Decisions, Decisions.

Next semester, I will have enough credit hours to take up a few extra, unrelated courses, and I am seriously considering making room for a language class. This is naturally a big decision, considering the level of commitment it is going to take to learn how to speak, read and write a foreign tongue from scratch. So I've drawn up a little list to help me decide which sexy foreign language would be the best option.

French

• If I am not greatly mistaken, this is one of the most widely spoken languages in Europe and it would be a natural advantage if I ever decide to go on a backpacking trip around the continent.
  
• I would increase my knowledge and ability of speaking French beyond adding "le" to the beginning of every other English word in conversation (which, admittedly, is very funny, but also not very classy).
• Think also of all the great French philosophers ; Sartre and Comte, just to name a couple. I'd be able to read their works in the original French, and then you know, show off.
  
• And then one day when I'm out ordering baguettes for breakfast in some chic French bakery, some sexy French dude will notice me, and we will get French married and have sex forever. And by French dude I mean him ;
  
  
  Smoking is so le chic and le ladyboner-inducing when the French do it.
  
• And if it doesn't work out with the French dude, there is always Canada.

Italian

• Pasta!
• Go backpacking. Impress sexy Italian dude with my linguistic abilities. Acquire sexy Italian dude.
  
  
  
  So Paolo Nutini is technically Scottish by nationality, but really. Such trivialities.
  
  

German

• I've heard a lot about German being a rather aesthetically unpleasing language ; Sylvia Plath likened it to "barbed wire" in one of the poems we studied last semester, and I remember someone else having written that the language sounded like a typewriter eating aluminium. But I've always been fascinated by how similar it is to English, which could also be an advantage when it comes to learning vocabulary.
  
• Also, backpack around Germany. Acquire sexy German dude.
  Or if I'm really lucky, the entire German national Under-21 football squad. I'm pretty sure all of them are over 18 at least. I think.
  
  
  Or I'll settle for Michael Fassbender. Really, it's no trouble. No trouble at all.
  Also it has come to my recent attention that I apparently have a cigarette smoke kink. Damn all these hot famous people and their bad habits.
  

Spanish

• You know the drill by now, yes? Travel Spain, perhaps South America. Acquire sexy Spanish dude. I don't really care about the all the Spanish-language literature I could be reading (go fly a kite, Pablo Neruda).
  

Meet Xabi Alonso ; footballer, all-round classy motherfucker, my favourite Spanish person ever, and world champion nonchalant shirt-cuffs-adjusting/watch-promoting wall-leaner. I am coming for you with my Spanishes, Xabi.


Russian

• I've heard that learning the Cyrillic alphabet can be a real bitch, but think about how inspired I'd be to actually finish Anna Karenina, and then read it in its original language. Maybe those long-ass names won't annoy me so much, either. Seriously Tolstoy/translators, after the 35th time you've referred to Sergius Ivanich Koznyshev by his full name, I think we'd already have a pretty good grasp on who he is, thanks.
• Come to think of it, there's a barrel of other Russians to be tackled as well ; Nabokov, Dostoevsky, Chekhov. So in terms of Teh Literatures, there's plenty that learning Russian could do to enhance my learning experiences.
  
• Also ; travel Russia, acquire sexy Russian dude.
  

Misha Collins. American, but Russian enough. Which means I'll just have to travel Chicago or wherever it is he's living now.


Japanese

• This would obviously be the toughest, with Japanese really having the least similarity with any other language I already speak. Not to mention having to learn to write from scratch too ; I dumped a Mandarin class halfway once, being the good 10-year old coward I was back then. Tonal languages are way intimidating, you guys.
  
• Traveling around Japan would be awkward, since I would be presumably be the only brown person around for miles, but my ability to speak the language may make things like acquiring sexy Japanese dudes much easier.
  
  
  Takeshi Kaneshiro, who is technically half-Taiwanese, but it's a good thing we're not keeping score or anything. Hotness is universal after all.
  
  
  
  So this really hasn't helped much with the decision-making, to be honest. But at least we all got some global-flavoured eye candy, am I right? Right. You're welcome.