What would be the most useful langauge to learn?

Question

I'm required to take 2 semesters of a foreign langauge in college for my major, and i'm not sure which one would be the best.
I did 4 years of spanish in high school and i enjoyed it, and one year of german and that was ok too. I'm actually very interested in becoming fluent in any language, and also studying abroad.

so, Which language would be the most useful to learn? Why did you pick that language? Are you fluent in a language?

Answer 1

HI,

It is best to speak a language that has the most speakers around the world rather than something just local and confined to one country. For that reason I suggest Spanish which has about 400 million speakers world wide. Mandarin Chinese is the biggest after English but it may be too difficult to master as your first second language.

Mike K

Answer 2

I'm assuming you already know English, otherwise that would be number 1 It depends on what you want to do with it; travel? use it for work? are there areas near your home where a different language is spoken? I've heard that for the future, Chinese and Japanese may be the most important languages to learn (chinese already has the most native speakers than any other in the world) For travel, Spanish would help you to get around South and Central America, whereas French would help you get around Africa Studying Latin would be helpful in giving you the roots which you could use to develop rudimentary understandings of a number of European languages (such as French, Spanish, and especially Italian), although Latin itself isn't really spoken much

Answer 3

It really depends on what you want to do later. If you're into science and engineering, German would be a good choice. If you're in business I would go with Mandarin, and if you live the southern part of the US you might want to learn Spanish. I'm learning German right now and I quite like it but it's way harder than Spanish so you really have to be passionate about it. I can speak French too, it's rather easy to speak but the grammar rules are killing me.

Answer 4

Keep learning Spanish. Many employers want employees who are bilingual in English/Spanish.
Often there is a pay increase for employees who are bilingual.

I am fluent in Spanish (it's my second language).
My daughter just took an exam for the State of CA for Spanish and will be receiving a pay raise because of the score she received on the test.

I hope this helps you with your decision!

Answer 5

I would agree with the poster that said "Chinese." China is becoming a huge part of our economy. More so than most Americans can probably imagine. We trade so much with the Chinese that anyone seeking a degree in International business would certainly want to take that into consideration if they were choosing a second language.

Answer 6

Learning Spanish should help you with French, I should go further with German If I were you, to be fluent in all three is a great advantage, if you are not going to stay in your own Country, but move around.

Answer 7

French

Answer 8

Chinese, and I'm fluent in it =D The China economy is expanding now, so it would help if you can speak Chinese, and the Chinese population is huge too. But Japanese would be cool =P Just study what you're interested in! =X

Answer 9

French.

Answer 10

Mandarin