Which Language is most beneficial to learn in global context After English? (high school, living in)

[fearless1]

Yes Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic

[Roo50]

Why on earth a Middle Eastern langue? Odd.

Spanish I think. Especially if you live in the States.
The other reason is because once you know Spanish it's easy to learn Italian.

If you live in Australia, I would say Italian would be a good start.

[KerrTown]

Français--La langue diplomatique.

[gv0928]

I think Spanish is proving to become incredibly important in the future.

From a US perspective, as the Hispanic population continues to boom - indeed, it is expected to exceed the Caucasian population by 2020, I believe it is - Spanish will become as common in the US as English is. Plus, Spanish is perhaps the most used language worldwide, after English. [Perhaps even before English.]

I think in the future, Spanish might actually overtake English.

[bale002]

The consensus seems to be English, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, roughly in that order; in core continental Europe, French, German and Russian as you go west to east.

I do English (native), the Romance languages (minus Romanian), and Greek, and I would encourage my child, whose mother is native Spanish, to study Mandarin, Arabic, or Russian, depending on where his interests may develop.

Speaking of which, as I believe someone has already mentioned, studying a language, for important as it is, is not as important as developing skills in one or two economically gainful technical areas, whether it be general engineering, information & communications technology, finance, law, medicine, etc.

I do finance/economics and five languages and I'm not starving to death, while people with two or more languages and literature, for example, usually need to be subsidized.

[Mississippienne]

Originally Posted by Roo50

Why on earth a Middle Eastern langue? Odd.

Arabic is the language of the Quran and thusly of educated Muslims the world over. There is demand for Arabic translators and interpreters, so learning it can be good from a career perspective.

[VillageLife]

Chinese and Spanish

[rich renter]

Originally Posted by gv0928

I think Spanish is proving to become incredibly important in the future.

From a US perspective, as the Hispanic population continues to boom - indeed, it is expected to exceed the Caucasian population by 2020, I believe it is - Spanish will become as common in the US as English is. Plus, Spanish is perhaps the most used language worldwide, after English. [Perhaps even before English.]

I think in the future, Spanish might actually overtake English.

you are incorrect, english, chineese and french all have more speakers than spainish here is an interesting list i found of most influential languages in the world.



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)


chinese is at number 6 but i am sure that will eventually end up in the top 3, i also feel it is a safe bet that english will remain the number one international language to do busness in.

[VillageLife]

I can't believe that French and Russian are that popular!

[lastra]

When it comes to jobs, I think that that has to be some Asian language, maybe Japanese, because there are many large companies that outsource their manufacturing to Asian countries.