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SO, Soon i'm going to have to take a second language for my college credit. But i cant decide.
I would love to learn to speak Japanese or Arabic because those are languages few people bother to learn.
But my family insists are spanish because in live in Cali and they are convinced it will become our first language soon.
But my problem is that it gives me something everyone else has, While the two i mentioned are less taken.
What should i do dakka?

Hebrew.

Ancient Greek is easier to learn than you might think. It also makes you look cool in conversation, and lets you know what words mean even if you've never seen them before.

hotsauceman1 wrote:SO, Soon i'm going to have to take a second language for my college credit. But i cant decide.
I would love to learn to speak Japanese or Arabic because those are languages few people bother to learn.
But my family insists are spanish because in live in Cali and they are convinced it will become our first language soon.
But my problem is that it gives me something everyone else has, While the two i mentioned are less taken.
What should i do dakka?

Learn something you can use and want to use in the future.

I have been thinking about learning a third, and I have had trouble deciding.

I love Italy and vacation there, I work in healthcare so Spanish would be helpful, and Greek would just be cool.

Although I am also thinking about ASL as well.

Chinese, it will open more doors.

Chinese is the going to be the most useful in your lifetime.

Pig Latin...

Honestly, follow your heart. Arabic may not be a bad way, Learn Japanese and you can always spent time in Japan teaching English. Spanish will allow you to order from Jack in the Box easily...

Depends on what industry and career you might be aiming at too.

I work in the power industry and we have a lot of dealings with Middle Eastern companies/countries so thats Arabic for you.

Switzerland funnily enough has two of the biggest pharmacuetical companies in the world (albeit with lots of sub branches throughout other counties).

But every industry is obviously very different.
Just something to consider.

I mainly want to go into teaaching. Or possibly social work.

Spanish would likely be a solid option then.

hotsauceman1 wrote:I mainly want to go into teaaching. Or possibly social work.

You live in California correct? Then Spanish is where you want to be. A massive portion of your clientele may in fact have Spanish as their primary language.

Clthomps wrote:Chinese is the going to be the most useful in your lifetime.

No.
The Chinese are all scrambling to learn English, everyone is.

Spanish would be the most useful to any American. Not to mention you live in California, so that'd be even more useful.

English isn't going away from the US in a hurry.

Spanish is good because it is very widely spoken and helps with trading with South America.

Japanese is not as "elite" now as it was 20 years ago. Lots more people speak it than used to (possibly my viewpoint is skewed frmo working in a large Japanese international corporation.) Japan isn't going away and still has a large economy and stuff so probably still a good pick.

I would actually be tempted to do Arabic as the most forward looking language for possible future careers.

Klingon, someone had to say it

The number one most important thing is to pick a language you are interested in.

You can measure the objective advantages and disadvantages and theoretical opportunities a specific language might give you, but learning a language well takes a lot of dedication and time. If you pass over a language you're interested in and try to learn a language you don't particularly like because it's supposedly more practical, your chances of success are going to be much lower.

The other thing to keep in mind is, having a second language has the potential to open up opportunities for you, no matter what language it is, especially if you're willing to travel or work abroad. You just might have to do a bit of searching. I learned German, and it's opened up a ton of awesome opportunities for me that I would never have had otherwise, and it's usually not a language that a lot of people think to recommend.

If you're interested in a "practical" language, then all the better, but you need to find a language that lines up with your interests, first and foremost.

I would say to pick Spanish if you are looking for something useful. As a teacher (and Californian), it will be infinitely more useful to you than any other language you pick up.

Chinese is the way to go. It will open more doors worldwide. The chinese are investing in africa like you wouldn't believe, and its looking like africa and asia are forming a stronger partnership than africa and america. Between english and chinese you will have access to the world. Spanish--or french for that fact--will also help open doors because such a large part of the world speaks in romance dialects. That said, spanish isn't really a language to learn for any work related advantage unless you intend to stay in the states, I am not aware of any econmic advantages or work coming from those parts of the world. German is a bit pointless and masochistic, and the same could be said of any slavic language (lord forbid, you might end up being painted a communist if you try to do that.)

