I live in Illinois, and I’d say about a third of the population of my city–maybe more–speaks Spanish natively, either from before coming to this country, or from it being spoken at home. I’m not fluent, and tend to speak it a bit crudely despite spending nearly five years studying it, but I can get by in it. I still feel inadequate, though. I honestly feel that, with where I live, my level of proficiency is the absolute minimum that I should have. It’d be like growing up in Ottawa and not knowing a damn bit of French.
Spanish is going to be by far the most useful language to study if you’re in the US; we have business and trading ties with Mexico and Central America, as well as with South America. Plus, if you learn Spanish and spend a little time on Latin, going to Italy isn’t too terrifying (I went two years ago, and while I couldn’t really say more than a couple of things, I could get the basic gist of a lot of it).
Just my WAG, but I would think Chinese or Arabic would be helpful to American businesses, wanting to go international.
When I first moved to California from Germany, I saw lots of ads in the paper for jobs and they would say, “bi-lingual a plus!”.
OK, now remember, I had just moved to California - so I applied at one, and was about to be invited for the next round of interviews when the interviewer spoke Spanish to me. I said, “I don’t speak Spanish.”
“You said you were bi-lingual!”
“I am - I speak English and German.”
Boy, was that interviewer pissed off - but so was I.
If you want someone who speaks Spanish, say so in your damned ad. From then on, I learned “bi-lingual” means speaking Spanish, at least in California.
Spanish is widely spoken, including within the US, and not hard to learn for English speakers.
Chinese is a strategically important language in the long term but of limited use within the US.
Arabic has become more important but is very difficult for English speakers to learn (my wife is Egyptian and I know a few words of Arabic but never properly studied it). The pronunciation is difficult and the grammar is much more arcane than English.
I studied French for five years in high school (8-12) and have had the opportunity to use it twice in 36 years. Once when I went to France, and another time when I went to France. Next week will be the third time, when I go to Québec. Useful if you want to do business in those two places, or a former French colony.
“Everybody speaks Spanish” is a good argument for learning that language, but it cuts both ways.
It is quite common to be competent in both Spanish and English. In fact, if you apply for a job that requires skills in both languages, you may have a lot of competition from people who are truly bilingual - that is, they were raised to know both languages at native-speaker levels.
If you become proficient at a language such as Arabic or Mandarin, on the other hand, it is true that there will be fewer job openings that call for knowledge of English plus the other language - but you will also be one of very few qualified applicants.
hey!i am always surprise that you american or english are so professional at languages in this world .even the arabic,write like a yarn,i would never get it.
i am chinese,but not suggest u to learn this chinese, it will use your big time in life.and
china had two written languages:jian ti and fan ti. also had two spoken languages:
mandarin and Cantonese ,they are antagonistic 。snarling each other Hundreds of years.
so,i advise u to learn germany or japanese.more good for german.english and german
is one kind languages.japanese BELONG TO ASIAN 。ONLY USE IN JAPAN ISLAND。GERMANY，
You might not get one or the other completely free, but when I can’t find Spanish subtitles, Portuguese ones are usually intelligible enough. On the other hand, Brazilian Portuguese sounds nothing like the way it’s written!
Actually having learned Spanish, reading Italian and French becomes a whole lot simpler. You won’t know 100%, and it’ll be very, very basic, but it should be enough to not look like a single-language American.
Echoing what others have said, I think it’s a lot like they used to say on the Antiques Road Show – the best things to collect are those things you actually care about. Likewise, the language you should learn is one that you actually find interesting in itself and for which you also find the associated cultures interesting. Even if you’re learning the second language for practical reasons, inherent interest will help drive you through the many difficulties better than some theoretical padded resume in the future. And also, even if it never pays off in your career, it pays off in the enjoyment you receive.
Which is why the (joking) recommendation for the best way to learn a foreign language is to fall in love with a native speaker of said language. Doesn’t work well for multiple languages, though…
No, I just have a different opinion than you apparently do. I’m very facile with languages and had very little trouble with Spanish or French. But Portuguese gave me headaches. It’s just similar enough to Spanish to where you can sort of see the trees in the forest, but not really. Muchas gracias = muito obrigado; muy bien = muito bem (pronounced ‘beng’). The list goes on and on. Portuguese often seemed like a shorthand Spanish, but. . .not really. I had better luck going between Spanish and French. But this is all just opinion
