What would be the most useful foreign language to learn?

Question

and why?

Answer 1

I always heard that Spanish was the most useful foreign language to

learn because it's the easiest to learn.

Answer 2

French, chinese or Arab

Answer 3

Well I guess it depends on where you live. If you live in the northern US i would say French because there are a lot of Canadians. If you live in the southern part i would say Spanish because there are a lot of Mexicans. And ex-cetera  

Answer 4

It depends on your location, but I would say learning spanish would be very beneficial, and a middle eastern language (if you're going to do this, find a language that a large amount of the population in your area uses). My answers are justified by being an HR Coordinator; I love hiring bilingual people who are able to expand their job with the use of different languages...good luck!

Answer 5

depends on where you plan to live.

In the USA the two most spoken languages are spanish and english.

Canada is english and french.

If your traveling to Germany?  get the idea.

Answer 6

Spanish.....cause its spoken in many countries all around the world and hte most important thing is the in the Usa many many people speak this language...

Answer 7

Latin... its not a dead language.... if you take that it will help you with italian spanish  portuguese and thats all i can think of... i took it and it help me understand some stuff... hope that helps...

Answer 8

Well China is the most spoken language in the world, maybe that?

Answer 9

Being multi-lingual gives u a step up on those that are not, carreer wise, I would go with spanish.  It is without a doubt the fastest growing foreign language in the US.  

Answer 10

Chinese and Spanish are both ranked with English as the most spoken languages per number of speakers.

However, from a 'spread' point of view, Chinese is only in China, except of course for the China towns, but those people in China towns mostly speak Cantonese Chinese, not the standard Mandarin - That means that you would have to learn two Chinese dialects/languages in order to speak outside China (info: Mandarin 850 million native speakers; Cantonese 70million)

Spanish on the other hand is spoken across most of Central and South America - that is considerably more area and places to use it in.

People in this question seem to so far have ignored the other big languages. If you learned Russian you would be able to speak in most of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. If you learned Arabic you'd be able to speak in most of the middle east and northern Africa.

So basically, there is no definitive language that is the most useful, in order to speak to most people across the globe you would have to learn another 4 or so languages.

Personally, I would say (this now is just an opinion) that Spanish would be better. There are two reasons. Spanish is close to America, and is used widely across its South, so you can use it and practice it (that is assuming that you are an American) On top of that, Spanish is the easiest of the languages I made reference to above.

Of course, if you are not American, I would pick the language that you have the most exposure to, or will have the most interest in the area of the globe. That and whether or not you can handle Chinese or Arabic.

Hope this helps <(^_^)>

Answer 11

That depends on where you live. Spanish.  

Answer 12

Spanish

Answer 13

If Obama gets elected, learn Arabic.

Spanish is the second most popular language behind English.  

Answer 14

to rispond to someone's comment:

vulgar latin will help you A LITTLE with french and italian. (especially italian)

classical latin will help you A LITTLE with spanish and portugues.

now for my answer to the question at hand: if you live in america, like in california, learn spanish.  california is nothing but mexicans who are here to make a little money so be nice to them and speak their language (and maybe give em a dollar or two, they will be very greatful)

i have come across several german immigrants on my visit to america (i am from italy, and i have met many germans. they are right next door to us.  i tedeschi, (ee tedeskee) as we call them in italian.) so maybe that is an option, you can learn german (even though there aren't millions and millions of them crossing the border, no offense!)

also when i flew to new york i came across many fellow italians. italian is a pretty language, not just because i'm a speaker of it, ma non c'è niente male con questa lingua! so that is a great one. and italians are one of the highest immigrants to the U.S.:

1. mexicans

2. germans

3. asian

4. italian

i even found some italians when i went west to california, at laguna beach, and they spoke it, too! families and families worth! i felt right at home. i love america. i want to go back.

non vedo l'ora in cui sono tornato in america!  E' bellissima l'america.