Which is the best language to speak if you wish to travel all over the world?

Question

I would think English first of all but what would be the next one to learn

Answer 1

I think Spanish would probably be No. 2. But French is a very close third.

Chinese is spoken by more people, but most of them reside in one country: China. Spanish, on the other hand, is spoken in many other countries besides Spain.

Chinese* (937,132,000)
Spanish (332,000,000)
English (322,000,000)
Bengali (189,000,000)
Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)
Arabic* (174,950,000)
Portuguese (170,000,000)
Russian (170,000,000)
Japanese (125,000,000)
German (98,000,000)
French* (79,572,000)

Mandarin Chinese (836 million)
Hindi (333 million)
Spanish (332 million)
English (322 million)
Bengali (189 million)
Arabic (186 million)
Russian (170 million)
Portuguese (170 million)
Japanese (125 million)
German (98 million)
French (72 million)

However, in terms of secondary speakers, Weber submits the following list:
(number of speakers in parentheses)

French (190 million)
English (150 million)
Russian (125 million)
Portuguese (28 million)
Arabic (21 million)
Spanish (20 million)
Chinese (20 million)
German (9 million)
Japanese (8 million)
Thus, if you add the secondary speaker populations to the primary speaker populations, you get the following (and I believe more accurate) list:
(number of speakers in parentheses)

Mandarin Chinese (1.12 billion)
English (480 million)
Spanish (320 million)
Russian (285 million)
French (265 million)
Hindi/Urdu (250 million)
Arabic (221 million)
Portuguese (188 million)
Bengali (185 million)
Japanese (133 million)
German (109 million)
The following is a list of these languages in terms of the number of countries where each is spoken. The number that follows is the total number of countries that use that language (from Weber, 1997):

English (115)
French (35)
Arabic (24)
Spanish (20)
Russian (16)
German (9)
Mandarin (5)
Portuguese (5)
Hindi/Urdu (2)
Bengali (1)
Japanese (1)
The number of countries includes core countries (where the language has full legal or official status), outer core countries (where the language has some legal or official status and is an influential minority language, such as English in India or French in Algeria), and fringe countries (where the language has no legal status, but is an influential minority language in trade, tourism, and the preferred foreign language of the young, such as English in Japan or French in Romania). For a complete breakdown of each and an accompanying chart, click here.

After weighing six factors (number of primary speakers, number of secondary speakers, number and population of countries where used, number of major fields using the language internationally, economic power of countries using the languages, and socio-literary prestige), Weber compiled the following list of the world's ten most influential languages:
(number of points given in parentheses)

English (37)
French (23)
Spanish (20)
Russian (16)
Arabic (14)
Chinese (13)
German (12)
Japanese (10)
Portuguese (10)
Hindi/Urdu (9)

Answer 2

Besides English, French is the language that is spoken in the most countries. True, there are more speakers in other languages, but if you are travelling, the number of ppl who speak it is irrelevant. The number of countries who speak it is more important.
If you know English and French, you will be able to communicate using one or the other of them in:

Canada(E &F), US(E) , Carribian(E&F), All of Europe (E&F), most of Africa(E&F), India(E&F but mostly F), Australia(E), some countries in South East Asia (E&F), especially Vietnam. Because the countries that don't speak French, speak English at least, and vice versa, you're golden no matter where you go for the most part. Certain parts of Central and South America it's hard to find any English speakers. So you might be hooped if you go to one of those countries.

Answer 3

After English, I've no doubt that in Central and South America Spanish would be the most useful language. In many parts of Africa and the Middle East, French is more prevelavent, even more so than English in places like Morocco and Tunisia. One of those two languages definately. German is only good in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Lichtenstein so doesn't really count. Arabic is only useful in the Middle East and Chinese in my local takeaway.

Maybe one day Esperanto will take off. Or Klingon! A truly international language!

Answer 4

English is currently one of the most widely spoken and written languages worldwide, with some 380 million native speakers. Only Chinese and Hindi have more native speakers while Spanish is similar in number. English is also the dominant member of the Germanic languages. It has lingua franca status in many parts of the world, due to the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the Second World War to the present

http://www.aneki.com/english.html

second to that, I'd say spanish...

Im english, Ive been to Australiasia, Asia, Africa, All over europe.. Ive found it fine speaking english, showing willing to learn some conversational other languages relevant to where you are...with the help of phrasebooks... and the A level french I have...

Answer 5

You might want to try Esperanto for the following reasons:
Esperanto is spoken throughout the world. As of 1995 the best figure of speakers is about 2 million plus. Since then the Internet has really flourished and Esperanto right along with it.

If you don't think Esperanto is making headway, check this.
In a recent reprint of the Unua Libro (first book), editor Gene Keyes said that when he first started the project in 2000, he did a search for Esperanto on Google and it yielded over 1 million hits. At the completion of his task in February of 2007, the same search yielded over 34 million hits. Out of curiosity, after I had read that I did the same search and it yielded over 39.2 million hits. That's up over 5 million in two months. So it's growing. Slowly (or maybe not so slowly!)
Just to add more power behind that statement, I just did the same search. 66,500,000 plus hits. Almost doubled since January.
Obviously not everyone will find a use for it, and that's fine. However for those that take the time and bother to search out the other users, it's worth it. Of course searching out other uses gets easier with each passing day.
Personally I have friends all over the world. Friends I wouldn't have had with out Esperanto.

You do have to search for these speakers, but with Pasporta Servo the International Hospitality Service using Esperanto, you can find them easily.
http://www.tejo.org/eo/ps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasporta_Servo
With these services available you can visit many countries very cheaply, find a plethora of friends and more importantly learn about their culture and language.

The real benefit of Esperanto is its ability to make learning third and forth languages that much easier since it has been shown that Esperanto has a Propaedeutic effect. Read below for more there.

Finally, if you can't learn Esperanto, you can't learn any language. With only 16 grammatical rules and NO EXCEPTIONS, you can be fluent in Esperanto in months, easily.

With Esperanto I have had the privilege of making friends from, in no particular order, Britain, Australia, Russia, Italy, Germany, Japan, Korea, Brazil, USA, and Poland. That's off the top of my head. Face to face I've only had the oportunity to meet people from Japan and France. Sorry, I forgot France in the list above. I know that list will increase with time. I'm in the Canadian Navy and I arrange to meet up with Esperantists in almost every port I visit.

Good luck!

Ĝis!

Answer 6

This is the 3 languages spoken in the more of countries !

1 ) English
2 ) Spanish
3 ) French

Even if 1 200 000 000 people speak chinese , this language is spoken just in China !

Answer 7

The language of the country you are going to...it doesn't take a lot of effort (too much for English people presumably) to learn a few basic phrases in the local language. It endears you to the locals and you don't come across as a vain monoglot.

Answer 8

obviously you speak english, which is great :) most people don't know that india and china are in the top 3 for the most english speaking countries in the world. after that i would say french/spanish. have fun on your travels.

Answer 9

It really depends on where you plan to go. French is spoken in much of Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. Spanish is spoken throughout central and South America. Mandarin Chinese will help you out in Asia and anywhere in the world that there is a Chinatown.

Answer 10

Most definately german. Every holiday ive been on has mainly had germans there. Mainland Spain, Canary Islands, Rhodes, even Turkey! Its a pretty easy language to learn too

Answer 11

If you are an English speaker, then Spanish would be the obvious one. There are now more Spanish speakers than English. It is the second language after Chinese.