Best language for an International Relations/ Econ major??

mommyrocks
Thu, 22 Jun 2017 21:20:06 +0000

If you search online the phrase “why learn German” you might decide German is the best language to study – despite your advisor’s bias against it. I won’t bother retyping all the reasons you can find with that search. Also enter “why learn French” and “why learn Russian” and read the lists of reasons that come up in the search results. The reasons will tell you how many speak the language and where, and what type of business and economic impact is made by companies from countries that speak the language, and many other details. Consider that you might want to use your skills working for one of those companies one day, so think about these things as you look at the reasons why to learn each language.

Also consider what interests you most. If someone offered you the chance to spend three months in a country that spoke one of these languages, which place would you choose and why? If you were to follow the daily news of a country that spoke one of these languages, which country would you most want to read about regularly? What about pop culture, architecture, land, literature, art, music, history, religion, ethnicity, government, business and many other aspects that vary among the places that speak these languages – which ones interest you most? What about food and festivals where each language is spoken – do you have a preference? You will be learning about all of these things in your language studies over time, so it is best to choose a language that opens up the part of the world you want to get to know.

Don’t assume that French would be easiest, just because it is similar to Spanish. You are also an English speaker, and English is a Germanic language, so German is not too difficult to learn. Russian has very simple grammar and a very limited number of verb tenses compared to these other languages, so it is not difficult either. Once you learn the alphabet, which doesn’t take long, then you can recognize many words because they are just like English only written with different letters. I studied all of these languages, so am speaking from personal experience.

Russian has the benefit of being a “critical language” for the U.S. government, so there are Critical Language Scholarships and other programs that you can apply for to help you gain fluency and study abroad at the government’s expense. It also means the government might have jobs using that language.