Which of languages with over 100,000,000 native speakers is the LEAST useful? (school, living)

[Bettafish]

Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed

Only Mandarin is, and that's debatable. Korean and Japanese will always be hobbyist languages like Swedish, who fill very niche roles. Chinese has the problem of having to read and write 2000 characters. Bilingual Chinese will hold the advantage in this

2000 characters are not sufficient. You can only read children's books that way.
To read newspapers and novels, one needs 4000at least. But all normal Chinese people can do that by 9th grade.

[theunbrainwashed]

Originally Posted by Bettafish

2000 characters are not sufficient. You can only read children's books that way.
To read newspapers and novels, one needs 4000at least. But all normal Chinese people can do that by 9th grade.

I thought 2000 was the minimum learned in schools to be literate? I must be confusing it with Japanese, which stipulates 2000 characters 常用漢字 (汉字共同使用) are needed to read newspapers. Makes sense I suppose, since Chinese is only written with Chinese characters, unlike Japanese. Not an easy task for your average Westerner

[Bettafish]

Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed

I thought 2000 was the limit learned in schools to be literate? I must be confusing it with Japanese, which requires 2000 characters to read newspapers. Makes sense I suppose, since Chinese is only written with Chinese characters, unlike Japanese

In China there is no formal list of required characters, but high school graduates should know about 6000 if they really study the textbooks.

[theunbrainwashed]

Originally Posted by Bettafish

In China there is no formal list of required characters, but high school graduates should know about 6000 if they really study the textbooks.

Too bad I didn't learn Chinese from my stepfather when I had the chance. I could have known at least 1000 in the 10 years I lived with him and his son and be HSK Level 6 at least in speaking. I have a lot of catching up to do

[tenkier7]

Modern standard Chinese uses mostly simplified for their own convenience.
Apart from the grammar structure, all of the memories in my head of many Kanji wouldn't help to recognize modified characters.

[theunbrainwashed]

Originally Posted by tenkier7

Modern standard Chinese uses mostly simplified for their own convenience.
Apart from the grammar structure, all of the memories in my head of many Kanji wouldn't help to recognize modified characters.

You need to know as well, some kanji have also been modified in a different way than China has done, so it can only have a Japanese meaning. Kanji and hanzi have many similarities, but they aren't totally the same, and even the same characters can have different meanings. 热水 means hot water in Chinese, but soup in Japanese.

[tenkier7]

Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed

You need to know as well, some kanji have also been modified in a different way than China has done, so it can only have a Japanese meaning. Kanji and hanzi have many similarities, but they aren't totally the same, and even the same characters can have different meanings. 热水 means hot water in Chinese, but soup in Japanese.

Never heard that before. The word 熱水(ねっすい, Nessui) meaning same as the Chinese.
If you want to say soup in Japanese, 湯(ゆ, Yu) or スープ(すーぷ, Sūpu) is the correct way to use depends on the context.

[JedlaRoche]

Bengali (obviously)
German (in all german speaking countries English is enough)
Hindi (English is enough for business, but the country is developing backed up by a billion people, it could be a good investment)
Portuguese (quite the same as Hindi, but those countries barely speak an other language but some English and Spanish)
Japanese (needed for business there if you want credibility)
Russian (huge population and quite developed with strong political power)
Chinese (very useful if you live in East Asia, but not so much anywhere else)
Arabic (huge and spread population with a lot of risky economic opportunities)
Spanish (second, obviously)
English (obviously)

But your poll is incomplete. You should add Malay and Urdu as well. And French has more 100 millions native speakers. It's not because some African countries don't use French as a primary language that they are not natives. Go to Ivory Coast, Mauritius, Comoros, Madagascar, Senegal, and so on.. And you'll see plenty of people switching to French with a fluent French learnt from School and from their parents.
Because if French is not included, German shouldn't either : Germany 80,5 + Austria 8.5 + Swiss 5 = 94 millions.

[Fabio SBA]

Originally Posted by Acajack

This would likely mean that the thousands of languages that exist in the world would all be dead then, and only a half-dozen (or perhaps less) would be left.

Yes, but what I said about French is only a joke.
I guess it will remain for centuries as an important international language, maybe still in the top 10.

[pbmaise]

Spanish wasn't considered a suitable language to learn when I attended U of M. Spanish can easily convert to a language that would benefit them. It holds them back. Almost all professionals in Spanish speaking countries must learn English. A waste of learning time when they could be learning something else.