question 1
curious does anybody know the break down of the languages spoken in US , Canada , and south america ?

question 2
I know there are tons of different languages out there but how many of them are actually used in the north , south america's , and canada in the large .

 

South America will be Spanish but different dialogs. If you know one of them you can fumble thru the rest.

N America fluxuates between Spanish and English in FL,TX, and CA, Creole (ghetto French)and English in Louisianna. PA Dutch in Amish communities all over PA and OH. English everywhere else. And redneck in the south excluding FL. FL wasn't a state will early 1900's so we never had the plantation south. Most everyone here moved here from NY, we have a joke that more people live here from NY then from FL. But southern english is sometimes almost a language to its own. They don't say certain words and then combine 3 words into one.


Canada - English and French(Quebec) And for Canadian english you have to add ",,,,ehhhh" after every statement. the movie Fargo gives a good example of Canadian English.

 

well, if you are in vancouver, better learn mandarin or cantonese.

 

well, if you are in vancouver, better learn mandarin or cantonese.

They say the same thing about seattle. yakuza problems and all kinds of crazy stuff.

 

South America will be Spanish but different dialogs.

Please let me add that there is an equal amount of portuguese speakers in South America.

 

Well , I am trying to gather which languages you would have to be fluent in to nearly communicate in ever place in the world?
i.e the major languages that cover 99.9999999% of all people or communication with the world.

I know china ( mandarin , spanish , english ) but is there any major others that one would have a hard time learning off of these...

How about also considering the other parts of the world asia , europe , africa , and Australia ?

 

i.e the major languages that cover 99.9999999% of all people or communication with the world.

Good luck with that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

 

yes, I saw that but I am wondering there are to many languages to learn is
there a handful of them that each person would at least know or 99.9999999% of people would know.

For instance if you had to speak to swedish people would most of them know another language that would fall under the common handful to learn?
So at least one language common between you and that person would exist.

I am trying to figure out what languages to learn to communicate with the most amount of people in the world.
i.e with out learning 100 / 1000's of different languages / dialects ....

If this is even possible.

Also kind of curious about on average how long a particular language will take to learn and master.?
And if it speeds up a lot once you learn a few languages?

 

Also kind of curious about on average how long a particular language will take to learn and master.?

As soon as I master English, I'll let you know.

 

Though mandaran is the most spoken 1 billion , english is the most universially common language spoken.

But I don't know if I would be missing learning just those 2 any major group of people that couldn't speak either.

Maybe spanish , french , german , ... list goes on

But how many know at least a common handful of languages
what ones are the most bang for your buck if learning wise...

I.E english and mandarin (china) are 2 that are important that cover a large amount of the population

 

Yes it gets easier with each language you learned. However, it gets more difficult the older you are, so maybe overall it doesn't get easier.

I found this list which includes secondary speakers: http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm

Thus, if you add the secondary speaker populations to the primary speaker populations, you get the following (and I believe more accurate) list:
(number of speakers in parentheses)

• Mandarin Chinese (1.12 billion)
• English (480 million)
• Spanish (320 million)
• Russian (285 million)
• French (265 million)
• Hindi/Urdu (250 million)
• Arabic (221 million)
• Portuguese (188 million)
• Bengali (185 million)
• Japanese (133 million)
• German (109 million)

The following is a list of these languages in terms of the number of countries where each is spoken. The number that follows is the total number of countries that use that language (from Weber, 1997):

• English (115)
• French (35)
• Arabic (24)
• Spanish (20)
• Russian (16)
• German (9)
• Mandarin (5)
• Portuguese (5)
• Hindi/Urdu (2)
• Bengali (1)
• Japanese (1)

While english is being taught in school in many countries you still will have problems communicating anywhere with just english. Start travelling and you'll see. Most people just speak their official language. For 99.999999% you still will have to learn a lot of languages.

It'll be easier if you stay in America, 4 languages and you are done.

 

Also kind of curious about on average how long a particular language will take to learn and master.?

2 to 3 years living, working and having a girlfriend in another country. Being young helps too.

My personal recommendation:

English, spanish, french, portuguese, maybe german and russian. Arabic and chinese are much more difficult.
The poorer (and consequently less educated) the country you want to go is the less likely you will find someone who speaks anything else than their native language.
What you want/need to learn depends on where you want to go.

 

Yeah arabic is @%##. Never tried Mandarin but I hear that one's hard also. I toyed with learning Arabic, as I mentioned I tried it in rosetta Stone, and I also had another CD audio series. It wasn't until I talked to an Arabic translator in the Navy that I realized just how hard it was. He said there were like 12 tenses for every verb (in addition to past, present, and future), and that some words are made up on the fly.

Although if it's consistent, I'm sure it's easier to learn as a second language than English.

BTW why do we sit IN a chair, but ON a couch?

 

If one can read the language does that usually imply that one can speak the language to some extent.

If somebody can write the language does that usually imply one can read or speak(verbal communicate) the language.

I guess what I am curious of is once one masters one of the reading , writting , or speaking skill sets for a language how often will he already beable to pick up the other aspects of the language.

For example say somebody could speak english how hard would he find learning to read or write english. And if one could write good english how hard would it be for a person to read or speak the english. (this example was just for english but throw in xxxxxx language in there do they all deviate to much or is there some average )

 

Let's see: \(7 \cdot 10^9 cdot (1-0.999999999)=7\)

I think you 'll struggle finding a language that only 7 people in the world speak and leave that out of your curriculum.

 

Well , I am trying to gather which languages you would have to be fluent in to nearly communicate in ever place in the world?
i.e the major languages that cover 99.9999999% of all people or communication with the world.

I know china ( mandarin , spanish , english ) but is there any major others that one would have a hard time learning off of these...

How about also considering the other parts of the world asia , europe , africa , and Australia ?

Most people know basic english all over the world. Thats why they teach it in China. My friend actually teaches it in S. Korea and has been since 06. He loves it there and never plans on coming back. Its considered the international business language. That doesn't mean you'll be able to wander thru paris and everyone will know what your saying, but chances are if 5 people walk by 1 of them will speak english. Where as if a frenchman was in NY 200 people would walk by before someone spoke french.

 

If one can read the language does that usually imply that one can speak the language to some extent.

If somebody can write the language does that usually imply one can read or speak(verbal communicate) the language.

I guess what I am curious of is once one masters one of the reading , writting , or speaking skill sets for a language how often will he already beable to pick up the other aspects of the language.

For example say somebody could speak english how hard would he find learning to read or write english. And if one could write good english how hard would it be for a person to read or speak the english. (this example was just for english but throw in xxxxxx language in there do they all deviate to much or is there some average )

Look at the quote again forget about the languages for now but focus on the reading / writting/ speaking aspects of a language the quote say's it all