My wife & I want to learn a second language. I reckon because of the amount of migrant workers I encounter during work an Eastern European language would be most useful.
What do people reckon? Is there an Eastern European language that is more widely used than others? Polish perhaps…
Although English is generally considered to be the universal business language, I’ve found over the years that German seems to be the language that most non-German drivers of differing nationalities use to communicate with each other. Most eastern Europeans seem to have a spattering of knowledge of it.
Arabic.
قنبلة
ØاÙلة
طائرة
كاÙر
اليهودي
Learn Russian. Many of the ex-soviet block countries were taught compulsory Russian at school (as a second language for them), so there’s a lot of crossover should you find yourself trying to talk to bulgarians, latvians, etc. I don’t think Russian is as widely spoken as a second language in Poland as the other eastern countries mind you.
Winseer:
Learn Russian. Many of the ex-soviet block countries were taught compulsory Russian at school (as a second language for them), so there’s a lot of crossover should you find yourself trying to talk to bulgarians, latvians, etc. I don’t think Russian is as widely spoken as a second language in Poland as the other eastern countries mind you.
I speak fairly good Russian but I’ve found that a lot of eastern Europeans don’t like using it, and many refuse to use it because they were basically under occupation by the USSR.
Stick with English…just don’t speak to the immigrants,If ya British speak English!
Australian, Canadian, American, Gambian. that’s enough 
Once gave an order over the tannoy to some German troops on a rifle range, meant to say 3,2,1, shoot but (and if you know German) shouted out, 3,2,1, shi…erm ■■■ 
Winseer:
Learn Russian. Many of the ex-soviet block countries were taught compulsory Russian at school (as a second language for them), so there’s a lot of crossover should you find yourself trying to talk to bulgarians, latvians, etc. I don’t think Russian is as widely spoken as a second language in Poland as the other eastern countries mind you.
Russian is widely spoken among elder people, but since 1989 learnign Russian was in decline, for the reasons mentioned already. It’s really hard to find someone younger than 30 who speaks Russian in Eastern Europe (except for Bulgaria etc) and I think that tendence will stay for some time… I can’t say for other countries but in Poland German is second most taught foreign language after English atm
If she wants to leadn Eastern European language, I would advise to pick one that other nations will be able to understand.
For example Polish is hard to understand for other nation, but Slovakian can be easily understood both by Poles and by Czechs and with some effort you can be also communicative with Balkan slavs…
Czech language might be the option here, as its grammar is closest to germanic grammar from all slavic languages and therefore it could be easier to learn.
Chinese, they are takng over the world, so it will soon become the main language of the world.
Which one?? Cantonese or Mandarin?
Cantonese if you want to get on with the people in the take-away.
Mainland China is Mandarin I think
Just learn to speak bo**ocks! Most on here can understand it and its becoming the most widely spoken language in government as well as business.
Sent from my iPhone using my right index finger!
Moldovian should give you millions in the East who might actually understand you.It’s one of the main languages used in the French Transport Ministry officials law book,9 different languages and Moldovian is the most used,think it’s Russian.
G8YMW:
Which one?? Cantonese or Mandarin?
Cantonese if you want to get on with the people in the take-away.
Mainland China is Mandarin I think
Mandrin, but go down the Pinyin route first, I did, and it works well at the local takeaway.More importantly my manager was most impressed ( embarrased) when I chatted to a visitor to our global companys transport operation ( yes I was showing off ) all I got for the rest of the day was " what did he say ?"
Joke not that they are taking over the world but it is a good string to your bow and look good on the cv, and when you buy stuff on E-bay
just get your wife to read all the posts on here she will learn gibberish or go to your local boozer on chucking out time watch the drunks argue with one another nobody else understands them but they know what they are saying
Well if your life is anything like mine then id say polish, i know alot of polish people, work with alot, several of my neighbours are polish, very nice people and it seems were stuck with them !
Spanish, it’s spoken in more countries than any other language.
Equitran:
Spanish, it’s spoken in more countries than any other language.
Hi Equitran,
On a global scale, you’re possibly correct, but the OP seems to be looking for an Eastern European language.
dieseldave:
Equitran:
Spanish, it’s spoken in more countries than any other language.Hi Equitran,
On a global scale, you’re possibly correct, but the OP seems to be looking for an Eastern European language.
In that case you can go three ways.
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Choose the one that has most speakers - Polish (due to size of the country and widely spread Polish diaspora)
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Think out of the box. Now I am going to simplify but we have three groups of Slavic Languages: Western (Polish-Czech-Slovak-Serb spoken in Eastern Germany by that Sorb minority who leaves there), Eastern (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarussians) and Southern (Balkan) Slavs - that is all ex-yugo guys + Bulgarians.
Now, usually all Slavs can understand each other to some extend (varying from nearly fluent conversation (for example Czech - Slovaks), hard graft (Poles - Czechs) or just catching single words and phrases (Poles- Croats). And now you can try to find the language that is most helpful to understand others… For Example if you speak Polish, you will be able to catch something from Ukrainian, but if you speak Czech, you can speak easily with Slovaks, if you speak Croat, you can understand Bosnians and Serbian is practically the same language, just written with russian alphabet (don’t tell that to any Serb or Croat
)
I was once on international student conference, where there most people were from Slavic countries (but they were also some Dutch, British, Dannish, American and others) and the only person who had no problem to understand every slavic language and to speak fluently with others was a girl from Macedonia… I woudl guess then that Macedonian is somehow in the middle of the Slavic languages cloud, so she has the shortest distances to every other languages… -
You can go niche, learn one of the languages from Baltic states, Hungarian or Romanian (which is similar to French, so if you know some French, it might help you). You will be rather unlikely to find someone to talk with, but then, on the other hand, when such need arises, you will be one of the few who could do it
Rooster:
Once gave an order over the tannoy to some German troops on a rifle range, meant to say 3,2,1, shoot but (and if you know German) shouted out, 3,2,1, shi…erm ■■■
Ie before the Ei 
I can’t talk though!
Once told a german border guard that I was hoping to “arrive at my destination by tonight” and it came out “arrive at my destination naked” instead… 