If you so much as even try to learn hungarian, I will injure you. Gently, and with love, but I will injure you.

Esperanto is always useful.

poda_t wrote:Chinese is the way to go. It will open more doors worldwide. The chinese are investing in africa like you wouldn't believe, and its looking like africa and asia are forming a stronger partnership than africa and america. Between english and chinese you will have access to the world. Spanish--or french for that fact--will also help open doors because such a large part of the world speaks in romance dialects. That said, spanish isn't really a language to learn for any work related advantage unless you intend to stay in the states, I am not aware of any econmic advantages or work coming from those parts of the world. German is a bit pointless and masochistic, and the same could be said of any slavic language (lord forbid, you might end up being painted a communist if you try to do that.)

If you so much as even try to learn hungarian, I will injure you. Gently, and with love, but I will injure you.

Depending on what field you want to go into, German is far from pointless. It's also not nearly as difficult as some people suggest, although I wouldn't say it's easy either. As far as Slavic languages go, Russian could be useful, again, depending on what field you're interested in going into.


I'm not saying learn German or Russian, though. I'm saying learn a language that you're interested in learning.

French and Spanish are always useful to have.

If you want to teach or do social work and plan on staying in Cali, learn Spanish. It's the most utilitarian.
If you want to learn something kewl, learn Japanese. You'll still get some use out of it in little Tokyo and you can watch anime in the original.
As for Arabic? Not nearly as utilitarian, though it would be useful if you plan on going into middle eastern studies.

German is the way to go. Trust me, the panzers will be back. Maybe not today, tomorrow, or the next 10 years, but one day, Otto Von Hitmark will return!!

I've actually started working on German (again) at the moment. I spent the last two years studying Sanskrit. I plan on learning Swedish sometime in the future as well.
So many languages and so little time.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:German is the way to go. Trust me, the panzers will be back. Maybe not today, tomorrow, or the next 10 years, but one day, Otto Von Hitmark will return!!

Someone asks a serious question about a life choice and gets a joke answer like that. Muppet.

German may be a good language choice but it needs a sensible reason. As with Japanese it's spoken by a powerful nation but not much else worldwide, though German also opens doors in Austria and Switzerland also.

I speak the language of love!

Somebody had to say it!

Orlanth wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:German is the way to go. Trust me, the panzers will be back. Maybe not today, tomorrow, or the next 10 years, but one day, Otto Von Hitmark will return!!

Someone asks a serious question about a life choice and gets a joke answer like that. Muppet.

German may be a good language choice but it needs a sensible reason. As with Japanese it's spoken by a powerful nation but not much else worldwide, though German also opens doors in Austria and Switzerland also.

german's useless though, because while it's strong in europe, it's not the language of an economy that's about to detonate and take the world by storm. Hence why I suggest chinese.

Polish MIGHT be a way to go, but..... it's risky. As of now that market could go either way....

poda_t wrote:

Orlanth wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:German is the way to go. Trust me, the panzers will be back. Maybe not today, tomorrow, or the next 10 years, but one day, Otto Von Hitmark will return!!

Someone asks a serious question about a life choice and gets a joke answer like that. Muppet.

German may be a good language choice but it needs a sensible reason. As with Japanese it's spoken by a powerful nation but not much else worldwide, though German also opens doors in Austria and Switzerland also.

german's useless though, because while it's strong in europe, it's not the language of an economy that's about to detonate and take the world by storm. Hence why I suggest chinese.

Polish MIGHT be a way to go, but..... it's risky. As of now that market could go either way....

I agree:

Orlanth 24/05/2012 16:05:18 Subject: Second language wrote:

Chinese, it will open more doors.

Except about Polish, its the language of one country without a lot of influence. Germany and Switzerland are globally important, far from useless, even outside Germany. For example you want to work in Africa you 'need' Chinese right, Germans trade bigh in Africa also. Ultimately to be anywhere abroad you need the local language plus English, even Chinese is of only secondary benefit.