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Most important languages to know?

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vicissitudes

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What are the most important languages in today's world to know and learn? English? Chinese? Spanish?

If you had to rank top 5, what would they be?
 
It depens on where you live and your line or work.

I've been wanting to learn another language (I speak Dutch, English and French) but I can't think of many situations where another language would be useful. Maybe I'll learn sign language but every country has a different sign language so I have to decide which one to learn.
 
I would say it's heavily dependent on where you live and what you do for a living; but I'd probably say something like:

English
Chinese
Spanish
Arabic
Morse Code (if this counts)
 
English
Mandarin
Spanish
German
Arabic

In no particular order. French would be #6 but is beat out by the others.
 
INB4 Programming languages.

Honestly in depends on what your doing. I would honestly say if you want to go by population it would be the Chinese,Hindi,English,Spanish and maybe French for Africa. But Lets use a different metric.

The most important Language to know is one which is spoken in a place you want to visit so if you want to visit Germany learn German and so on.

Also close border countries so Spanish for US, French for Germans and so on.

Really the most important language is the one you want to learn as Language Learning is life long effort if you want to keep it up so It's best to find ones you like.
 
It depends on where you live, and if it's business-related.

I guess I'd say the official languages defined by the UN (english, spanish, russian, chinese, arabic, and french IIRC).
 
Skel1ingt0n said:
I would say it's heavily dependent on where you live and what you do for a living; but I'd probably say something like:

English
Chinese
Spanish
Arabic
Morse Code (if this counts)
Click to expand...

Pretty much this. Other colonist languages like French and Portuguese wouldn't hurt. And Russian would also be useful.
 
Just as a note, Chinese isn't a language. There is a chinese written language, but people in China actually speak a wide variety of languages. These languages are not mutually intelligible. Thanks to efforts of the Chinese government, apparently most Chinese people know what is called Standard Chinese, the official language of China which is mostly based on Mandarin. However, a lot of Chinese populations in other countries such as the US tend to speak Cantonese instead.

So saying Chinese as an answer isn't quite as simple as it sounds. Knowing one or more Chinese languages would probably be really useful though.
 
Lingua Franca Tier
- English

Pretty Damn Important Tier
- Mandarin
- Spanish
- Arabic

Can't Hurt Tier
- Hindi
- French
- German
 
Japanese so you can play un-localized games. :P

Seriously though there's no real way to rank these. Depends heavily on where you live (or where you want to live) and what your occupation is.

The most spoken languages are:
1. Chinese 1,197,000,000
2. Spanish 414,000,000
3. English 335,000,000
4. Hindi 260,000,000
5. Arabic 237,000,000

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0775272.html

Oh hey I'm fluent in two (English/Hindi (more Urdu but close enough)) and half fluent in another two (Spanish/Arabic(though a messy version)).
 
The 2 working languages of the UN, English and French. Both are spoken in a boatload of countries. Chances are if you find someone who cannot speak one, they may speak the other.

After that, Mandarin and Arabic are probably the next most important.
 
SkyOdin said:
Just as a note, Chinese isn't a language. There is a chinese written language, but people in China actually speak a wide variety of languages. These languages are not mutually intelligible. Thanks to efforts of the Chinese government, apparently most Chinese people know what is called Standard Chinese, the official language of China which is mostly based on Mandarin. However, a lot of Chinese populations in other countries such as the US tend to speak Cantonese instead.

So saying Chinese as an answer isn't quite as simple as it sounds. Knowing one or more Chinese languages would probably be really useful though.
Click to expand...

Most Chinese people I know refer to Mandarin as "Chinese" or "standard Chinese." It's definitely the most widely spoken Chinese language. It's all you need in most of mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and even Malaysia. You could learn Cantonese if you're going to be spending a considerable amount of time in Hong Kong (though they'll probably just tell you to speak English), but I don't see a point in learning something like Shanghainese, Taiwanese, or Hakka, because people from these places tend to know Mandarin as well.

When it comes to writing, though, learn both traditional and simplified characters. Simplified is necessary in mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia, but you're not going to get far without traditional characters in Taiwan or Hong Kong.

Source: I'm in Taiwan.
 
Spanish is spoken by many people but all of the nations are poor.

