Best language for an International Relations/ Econ major??

MYOS1634
Thu, 22 Jun 2017 19:58:14 +0000

I’d recommend French because you’ll reach a usable level faster and it’s very useful for all of Western Africa + France’s role in Europe.

On the other hand, someone who knows Russian well is in need, since its so difficult to learn and Russia is an adversary explicitly trying to undermine the West (to summarize: Vladimir Putin declared about 20 years ago that in his view the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the fall of the Soviet Union and that Russians had agreed too easily that the West had won, so he’d dedicate his life to fix that mistake. So Russia is not an enemy per se, we’re not at war, but it’s not an ally either and they are clearly adversarial.) Knowing Russian well is very difficult so it depends hoz much time you plan on dedicating to it. I think 8-10 hours of prep a week would be sufficient for French but I don’t think you could make it with less than 12-15 a week for Russian, at least your first year.

You can watch TV5Monde and France24English, as well as RT (Russian ) to help making up your mind. Listen to the language, see if you can pick out or figure out anything, but also see if there’s a channel you find more interesting, a culture with issues you’d like to discuss more…