Best language to learn right now?

United States
August 19, 2008 3:02am CST
What is the best language to learn right now? hinese? Or maybe Arabic due to the importance of the middle east? Or Spanish due to its growing use in the United States? What do you think?
1 person likes this
7 responses
@liuqian (476)
• China
19 Aug 08
As a Chinese,i would suggest you learn Chinese first.More and more people in the world begin learning Chinese.You know,China is developing rapidly,and there are more opportunaty for you.The living envioronment has changed a lot and suit for your living.Many of my foreign friends decided to work in China. Of course,other languages are good choice.It depends on which do u like and is easy to learn.and Chinese is not so easy to learn...
1 person likes this
• United States
19 Aug 08
I have tried to pick up a little chinese in the past, and wow, the tones are very hard. But maybe it will be the one I will start studying hard. Sounds like a lot of people really think it will be the one to know.
@rocker21 (2716)
• India
19 Aug 08
It depends on where you are rite now and what you are gonna be doing or where you gonna be. !
1 person likes this
@James72 (26790)
• Australia
19 Aug 08
I would strongly suggest Mandarin Chinese myself! China is growing rapidly on many fronts and as Shanghai becomes more and more capitalistic in nature, the pressure on many global companies to also have a China strategy is growing. Doing business in China is not easy if you do not have local representation or local knowledge or evebn better, an understanding of the language. I feel that anyone who has a command of Mandarin will be of great benefit to any organisation. Arabic is also an imprtant language but it is still very regional specific. Arabic will not attain the same international reach as Mandarin will.
1 person likes this
@jammyt (2818)
• Philippines
19 Aug 08
I think it would be Chinese because the economy there is growing rapidly. It is very important to learn this language if one wants to prosper in business with Chinese people.
1 person likes this
• India
19 Aug 08
well i would suggest you learning french... french is the international language of food and also very widely spoken in Europe. it actually depends in which field you are or want to go and in which countries you will be really traveling. otherwise you will learn some language and end up going to some other country. i am from travel industry and so for me learning french was very necessary.
1 person likes this
@the_ruler (1442)
• Turkey
19 Aug 08
I think Spanish is the best language to learn after English. I learnt english in a few years and I am originally Turkish. Now, I just want to improve my Spanish because it looks like a cool language and if you already speak English and Turkish you can (I am speaking for myself) make some connection between the languages and it will help you improve your next language faster and that makes me really excited about learning a new language. If you ask for the importance, I just strongly recommend spanish. not only because of its growing use in the states (it is already doing that but they were also speaking spanish in the past too but I don't know why it is coming to surface only recently) but also Spanish is used as the official language in about 27 countries. This is the highest count for a language to be the official language. (I am not saying it is spoken more than English but it is accepted as official language in more countries than English is) If you are considering to learn a language then you can count Russia. There are really important jobs at Russia and you need to speak it in order to work in there. I was working in a construction company a few years ago and they were had some relationships with Russia and were looking for people who speak Russian. There is no need to learn Arabic in my opinion. The people living in Arabic spoken countries won't need you to learn that language. As I have stated, the construction company I worked for had lots of projects building in Arabic countries too but they never looked for people who speak Arabic, but they were still hiring English speaking workers
1 person likes this
19 Aug 08
I am a student who is now amjoring in teaching Chinese as a seconde language. Which language to learn depend on what you want to gain. For example, if you just enjoy learning language, maybe you can choose a langauge which is used in the country you really love and have interest in so that you can travel to the country and experience the special culture there. If you want to be a business man or do any job ralated to business, I suggest you to learn Chinese since the rapidly growing economy in china. There are a lot of chances for business and China desires well-educated people especially in fields of education, technology and management. I have been a teacher for some French students who came to china to learn chinese as exchange students. They graduated this summer and some of them told me that they would like to stay in china because there were better chances for them to find a better job in china.
19 Aug 08
on the other hand, I would like to remind you that Chinese is more difficult than spanish or French to learners whose native language has no fixed tone. But it depends on how you learn it and how much time you spend on it. Some of my students, who have learn Chiness for two or three years can speak Mandarin Chinese extremely good and have not any trouble in communicating with native Chinese people.