English, Chinese and java are the languages of the 21st century.
 
HCzmXhG.jpg
 
1. English
2. French
3. Spanish
4. Mandarin
5. Arabic

If you knew these you'd be good in most of the world, unless you were out in the sticks.
 
1- English
2- Russian (if you know Russian you will be able to understand maaaany other languages, lots of eastern european languages are similar)
3- Portuguese (portuguese speakers can understand better spanish than the opposite, so knowing portuguese will be probably better)
4- Arabic or French?
5- Chinese?

Knowing these 5 languages would cover all North/South America (nobody cares about Guinea), most of Europe, China's language, and French or Arabic would cover Africa or Middle East, I would go with Arabic just because it has a different alphabet.
 
Hexa said:
Japanese so you can play un-localized games. :P

Seriously though there's no real way to rank these. Depends heavily on where you live (or where you want to live) and what your occupation is.

The most spoken languages are:
1. Chinese 1,197,000,000
2. Spanish 414,000,000
3. English 335,000,000
4. Hindi 260,000,000
5. Arabic 237,000,000

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0775272.html

Oh hey I'm fluent in two (English/Hindi (more Urdu but close enough)) and half fluent in another two (Spanish/Arabic(though a messy version)).
Click to expand...

Why is English so low? The US alone has 318 million people, id imagine not everyone here speaks English but Id wager at least 80% do. And then theres the UK, Canada, Australia, a significant part of India, etc.

Edit: oh its first language speakers. That's kind of misleading. I'd imagine theres by far more people who speak English as their second language than any other language. That list would look a lot different if it included that.
 
Chezzymann said:
Why is English so low? The US alone has 318 million people, id imagine not everyone here speaks English but Id wager at least 80% do. And then theres the UK, Canada, Australia, a significant part of India, etc.
Click to expand...

That's probably native speakers. English would likely be no.1 otherwise.
 
ty_hot said:
2- Russian (if you know Russian you will be able to understand maaaany other languages, lots of eastern european languages are similar)
Click to expand...

That's definitely not true. You might be able to guess 50% to 75% but that isn't going to help you in any way besides looking for drinking buddies. :) You are not going to read news in those languages, you won't be able to write a whole sentence, you'll barely understand a talk show.
 
This is a tough one.

For example, Arabic might be in the top 5 but, other than Modern Standard Arabic, the dialects are vast and understanding an Arabic speaker from Morocco if you're from Egypt is difficult, from what I've gathered. Russian, on the other hand, doesn't have a wide range of dialects, if any. Can anyone speak on how much Mandarin varies by region?

Someone mentioned that it's easier for a speaker of Portuguese to understand a Spanish speaker than it is the other way around, which is true, however, when people say that, they're talking about very basic conversation, as far as I know, so I have to say that Spanish would be of higher priority because it's the national language of more countries.

English, Mandarin, Spanish, Russian, Arabic
 
Hindi is a silly answer. Unless you live in India, any Indian you're ever going to need to work with will speak English. India conducts a lot of their government business in English.
 
Brakke said:
Hindi is a silly answer. Unless you live in India, any Indian you're ever going to need to work with will speak English. India conducts a lot of their government business in English.
Click to expand...

Yeah this is totally true. If anything, learn Sanskrit if you're interested in (ancient) Indian culture and history.
 
SkyOdin said:
Just as a note, Chinese isn't a language. There is a chinese written language, but people in China actually speak a wide variety of languages. These languages are not mutually intelligible. Thanks to efforts of the Chinese government, apparently most Chinese people know what is called Standard Chinese, the official language of China which is mostly based on Mandarin. However, a lot of Chinese populations in other countries such as the US tend to speak Cantonese instead.

So saying Chinese as an answer isn't quite as simple as it sounds. Knowing one or more Chinese languages would probably be really useful though.
Click to expand...

I dont know anyone who speaks Cantonese who isnt from HK who is Chinese, what you said seems so odd.
I think biggest issue in Aus is most roles that need Mandarin are normally filled by those who came over on student visa from China, business benefit for your carer isn't that great for learning it.
 
The first would be English. No other language has the global reach that English does.

After that it could be anything. Whatever it is that is most useful for your work and/or social circles.
 
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