Which Language to Learn (Non-Programming)

Hey all,

I had been curious of everyone's opinion for a while now, but I didn't want to hi-jack the Rosetta Stone thread that is running so I created this.

What is everyone's opinion on the best language to learn? Japanese, Spanish, Russian, etc, etc. I will assume that all responses include English as already learned (despite the fact that most of us are just barely fluent. lol). Please feel free to include why you think it is a good language: Easy, fun, practical, etc.

I am looking to expand myself this year through several different means; certification is only the start of a well rounded individual.

Thanks!

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kanecain

In order of importance for anyone in IT in the US.

1. Spanish
2. Chinese
3. Any language of your choice.

ptilsen

As Native English-speaking residents of North America and the Western Hemisphere, I believe Spanish is the best overall combination. It is a fun language to speak, somewhat practical in day-to-day life and highly practical in leisure travel. It is fairly easy, given that Spanish vocabulary consists of a shocking amount of English cognates and shares the Latin script. It is probably not as easy as, say, German because the grammar of romantic languages functions very differently. However, it is demonstrably more useful in more applications than any Germanic language, especially in the Americas, and still easier than Russian or Aramaic or Far East languages, which don't share character sets, many cognates, and even have even fewer common grammatical structures.

Japanese and Mandarin are recommended for international business, and there's always a need for Farsi and Arabic, but outside of specialized fields I don't think the average American is going to have much use for them. Contrasted with Spanish, which for frankly obvious reasons has uses in day-to-day life throughout the country.

In general, I don't see much practical argument for any European languages other than English and Spanish, nor for Asian languages other than Mandarin and Japanese. Again, I'm not saying they're useless or less fun, just that most of us would have less likelihood of needing or even getting to use them in realistic situations.

Personally, I've found Romantic languages to be more "fun", especially Spanish, and Aramaic languages in particular to both challenging and, frankly, not fun. My friends who have studied Japanese enjoyed it, but it is challenging and the people who enjoy it are almost invariably people who also enjoy most aspects of Japanese culture. I might hazard a guess that they enjoy the language because they enjoy the culture, not because the language is fun on its own merits.

Edit: As far as actual career use goes, I've never found a position I'd take that required or even requested secondary language skills. While there are a few rare jobs in this field that will use them, I would conjecture that learning any number of languages will have no actual impact on your market value. Those one-in-a-million multilingual IT jobs simply do not pay more for spoken language skills.

paulgswanson

1. Chinese - China is massive and so is their commerce, the odds of encountering folks in business that speak it is swelling
2. French - french is just downright fun, plus (I'm biased here, since it would be a dream job) most video games companies tech depts run with french as the preferred over english
3. Castillion (aka Spanish) - only reason I can think of for this is tons of peeps speak it. This is especially useful if you traverse the southern half of the USA or our territiories

jamesleecoleman

Well..

It depends.
What language do you think you might want to learn?
Are you the type of person to easily give up when you don't understand something?
Where would you like to go?
What areas would you like to try to operate in?

I ask because from my personal experience, these are important questions to try to discover what language you would like to learn.
Try listening to how different languages sound and when you find a few, pick one to start out with.

I learn Russian and Persian. I don't easily give up on things that I really want. I've been to Russia and I would like to operate in Russia. I've found a NOC position that needs people to be fluent in Russian. I study Persian because everyone studies Arabic and I thought it would be cool to make it one of the Middle Eastern languages that I would like to pick up.

I would also like to teach Russian later on in life.

Spanish and/or Chinese are good. Spanish is closely related to English, while Chinese isn't. The language that are not really related to English will be the toughest and they'll take more time.

I guess you could use this site to get a guess of how long it might take to learn the language that you want. How Long Does it Take to Become Proficient? - Language Testing International

If you do go with Russian, let me know. I can point you to a lot of resources to help you out. Plus, I got some friends in Russia that might be able to help you out.

Good luck!

Ivanjam

+1 for Spanish.

About7Narwhal

Thanks for the input from everyone. I am thinking Spanish because I took it in high school, understand it rather well, and I have some old co-workers who can correct me when I make mistakes. That said, I would love to learn Japanese. However, with my other goals, I feel it would be unrealistic and ultimately result in failure due to the complexity of both the spoken and written portions.

Xcluziv

+1 for Spanish.

I as well took this while I was in High School and was very good at it but fell off in college. Since then I have picked up learning how to speak Hindi which has allowed me to connect with alot of individuals from India who are consultants. I can still speak Spanish okay but not like I use to. I am interested in learning Mandarin (Chinese).

powerfool

ptilsen wrote: »

In general, I don't see much practical argument for any European languages other than English and Spanish...

