Which second language is more useful?

Besides English, which other language is more useful and gives a higher investment return? Many Korean drama fans learn Korean, Japanese drama fans learn Japanese, did you know that these two languages are only used in Korea and Japan, respectively? The chance to use these two languages in many countries around the world is low.

What is your consideration in choosing a second language? Let me show you a list of facts that can help you decide which language to learn.

1. Top 10 languages by number of speakers

Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, and Punjabi

2. Top 10 languages by number of countries

English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Malay, Swahili, and Russian

3. Official languages of the United Nations

Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish

These three options show you languages that are popular around the world. You need to think about your motivation carefully before you decide which language to learn. Unless you learn languages for fun, you need to pay attention to these three factors:

1. The most motivation for learning a language is to communicate with foreigners
2. Knowing foreign languages helps you while traveling
3. Learning languages used by international organizations gives more economical benefits

Perhaps, you may ask...

1. Learning a language is time-consuming and it takes much effort, what should I do?

You can start with easier languages, it can be languages that are similar to languages that you already know or use the same writing system. If you are an English speaker, try Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian or French.

2. Learning a language is not cheap, are there any readily available or free resources?

You can find any language centers near your place, a language partner or tutor. As for online resources, you can watch movies or TV shows, join forums, use language learning programs, etc which are mostly available for free or at a cheaper price. You can also learn by reading a newspaper or magazine, listening to the radio or going to the library. If you can find the speakers of your target languages, try to assimilate yourself into their community and learn naturally.

Lastly, it does not matter which language you learn, it will become an important part of your life forever. So, which language will you learn?

Share your story with us!

Reference
第二外語 哪種語言最有用？