Shekhar Iyer

Best way is to integrate 'the App' into your overall learning strategy. What I mean is, let the App complement the learning while you simultaneously use other resources available to you, such as the internet, course books, movies, classroom learning and a home tutor. Apps can be useful so long as you know that their role is more by way of supporting rather than the driver.

When we speak of Apps, important to know that there are many types: for learning new words/ phrases, you could use Busuu / Duolingo. For quick look-up of meanings, you can use the Leo app. There are also apps for learning verb conjugations and so on.

So go ahead, practise away using all the Apps you can lay your hands on until you feel you'd like to get deeper into the language and unearth mysteries like, for example, why certain sentences in German are written so differently than in English, what are 'der/ die/ das' and why is it not 'das Frau' or 'die Mann'. In short: the grammar.

A very pertinent question - more than ever in today's political climate, when regime changes may overturn language trends, and a foreign language may become more or less appealing  based on the current economic power of the country where it is spoken.

Time and money are important, so any student must choose very wisely.

I'd say pick GERMAN and do not look back. Why? Although in terms of sheer numbers Spanish is world's 2nd most spoken language and French is the third-most widely spoken language by *number of countries* where it is spoken, really it is German that's leading the pack. 

There are many reasons for this. Germany is economically the most stable nation in Europe, it currently has a lack of sufficient workforce in the areas of IT, Engineering and Medicine, and therefore a lot of Indians are looking to emigrate there.

Germany also happens to be an official language in 6 European nations: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and Liechstenstein.

An added advantage is that German is more phonetic than French; its pronunciation not too different from Hindi's: you basically have a set of rules as to how to pronounce a consonant/ vowel or a bunch of consonants / vowels appearing together.

You follow them and you're good.

There could be a thousand ways of saying ''How are you?'' in Spanish, depending on which Spanish-speaking country you're from or in which you are a tourist.

If you were holidaying in Argentina, for example, you'd ask: '¿Cómo andas?' (= How are you?)

In Spain, you'd ask: '¿Qué tal?' or the more formal, '¿Cómo estás?', whereas in Cuba, the most common way to ask how someone is doing is ¿Qué bola?.