You may want to reconsider your opinion: The Largest Foreign Investments in the US

That list is filled with German and Swiss companies. I was actually looking for a statistic rather that a list... as if I recall, Germany has the largest investment in US companies. Also, that list is old... but I think it still holds true, as what I read elsewhere was within the last couple of years.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that you would definitely benefit from learning German, but I would consider it a factor.

The last company that I worked for was acquired by a German company; if it weren't for the shenanigans of the new boss, I would still be there (he was NOT from the parent company or anything... he was just a bad boss that was a new hire shortly after the acquisition). I went through a spurt of learning German then and actually used it as we had to establish a VPN with the parent company and setup a connection to their SAP system. I called and spoke with the assistant to the VP of IT for the parent company and worked on translating the documentation (which isn't all that difficult with Google Translate and borrowed words in IT... I didn't actually need to know much of any German for that).

As far as jobs requiring foreign languages, there was an opening in Saudi Arabia in my company last week that I almost went for... it wasn't required, but the guy that ended up with the job speaks Arabic.

While I have never taken any effort to learn Spanish, I have picked up some and used it... and with another company that I worked, I actually used some French to work with a user whose English wasn't so great... but French was a "2nd language" for each of us.

gkca

jamesleecoleman И как успехи?

ptilsen

powerfool wrote: »

You may want to reconsider your opinion: The Largest Foreign Investments in the US

Color me unconvinced. The statistics I've seen are that a majority of Germans speak English. That makes it not that useful of a language to learn, in my opinion, and foreign companies being here certainly doesn't equate to any real value in being able to speak their languages fluently.

The one professional instance I can recall was when one of my former employers partnered with a German organization to act as the European arm of our company. Mind you, this wasn't a German company operating in America or investing in American companies; it was a German company in Germany only. Almost all of the companies employees spoke English fluently, and all of the ones we dealt with spoke it conversationally. They provided all the support to UK customers.

Overall, I'll stick with my opinion that I don't see much professional use for foreign languages in IT, period. Obviously there are some jobs, but not that many, and not enough to add much, if any monetary value to one's career. Certainly if you want to travel to a particular country or region, the corresponding language helps your chances.

For practical use in day-to-day American life, I'll stick with the second-most spoken language in the US and North America.

dmoore44

paulgswanson wrote: »

2. French - french is just downright fun, plus (I'm biased here, since it would be a dream job) most video games companies tech depts run with french as the preferred over english

Uh... what? What video game companies are these? I've looked in to plenty of jobs at video game companies over the years, and none of them mentioned anything about speaking French in the job postings... I can think of maybe one or two studios that would require French, but that's because they're located in Montreal or France.

lordy

+1 for Spanish

While the numbers also speak for Chinese it is pretty difficult as it is tonal. Words have different meanings depending on the tone you use which is a totally new concept for somebody growing up with English, Spanish or any other European language.

paulgswanson

Uh... what? What video game companies are these? I've looked in to plenty of jobs at video game companies over the years, and none of them mentioned anything about speaking French in the job postings... I can think of maybe one or two studios that would require French, but that's because they're located in Montreal or France.

Im referring to non american studios. Example Ubisoftgroup. Even the SG studios prefer Chinese or French

RobertKaucher

I won't post the languages I think anyone should learn... But I will discuss the languages I have learned and speak and why I think they are important. The only suggestion that I will give is this: Learn the formal form of your native language well.

Here are my languages in order of how well I can communicate.

1. Portuguese. I lived in Brazil for nearly a decade and Portuguese is like a second language to me. I still have very strong friendships with people in Brazil and keep my skills up as much as possible. I likely speak the language better today than I did when I lived there. Economically Brazil is powerhouse in the Americas. If you have dealings with Brazil and you try and speak Spanish with them, they will be offended.

2. Spanish. Due to the similarity to Portuguese it was very easy to pick up. The problem I have the most is that I get the two languages confused sometimes and end up with Portuñol. As a North American Spanish is important Geographically.

3. Irish (Gaeilge) I can write and read it fairly well. My home PC is in Irish, for example. But I have never had any good chances for oral communication so my pronunciation and communication is not that good when it comes to actual conversation. I think everyone should learn an endangered language.

4. Welsh (Cymraeg) Another Celtic language. I have not progressed in it very much as it is only a casual interest. I have little more than a fundamental understanding of the grammar and phonetic mutations.

5. Latin, Russian, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek: Casual study of the grammar for the purposes of my interest in Comparative Historical Linguistics.