Three Languages You Should Try Learning Next After Mastering Spanish

Learning a foreign language has many career and personal benefits, from opening up new job opportunities to making international leisure travel more enjoyable. Choosing which language to learn is often up to the preference of the person. For many Filipinos, learning Spanish is often seen as the easy choice. After all, we still use a significant number of Spanish words to this day. However, what about those who have already taken online Spanish classes and are interested in learning another language? Which language should they study next?

The general advice here is to study a language that you want to learn. However, there are a few languages that may be easier to learn because of your familiarity with Spanish. If you’re looking to learn another language after mastering Spanish, try enrolling in the following foreign language courses:

1. French

Did you know that French and Spanish trace a lot of their language back to Latin? It’s true! This is why French and Spanish share many similarities in structure and vocabulary. A classic example would be the word “book”. Book is “libro” in Spanish and “livre” in French, both of which trace its roots back to the Latin word “liber”. Many rules surrounding conjugation and grammatical gender also apply, which makes learning French a fantastic option after you learn Spanish.

2. German

Many people find German intimidating due to the language’s “distinctly difficult grammar”. However, your background in Spanish essentially gives you a headstart in understanding German grammar. This is mostly because German also follows similar subjunctive and grammatical gender rules as Spanish. Having that foundation allows you to focus on learning other areas of the German language, helping you learn faster and more naturally.

3. Mandarin

If you have learned Spanish for business purposes, you may want to further improve your resume by learning Mandarin. Some people are intimidated by the need to learn a new alphabet, but that’s about the only “difficult” thing about learning Mandarin. Spanish shares certain grammatical rules with Mandarin, although some of the more difficult ones, such as conjugation, are omitted. What this means is that once you overcome the hurdle of memorizing Chinese characters, you can coast your way to learning enough Mandarin to hold casual and business conversations.