What language would you like to learn and why?

[pat19989]

If I could speak any, I would probably choose French because of its practicality. If not French, I'd choose Chinese

I feel like it's a gift to speak English, being able to talk with people from England, Canada, the US and elsewhere through the Internet while some people don't even have the same alphabet.

I learned chinese for a few years and would love to get back to it.

I would also love to learn sanskrit. I feel that language brings along new ways of thinking, different avenues of thought and perception that may not be possible in another language. I'm sure there are studies that have been done on this concept but I do not have any on hand.

Certain concepts simply cannot be expressed in other languages. For example, greek has several different words for different types of love, whereas english speakers must try to describe with additional words what Greek does in one. This is just a simple example that I can think of off the top of my head.

But when you start looking at the major differences in culture (say for instance China vs USA), simplest division being communism vs "democracy," I feel language plays a huge part in the "default" perception of a country/regions' people. I would infer that Mandarin Chinese inherently instills the importance of the collective over the individual.