Which Language is most beneficial to learn in global context After English? (movies, quality of life)

[Rockrocks]

I will say Chinese, for all the guys above, me myself is a Chinese and so is my Chinese well. I think I have to correct some of the aboves opinion, cuz they are just kinda wrong. Yes, regardless or not, there is more "English speakers" in China than United States, it's just a matter if you understands them or not. The "English speakers" in China speaks of, well, Chinglish, so you may better have a two way communications in case that the one way has failed. By the way, have you ever been to China and seen a/many Chinglish signs? They are so funny and ridiculous. In one case I found a sign reading: "This way down mountain" .... ....

[decafdave]

Originally Posted by Rockrocks

I will say Chinese, for all the guys above, me myself is a Chinese and so is my Chinese well. I think I have to correct some of the aboves opinion, cuz they are just kinda wrong. Yes, regardless or not, there is more "English speakers" in China than United States, it's just a matter if you understands them or not. The "English speakers" in China speaks of, well, Chinglish, so you may better have a two way communications in case that the one way has failed. By the way, have you ever been to China and seen a/many Chinglish signs? They are so funny and ridiculous. In one case I found a sign reading: "This way down mountain" .... ....

I've been to Taiwan and know what you mean. There's also alot of Chinglish T-shirts over there. Its pretty hilarious how bad some of them are...and the wearers have no clue. I did meet many people there that spoke fluent English though.

[Xpat]

Mandarin Chinese.

[caseras]

I'd say any kind of language which comes from China.



After that, I'd say French. The difference between French and Spanish is the fact the french is spoken all around the world whereas the spanish language is in America and that's it, even in Europe French or german are by far more spoken. An other point goes to the french, the french language is currently the language of the world cup , olympic games and very well know to be the language of the ambassadors and/or diplomatics, the reputation of the french language is also better than the spanish one. I do not say the spanish is less beautiful or something like this, it's just that in this field French and italian languages are by far the languages whose are famous to be beautiful and you can add to that the literature and the connotations from France or Italy.

But it won't change that in America Spanish will be more usefull than french. It depends where you want to make your career, in Europe french, in Asia, then chinese, in America spanish, of course in any case you have to speak english first.

The real question is, if you speak english and chinese do you think you'll need a third language to sucess ! Frankly I'm not sure.

[caseras]

Originally Posted by FrenchAmerican0721

I would say that Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, French, Portuguese, and German are other langauges that are very useful. I'm surprised only one person has mentioned Portugese. Portugese is like the 4th or 5th most spoken language in the world!

There's no reason to be surprised since portugese (which is a very beautiful language) is spoken in four or five countries and the more important are Brazil and Portugal and..... yes Angola. So excepted if you want to make buisness in these three countries, Portugese won't be useful.

Me, I'm really surprised (to say the least) to see so many people who say Arabic ! WTH !!

Why arabic is becoming an important language ? I see maybe at least 2 reasons to avoid this language. First one, the arabic is not spoken by a lot of people all around the world (I mean if you compare that to spanish, chinese, portugese, english of course etc....) and the second one is the countries where arabic is used as the national language are for the most part of them former colonies which means that the population can often (excuse me it's an euphemism) speak english or french. So no need to learn their language to make buisness with them !

[Neutre]

Originally Posted by snitins

Please answer keeping in mind that this has to be answered thinking of Career and growth and global jobs.

Of course there are other "big" languages, but none supersedes English as being useful in almost all parts of the world.

-Spanish.
You won't get far with it in Africa, Asia, and Oceania

-Chinese.
Yes it's big. But only in China.

-French.
Only confined to France, francophone Canada, and francophone Africa.

So you should simply consider where you wanna go to.

[Mississippienne]

Originally Posted by caseras

Why arabic is becoming an important language ? I see maybe at least 2 reasons to avoid this language. First one, the arabic is not spoken by a lot of people all around the world (I mean if you compare that to spanish, chinese, portugese, english of course etc....) and the second one is the countries where arabic is used as the national language are for the most part of them former colonies which means that the population can often (excuse me it's an euphemism) speak english or french. So no need to learn their language to make buisness with them !

Arabic is the language of Islam, and is seen as the "holy language", the language Allah chose to have the Quran written in. So to Muslims Arabic is very special, and educated Muslims from Indonesia to Turkey to the USA will have studied at least a little Arabic. Yes, you might could speak French to Algerians, but it'd probably impress them more if you took the time to speak in Arabic. If you're going to be of the opinion "oh well, they'll speak English anyway" then why bother learning any other language at all? There are also lots of jobs available to interpreters who can understand Arabic.

Plenty of languages have millions of native speakers. Much harder is finding a language with the kind of international appeal that English does. Chinese is primarily spoken in China, Taiwan, and a couple of other Asian countries. Somewhere around a billion people speak Chinese, but most of them only live in four or five countries. Same deal with Portuguese. Only Spanish and French have anywhere near the spread of English, with Arabic probably taking up a distant fourth.

[caseras]

Originally Posted by Neutre

Of course there are other "big" languages, but none supersedes English as being useful in almost all parts of the world.

I couldn't agree more with you !

-French.
Only confined to France, francophone Canada, and francophone Africa.

Excuse me, I can't help it

Only confined to France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switerzerland, Francophone Canada, and Francophone Africa which mean half of Africa actually, Pacific isles, Caraibean isles, Indian isles (oh yes the french have the second largest terrirotires overseas ! ) and In south american especially FRENCH Guyana and in Argentina where there is an important french community (understand former french guys or descendants of french people). Did I forget something ? Oh yes a lot of people in Vietnam and Cambodge speaks french. And you can add the french is the language the most learned by student in the world (it is about to change since the american learn more and more the spanish language instead of the french), the first or the second language of all the supra-national administration such as OECD, WTO, WHO, UN, NATO, OIC, etc.....

Yes, confined !

So you should simply consider where you wanna go to.

I agree, you have to know where you want to go first before to choose a language to learn.

[caseras]

Originally Posted by Mississippienne

Arabic is the language of Islam, and is seen as the "holy language", the language Allah chose to have the Quran written in. So to Muslims Arabic is very special, and educated Muslims from Indonesia to Turkey to the USA will have studied at least a little Arabic.

Yes, you might could speak French to Algerians, but it'd probably impress them more if you took the time to speak in Arabic. If you're going to be of the opinion "oh well, they'll speak English anyway" then why bother learning any other language at all? There are also lots of jobs available to interpreters who can understand Arabic.

Unfortunaly, the things you don't aware of is the fact there is not just one arabic language. An algerian cannot understand someone who is from Iran for example whereas both speaks a form of arabic language. Unfortunaly, the arabic language everyone could understand is the one present in the Quran which is not spoken anymore. And if you speak arab to an algerian you have a lot of chances he doesn't understand what you mean because this country have been totally assimilated by the french culture and almost all the algerians now speak more french than arab, that's the reason why the last president decided to learn arabic language in primary school because its people had forgotten it !
Algeria is of course a bad example, but even if you take Tunisia or Marocco, it's the same, they don't use the same arab than the people who live on ME. It's not homogeneous, this is not something wich can be said for english, french or spanish.

Plenty of languages have millions of native speakers. Much harder is finding a language with the kind of international appeal that English does. Chinese is primarily spoken in China, Taiwan, and a couple of other Asian countries. Somewhere around a billion people speak Chinese, but most of them only live in four or five countries. Same deal with Portuguese. Only Spanish and French have anywhere near the spread of English, with Arabic probably taking up a distant fourth.

We agree, excepted for arabic language.

[GIRL444]

I Think The Second One Is Spanish Or French....