Thinking about starting to learn Spanish or French or both. Is it wise to study both at the same time? or which one should I start first? And if I want to study these two languages by myself (I mean not going to those language school), any books or website to recommend?

Thanks for taking time for my post.
I really appreciate your suggestions.
THX,
Stathis:)

Spanish is much easier to learn and spoken in more countries than french. Of course you can learn two or even three languages if you have a natural talent for it. If you are young and your memory is sharp then that will make it easier.　Another thing to consider is what is your goal is. If you just want to learn conversational Spanish or French then you have to focus on that. There's too much to learn and it will take forever to be fluent. Pick your battles.

I have learned French first and then Spanish in highs chool. A lot of similarities, so it was easy and very fun to learn, although I now can't remember most of it, especially because I've started learning Chinese and because of lack of practice. I have several cousins who are Spanish and it's been pretty easy for them to learn French too, although some have one or two wrong grammatical habits.

I usually use francaisfacile.com and bonjourdefrance.com to tutor French. For books, "Le Nouveau Taxi" and "Alter Ego". I've seen copies of both sold on Taobao, in addition to "Festival".

Start with spanish. Your invested time/earned success ratio will be far higher than with french. THis could keep your interest high enough especially in the hardest "late beginner" period, which, if your persistance breaches it, will get you to fluency.

I know only that spanish is EXTREMELY easy knowing italian and french but it should be comparaby easy the other way around too.

Get books, apps, podcasts, online tests, for the more diversified you learn, the sweeter it swallows.

GL&HF!

@Liumingke1234, Thanks, Buddy. I think I will mainly focus on conversational and try to learn the basic stuff about written thing. It's always not an easy task to learn new language, especially an alphabetic language for a Chinese. And I am fully prepared for a long learning process.

@yankee00, thanks, the books and website are really informative. I will check out on them later. I just hope those Spanish or French words wouldn't be messed with English I've learned.

@LEVimmortal, thanks pal. Heard of French is kind of much more difficult than Spanish. Maybe I will just start from the easy one since my mother language is not alphabetic. Maybe just like studying English, I should use all the resources as u mentioned and try to improve abilities on speaking, writing, listening and reading.

Like Liumingke1234 said, it all depends on your goal. I mostly chose to learn Spanish because I had family in Spain. But apart from that, it has no use to me. I have no plans to travel to Spain or Latin America. So, because of the lack of practice, I've forgotten most of it.

It's probably because I am biased from being a native French speaker, but if you want to learn those languages for your personal knowledge and have all the time you want, I'd suggest French first. It seems like it is much more accessible in Kunming. There are regular French corners or gatherings for French speakers. Attending those events would be a fun way to remember what you have learned.

Concerning English, it's widely available in China, so I wouldn't worry

@yankee00,Thanks again. I'm thinking of travelling to Latin America and changing my job to one related to Spanish in the future.

But u are right about the practice thing. French will be more easily accessible in KM. I will figure out later.

Thanks again, Buddy, u are being very helpful.