In short, Spanish is more straightforward than German and French. I feel French is slightly more complicated than German and French though it is based on my personal experience. Don't be surprised if you hear the opposite. Difficulty level – Spanish – 6/10, German – 7/10, French – 7.5/10.
It is also one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. So if we compare the total number of speakers and countries where the two languages are widely used or official, Spanish has a noteworthy edge.
Additionally, knowing Spanish will open large swaths of the world to you, including Spain and most of Latin and Central America. Spanish is an official language in 20 countries overall, and is spoken in many more. Meanwhile, German is the 11th most-spoken language in the world, with around 155 million speakers.
Spanish will unlock most of Latin America to you (and Spain, obviously), whereas French will give you an in to many African countries, plus France, Belgium, Canada and Haiti. If you're learning to boost your career prospects, Spanish and French are both very useful business languages to know.
German beats out French for those English cognates we talked about earlier, though—it shares about 40% of its vocabulary with English! Many language learners feel that French is easier to pick up in the beginning but gets harder as you master fluency, while German is an uphill battle at first but smooths out quickly.
Some of the most in-demand foreign languages in India are Spanish, French, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Russian, and Italian. These languages are popular due to the growing trade and business relationships between India and these countries.
English
It is used in global business, worldwide travel, diplomatic affairs, and in computer technology. Not only that, but many of the top global economies are English-speaking ones — the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK.
If you're visiting more countries, French is more useful in Europe. Especially if France and Switzerland are on your travel list. If you only want to visit Spain, learn Spanish. Overall, you'll use more French in Europe than Spanish language.
While Spanish is the fourth most spoken language, spoken by approximately 534 million people, French is the fifth most spoken language in the world, at 280 million speakers.
If you are in the US and plan to stay there, Spanish is more useful. If you want to move to Spain or a Latin American country, Spanish is more useful. If you want to move to France, Quebec, or another French speaking region, French is more useful.
According to these categories, Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn. Its pronunciation, vocabulary, alphabet, grammar, all these parts of the language are relatively easy to learn. On the other hand, we can't say that German is hard to learn, but it certainly isn't one of the world's hardest languages.
Russian is the most-spoken native language in Europe, and English has the largest number of speakers in total, including some 200 million speakers of English as a second or foreign language.
The FSI estimates that German takes approximately 30 weeks, or 750 classroom hours to learn. This study was conducted on a group of language students who spent 25 hours per week in class, and three hours daily on individual practice.
Based on lexical similarity, you will find that Portuguese is the closest to Spanish. Just remember that you will need to rethink the way the words are pronounced. You will also want to know which words are different between the languages. Following Portuguese is Italian as the second closest language to Spanish.
The latest projection is that French will be spoken by 750 million people by the time the year 2050 rolls around. A study by investment bank Natixis, reported by Forbes.com, suggests that by that time, French could be the most-spoken language in the world.
To explain it a bit more, if you spend 3 hours every day learning Spanish, you'll achieve fluency in around six months. On the other hand, if you reduce your Spanish time to one hour a day, it will take about 1.5 years to learn, according to FSI. In any case, the hours are based on classroom instruction.
French. As the second-most widely spoken language in Europe and emerging markets, it is a key language to learn. France's colonial history played a big part in making French the second-most widely spoken language in Europe.
The best European language to learn is German.
Simply because German is the official language of 3 countries. These are Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Also, many people in Central Europe and Balkan countries learn German. This is because they seek career opportunities and better life in German-speaking countries.
If sun, sea, and warm swimming waters is your priority, it's Spain every time, with its Blue Flag beaches and great urban seafronts. However, France is the better choice if you're heading inland. Culinary traditions and breathtaking landscape, the vineyards and cheese gorges aren't to be missed.
Python. Python can be regarded as the future of programming languages. As per the latest statistics, Python is the main coding language for around 80% of developers. The presence of extensive libraries in Python facilitates artificial intelligence, data science, and machine learning processes.
According to estimates by UNESCO, Portuguese is the fastest-growing European language after English. It is also the language that has, according to UNESCO, the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America.
2. Mandarin (1,118 million speakers) Looking at total speakers, Mandarin is the second most widely spoken language in the world.