languages to learn

Languages that have the most practical value (most speakers and widest spread)

1. English
2. Mandarin
3. Spanish

Languages that have the most educational value (literature, law, and science)

1. English
2. Classical Latin
3. Ancient Greek​

My local public library had nothing in Latin or Greek, languages containing some of the greatest literary works of all time, even excluding the Bible and clearest-thinking scholars since A.D. 1.

Reading English translations is fine, but one misses the shadings, gradations, and subtleties of the original. I discovered this through the Latin/English Missal. I do about half an hour of reading Latin and English before Mass begins and then go home to write about it.

For those new to my blog, the Missal uses the Douay-Rheims translation, the first English translation of the Bible, the literary masterpiece that no other surpasses. The New Testament translation was finished in 1582 and the Old Testament in 1609-10.