What language would you learn first?

I already knew an intermediate level of Spanish, but haven't had a chance to visit a Spanish speaking country yet to really learn the language. I am very interested in traveling to the alps, the Swiss side mainly. Sounds I be best to learn German, French, or Italian as a 3rd language.

Also, where have you traveled to climb our otherwise and faced a giant language barrier by but knowing the native tongue

Well, i do speak the "international" language pretty damn well and have yet to encounter ANY problems whilst traveling.

Igpay Atinlay.

Canadian

gamify it. Duolingo rocks for language learning!

Your English will serve you well since you'll find just about all Germans speak English (requirement in school).

While English is not an "official" language in Switzerland, a huge percentage of the population speaks it, especially in the small businesses where you're likely to need it.

I'd recommend, if you still want to invest time, to learn French. Your Spanish will help as many of the nouns and verbs are similar in Spanish, French and Italian. And of course, French will be useful when the weather sucks over Switzerland and France is in the sun.

French would probably be the easiest for you to learn. You'll pick up the structure pretty easily from learning Spanish and between Spanish and English, you'll have a pretty good French vocab already.

Whatever your target language, start listening to it at conversational speed. This is especially important if your experience thus far has been mostly in the classroom. Watch French, Spanish, or German movies (or change the language settings on your dvd to the language you want to learn). Listen to audiobooks, stream a radio channel, whatever you can do to get used to the cadence and such of the language.

To get used to speaking the language, I used to read books aloud to my dog. I would also listen to French music, memorize songs, and sing along to get used to pronunciation.

No language barrier anywhere in Western Europe. Everyone there speaks English.

Chinese could be useful if you're going to climb in China, but it's not particularly easy to learn if you aren't living there.