A Multilingual Advantage: Top Languages to Learn
Have you considered expanding your horizons with a second or third language? If you are American, you probably just took the required two years of a language (probably Spanish) in high school and never became functionally literate or conversationally decent. With the possibilities opened by the internet, however, maybe it is time to stop being content with your luck in having been born to native English speakers and consider learning to read and understand another language.
American Express suggests the five top languages for business are Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, and English. FluentU has a list that includes: Portuguese, Cantonese, Urdu, Spanish, German, Arabic, Mandarin, and English. More of interest to those of us on Click Track Profit, however, may be Speakt's list of languages used on the internet: English, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Indonesian/Malaysian, Japanese, Russian, French, and German.
Aside from these lists, keep in mind that you are more likely to study diligently a language with which you have some experience or great desire/affinity. So don't just pick Chinese because it is on all the lists. If you want to travel to Montreal, go on a medical mission to Africa, or converse with your college friend's Polish grandparents, learn French, Swahili, or Polish.
As for me, I got a head start on German in college and can read it decently. I am going to keep working on my conversational and writing skills because 1. I enjoy the language and culture and 2. there are lots of cool German posts on Steem. My latest goal is to become good enough to write product descriptions in German. Several folks on fiverr, my favorite freelance site, have asked me to do so, but I had to tell them I only feel confident/professional doing German-to-English. In six months, I want to be able to say "yes" to such projects.
I'd love to hear about what languages the rest of y'all know, are learning, or would like to try.
Sources:
Gibbons, J. Eight of the Best Business Languages for Professional Polyglots
Michalowicz, M. The Five Essential Languages for Business
Sitsanis, N. Top Ten Languages Used on the Internet Today
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It is never too late to learn a new language... I have learned Spanish with 34-35 years... Besides Spanish, I do speak English, Hungarian and Serbian... Not each of them fluently, but I can converse... I would like to learn German in the future... but we will see.. ;)
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My youngest son graduates next year with a major in computer science and a minor in Russian. He took Latin in high school and taught himself to read German using my old textbooks. He'd love to learn Polish next. My oldest daughter took Spanish in school, but learned much more on her two mission trips to Ecuador and Venezuela (pre-Chavez Venezuala.)
It's a great thing to teach kids more languages when they are young... My son with who is 13yo speaks 5-6 languages... It's crazy, but it can be very useful in his future!