<p>Also, if you’re interested in Europe, don’t underestimate French. While it’s on the decline now, it’s really important as a trade language for the European Union, and is still fighting with English for the space as the European lingua franca. Plus, you sound slightly more cultured if you speak it. ;)</p>
<p>Well, after taking a long time to read this topic, I guess it all depends on what you want to do later in life. For example, I’m Brazilian as well as Taiwanese descendant. Therefore, I already have very fluent Portuguese and Mandarin as well as English, because I’ve always studied at an international school. These past two years, I studied Spanish just because it’s easy. After I’m done with college, the options will be plenty, but I pretend to do business between Brazil, China/Taiwan, and the US…</p>
<p>JBhgy are you fluent in French?</p>
<p>French and Spanish will be great. You really don’t need any other languages because you could work your entire life on trying to help in the Caribbean, Latin America, South America, or Africa.
If you wanted to learn more I would strongly suggest Russian and Arabic. I don’t speak Arabic, but I speak Russian fluently and there has not been a second where I regretted learning it.<br>
Chinese can be useful, but it has limited uses outside of China and neighboring countries, though you shouldn’t discount it. There are sizable populations in Southeast Asia, many of whom need help. And for that matter, you wouldn’t even need to leave the United States. There are plenty of non-English speaking immigrants who need help.
Burmese, Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian languages would be useful for their respective countries and make you stand out, as would Indonesian and other languages spoken in Indonesia.
Don’t be discouraged by reputations some languages have as being “difficult.” Personally, I don’t believe in applying terms like that to languages. Yes, languages like Arabic, Chinese, and and non-Indo-European languages are going to be very different from English, but look at it this way: Chinese has almost no morphology. Verbs don’t conjugate, nouns don’t change, etc. If you speak French and Spanish you know the verbal system is very complex (something like 12 different times, aspects, tenses, etc,). Mandarin doesn’t have any of that and the way many people have explained it to me is that Mandarin “has no grammar.”
Russian has an extremely complex noun system with 6 different cases, but unlike English which has 12 tenses, Russian has only 5 and Russian spelling is largely phonetic unlike English. Every language will have some things that are complicated and some things that are very simple–pluses and minuses. But everyone who points out you need to love it are 100% right.
Good luck!</p>
<p>Only Spanish,French,German,Japanese languages are available in my country and I am confused which to choose.</p>
<p>Can any body suggest which is the best option?</p>
<p>A) Choose a language that INTERESTS you. You’ll dread learning a language if you don’t WANT to. Also, find a language that you might have “roots” in from your ancestors. My last name is French and I feel MORE of a connection to the language than I do with Spanish.</p>
<p>B) What countries INTEREST you the most? Countries in Europe? Countries in Asia? Countries in the Americas?</p>
<p>C) How useful is the language you choose going to be to you?</p>