[SaintSoldier]

Learn Xhosa - it's easily the coolest language in the world

[OddThings]

Obviously choosing a language to learn is ultimately a personal choice,but I've been learning german for the past four year(in school up to A2 but I'm continuing it in my gap year before doing it at uni) and I bought myself a large collins dictionary and their accompanying grammar book,and a notepad,sectioned into vocab/grammar/any other useful things. I made a few penpals(some I had already) and Skype with them when I can to keep up my speaking. I make full use of the internet to explore music and news in my chosen language,and I'm building up a collection of dvd's from Amazon in the language.I've read a book already in German,took ages with a dictionary,i'm on to my second(when I have the time and concentration levels) and although this is not possible to do reguarly,I've organised a trip to Germany(to stay with a friend but you could take a language class abroad for even a couple of weeks or a summer) to reallyput your skills into practice and indulge what language is truly about:communication!

Hope I helped,despite my ramblings.

[21stcenturyphantom]

The best language to learn is the one you are interested in. Ask yourself, do you like the way it sounds? Are you interested in travelling there? Is travelling there possible for you? Are there aspects of the culture where the language is spoken that you wish to learn more about? Are you determined enough to study regularly? Do not look at total speaker numbers on a website and base your decision from that, or base your decision on how 'useful' it is. There are obviously many language learning programs available now, maybe to a plethoric extent. I can only speak from experience, but I have found AssiMil and the Teach Yourself Complete series to be excellent. It really depends on your learning style. If you want a grammar intensive, barebones approach then the Hugo in 3 Months series is good.