I would have thought Italian was a good language to learn. I did start to learn it but dropped it due to other commitments. However it rolls off the tongue and some of the words are very similar to their English.
Also, if you do pick it up you can take a holiday to sunny Italy and try it out!
I have lived in France now for 7 years, and am pretty much fluent. Started in night classes before moving here, carried on with lessons for 18 months after moving, became a pompier and never looked back. It takes more than just existing in a country to learn, as witnessed by many people I know who have moved here but after many years can still barely string a sentence together. You have to get out and speak to people, read the local newspaper, watch the local telly in other words completely immerse yourself in the language and culture. Now have a real hankering to learn spanish, but I am not prepared to move to do so!
Good luck with whatever language you decide and by whatever means.
Lool out for a guy called Michel Thomas … he got me speaking German in no time
Welsh. I’ve tried the “Teach yourself Welsh” book and c.d. and they are as boring and totally uninspiring. Can anyone recommend an alternative that has worked for them? Not much opportunity for conversational Welsh around Dudley and my current job doesn’t take me there.
Afrikaans, Sotho, Xhosa, Zulu, Swana, matabethe … are just some of the languages I have failed to learn 
I speak French reasonably well, English ok and fluent in Glaswegian. Currently working on my chookter language.
I’ve been to Poland 7 times in the last 2 years and can’t speak a bloody word of it 
I an speak any language in the world except Greek, …
It’s all greek to me
oldhippyandy:
Welsh. I’ve tried the “Teach yourself Welsh” book and c.d. and they are as boring and totally uninspiring. Can anyone recommend an alternative that has worked for them? Not much opportunity for conversational Welsh around Dudley and my current job doesn’t take me there.
This is pretty good - and free. Can you get S4C on sky/freesat? Or Radio Cymru?
Pob lwc!
10-08:
Trying to learn Finnish but after going on holiday to Belgium I’d like to learn Dutch.
I heard Finnish is one of the hardest to learn. My sister married a Finnish owner driver, and has lived there for 30 years.
Its a lovely place with friendly people.
cypry0:
10-08:
Trying to learn Finnish but after going on holiday to Belgium I’d like to learn Dutch.I heard Finnish is one of the hardest to learn. My sister married a Finnish owner driver, and has lived there for 30 years.
Its a lovely place with friendly people.
My favourite place to holiday 
the best thing is they don’t actually expect you to speak finnish because “why would you” so if you give it a go they love you all the more and really look after you. It’s hard but it’s easy, it’s structured in the same way so you would say ‘I’m going to the shop’ not ‘to the shop I am going’ except they don’t really bother with joining words so if you said I go shop they would know what you were talking about even though you didn’t use the right endings. (well as far as I’ve worked out anyway there are a few finnish speakers on here who I’m sure will come and put me straight)
hi,im living in spain at the moment so learning Spanish,best ones ive found is Michel Thomas and "Spanish is easy"by a guy called Marcus,both teach u very useable stuff,i want, I can,i need etc then build from there! 
I speak reasonable French and Spanish
I did French at school, and forgot most of it.
Been to France a few times, and concluded that the French don’t bother to speak French, they just make gestures and noises most of the time.
Went to Morocco, and they really do speak French there. They pronounce the words rather than mumble. So, to learn French, go to North Africa. It all comes back to you very quickly in Morocco (bloody well has to when your motorbike runs onto reserve on the edge of the desert and you’ve got enough petrol to get you to the next village, but you don’t know if they sell petrol there), and they actually delight in helping a European person to get their French right.
Pimpdaddy:
I’d like to learn German, no idea where to start…
I dated one. Was crap at languages upto that point, but it’s amazing how much you can pick up from hanging out with a foreign bird for a couple of years.
The med languages are harder than the northern (ie Scandinavian) lot in my view, but when you find yourself in northern Europe, you’ll end up being too lazy to learn Svenska, Norge, Suomi, or whatever because they all speak such good English already! 
I’m not sure if I rate Turkish or Greek as the “hardest” of the European languages. Greek is a lot easier once you get past the speed it is spoken at, and the fancy alphabet. A lot of maths & science words come from Greek after all.
I think most international truckers can probably “get by” in reading the foreign language. North is better than South because they seem to speak more slowly to the north.
I’ve heard it said that Spanish is the easiest language for a monoglot to learn, although I don’t know why that is, finding it quite hard to pronounce so you don’t have some moustached waiter saying Que? at you all day long when you’ve just spent the last ten minutes constructing your restaurant order in your head… 
Ok, mits up who remembers doing this as a German Textbook at school…
Diolch Gardun. As a old hippy I threw the tv away 20 years ago so will try the radio suggestion. There appears to be a lot on YouTube as well but I’m not yet in a position to know what of it is good or bad. I am also following up the other lead.
Unfortunately I’m not surrounded by people who speak German so that’s not an option at the moment, I’m thinking if saving up for a Rosetta Stone kit, really expensive though…
My wish list of languages are:
Portuguese … I have many non English speaking Portuguese friends, & spend a lot of time travelling (away from the tourist areas) on my Motorcycle there
German … I got (non English speaking) mates in the Swabian Alps area, also handy while in Austria & Switzerland on the bike
Spanish
French … having done 3+ weeks on the bike through France, down to Corsica, improving my French is on the “to Do” list
In fact when I head to visit my mates in Portugal during the Sesimbra Carnival (think Rio Carnival) see below,
With the exception of my Portuguese buddy, Im probably the only English speaker in town. Which can be interesting when he heads off to work each day, Im left to fend for myself
Pimpdaddy:
Unfortunately I’m not surrounded by people who speak German so that’s not an option at the moment, I’m thinking if saving up for a Rosetta Stone kit, really expensive though…
I’ve not tried rossetta stone but try byki first, byki.com/german/ you can get it on your phone as well. I’ve found it really usefull (not being surrounded by Finnish speakers and when I am they’re ■■■■■■■ you can record your voice and it compares it and gives you a score. Also really good on the writing side of it
Oh right, thanks for that I’ll check it out, be nice to have something you can download as a podcast or onto a tablet etc to do while you’re on the move…
Try berlitz 60 minute cd for that. It covers the basics and most importantly has an english accent.
