps me going, albiet at an inconsistent pace, has little to do with a practical application. I may visit Germany yet one more time (been there twice) and it's more fun to be able to speak and understand a few words, but that's not what motivates me to keep going. I guess it's basically the same thing that motivates me to go to my health club regularly. The mind, like the body, needs exercise and I heard learning a language is one of the best ways to keep the brain from atrophying. Like exercise, it's not always fun but I feel good when I finish a lesson just like I feel good after a workout. Rocket does a pretty good job of making it fun though. There is lot of variety in the lesson plans.

Below are some ideas so you can see what language you would like to do next. As for motivation? One of the unique features of Rocket Languages are their articles on motivation: http://members.rocketlanguages.com/Toolbox/#motivation If you read and rate all of those and still don't know how to motivate yourself ask google. They know everything: https://www.google.fr/search?q=motivation Click at the top for Images, Videos, Books. They have it all. Duolingo is fun, fast paced, and the community support for each question is very well done (really wish Rocket Languages would implement this sort of feedback mechanism for each write it/hear it/quiz): https://www.duolingo.com/ For Chinese, perhaps this one: https://www.yoyochinese.com/ For all of the above this is fun and unique (youtube-like). They have a great German Music video with subtitles: https://www.yabla.com/ If you want to make an investment in Chinese: Also, get a copy of Pleco on your iPad or iPhone and buy their OCR module and you can read anything in Chinese. Take a menu, a book, anything. I like Skritter and iWrite Wenzi for learning to write the characters, but Pleco is just #1 for Chinese to French/German/English. If you want the same thing in French: Get a copy of Antidote. Whether it's for the PC or for the iPad or iPhone. Don't leave home without it. 7Jours sur la planète is great, they have web or iPad. http://apprendre.tv5monde.com/ Tex is great also: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/index.html For German, you already know since it was mentioned in Rocket German that you can learn for free at http://www.dw.de/learn-german/s-2469 Best Regards, Jason

Jason, thanks for all the great links! As to which language, I'm pretty sure I'll be going with Spanish. I'm thinking that after German it should be a snap in comparison, and I'll have lots of opportunity to actually use it. Hey Byron, you've still got your work cut out to try to catch me because I'm not done with Level 3 yet ... being "almost" done is a relative term! :)

Darn. I'd better get cracking then. Good to have goals.

Good to be pushed too! In all seriousness though, Byron, I too do this mostly for the exercise for the brain. Being in my late fifties I need all the braincercise I can get!

I've got you beat by more than a few years but it's all good. I'm not senile yet. I try to keep away from the TV except when I'm on the elliptical. Too much TV will atrophy your brain.

Thank you so much for the information. I have been reading techniques for the past few days and they have really helped me quite a bit. I am very great full for all of your help. My Chinese learning has been coming along quite well. This is the first time that I have been on here for five days strait. Thanks again.

Bikeophile, If you are going to go with Spanish, have you looked at Libros Media's video course for Spanish? http://www.jetsetspanish.com/index_spanish.php I know that for French I was using French in Action and it was really great because the materials were well edited and the 52 videos were super helpful by presenting a situation and the grammar. The text, the study guides, and the workbooks are all just excellent. http://www.learner.org/resources/series83.html -Jason