What are the best languages to learn?

By Catalogs Editorial Staff

Becoming bilingual benefits you professionaly and personally

Learning a second, or third or fourth language will benefit you greatly in this era of international business and travel. If you plan to work for an international company, or already do, it?s never too late to acquire a new language, which will pay off financially for you as well as open up a whole new world for you.

You can go off on vacation and speak the native language, which prevents you from getting lost or confused or unable to communicate. What a tremendous gift it is to be bilingual or even tri-lingual.

This opens door and opportunities for you, professionally and personally.

So what are the best languages to learn?

The top 10 languages in the world are English, followed by French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Hindu/Urdu. In international business, you will find that some languages, such as Chinese, dominate more than others.

Nearly 35 million people speak Spanish in the United States alone. America has the fifth biggest Spanish speaking population in the world. If you can speak both Spanish and English, you are going to be in big demand and, of course, make more money.

The Vietnamese language is the fastest-growing in America, particularly in Texas and California. More than a million Americans speak Vietnamese due to the large influx of immigrants from that country over the past few decades. Many Vietnamese people own businesses in America. If you are in business, it may be in your interest to pick up this language.

Those English speaking persons who can master Chinese are going to have an ace in the hole when it comes to business dealings. More than two million people in the United States speak a version of Chinese. A global market requires that those who want to keep pace speak Chinese because China is one of the biggest trading partners with America.

Many Korean immigrants in the United States own businesses so it would be advantageous to learn Korean, which is spoken by in excess of 850,000 people in the United States. Learning Korean is considered not quite as challenging as other Asian languages because the alphabet is less complex, and you don?t have to read a lot of symbols.

French is a lovely sounding language. It sounds very romantic. French is not spoken as much as Spanish or some Asian languages in the U.S. but there are more than a million Americas, who do speak in French. You will find a concentration of French speakers in Vermont, Louisiana, New Hampshire and Maine, which are French communities. French is also spoken in much of Canada, so if you speak French, you will find it advantageous in both business and travel across the northern U.S. border.

Some languages are very difficult to learn and may have you shrieking in frustration. The best time to learn a second language is when you are young, but if you didn?t you can still take on this challenge.

Many think that Chinese and Russian are the most difficult languages to master although some will argue that learning Basque is the most taxing followed by Hungarian. Russian is often spoken in areas of New York, including Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens, where there is a strong population of Russian immigrants as well as in Miami and California. Although it may be difficult to learn, since there are more than 750,000 speaking this language in the United States, you may want to consider biting the bullet and trying Russian on for a fit.

If you get a chance to learn German, which is frequently taught in high school and college, do it. Learning German is a wise choice for someone who speaks English. Both English and German are Germanic languages, which means they share the same origins and words. That makes it a little easier for an English speaking person to learn. In the United States alone, there are more than 1.5 million people who speak German.

Every language is considered important to the people who use it. Language is representative of a society, its history and culture. Learning a language opens the world to you.