Languages You Want to Learn

There are thousands of languages in the world, most of which you will never hear spoken. They all have different sounds and different words, some of which have no equivalent meaning in English. In the workplace, being bi-lingual or even tri-lingual is always an added benefit. Learning a language, while rewarding and at times fun, is definitely difficult. With the thousands of languages out there, what languages are worth learning?

Spanish

If you live in the U.S., you have probably heard Spanish being spoken whether it be on a bus or at a market. It's a major language in several U.S. states (Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico, Texas) and an official language in a U.S. territory (Puerto Rico). While the United States has no official language, Spanish is the second most taught language in U.S. schools and it is also a the second most spoken language. It is thought that the number of Hispanic immigrants to the United States is only going to increase as will the number of Spanish speakers. Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world and is spoken in the Americas (Mexico, Argentina, numerous others), Europe (Spain, Andorra) and a few countries in Africa (Morocco, others). An added benefit to learning any romance language (such as Spanish, French, Romanian, Portuguese, Italian and other languages derived from Latin) is that once you learn one romance language, learning another Romance language becomes pretty easy.

Mandarin Chinese

Mandarin Chinese is probably one of the most difficult languages to learn for speakers of English. Mandarin Chinese does not have an alphabet; instead of an alphabet, they have thousands of individual symbols which represent ideas, objects and more. Mandarin Chinese sounds are difficult for English speakers to grasp. If you can manage to learn this language, you will be able to speak to more than a billion people. Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken language in the world and China's market is always expanding. If you want to get into business, learn Chinese.

Arabic

The language of the religious texts of Islam (second most followed religion in the world) and spoken in about thirty countries, Arabic has both a great oral and written history. If you want to get into the oil business, knowing Arabic would probably help (the majority of OPEC nations have Arabic as their official language). Unlike Chinese, it has an alphabet (28 letters). However, Arabic might be more (in comparison to Chinese) difficult to speak with it's more harsh sounds not familiar to the average English speaker. If you ever want to go to see the pyramids of Giza or the pink sands of Petra, knowing Arabic probably would help a lot. Another added benefit in learning Arabic is that you could probably land a job with the FBI who are desperate for Arabic speakers pretty easily (only a small fraction of the FBI employees know any Arabic).

Hindustani

Spoken mainly in India and Pakistan, this language is actually two mutually intelligible languages (Hindi and Urdu) that are written in two completely different scripts. While in it's literary form these languages are very different, in the spoken form Urdu and Hindi are so similar that a speaker of Hindi could speak to a speaker of Urdu much like a speaker of English could speak to someone who speaks Scots and vice-versa. India's economy, just like China's is growing faster and faster. Unlike in China though, India does not try to place restrictions on it's people telling them how many kids they can have (in China parents can have only one child with itfs one child policy). It is expected that Hindustani will eventually surpass Mandarin and with that being said, it's a great language (or set of languages) to learn if you want to get into business.

Last Word

With thousands of languages to learn, there are a lot of options. Some other languages you might want to look into is French, Japanese and/or Russian. Regardless of whatever language you learn, just make sure that you enjoy learning it and that you will be able to use it eventually. If you stop studying the language of your choice, you are probably going to forget it. Understanding a language is more than just being able to talk to people. Itfs opening a door to a new way of life, culture and possibly religion, depending on who and where you are.