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What New Language Should I Learn?

My students often ask me for advice on what language they should learn next.  They speak English well, but many of them, not satisfied with how hard it is to learn one foreign language, are eager to learn another.

In one sense I am a bad person to ask. I hate learning languages because I find the memorization needed to learn a language very difficult. On the other hand, I do know something about languages because I have lived and worked in many countries in Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia, and I am fluent in Spanish and French and proficient1 in several other languages. But before you are too impressed with my language abilities, let me add that my mother is French, my father American, I was born in Spain, and I grew up primarily in Spain, Pakistan, Peru, Morocco and France. As a result I learned these languages when I was very young, when learning languages is as easy as learning to play.

So given my international experience, what would I recommend as a third language to a Chinese student eager to expand his knowledge of languages? Of course the answer depends on many things, including most obviously why he would want to learn another language. Still, I think there are some very general things I can say that might help make the answer easier.

Most people who are very experienced in the worlds of international culture, politics and business agree that English is by far the most important language in the world -- in culture, politics, academia2 and business. After English, the most important languages of the future are likely to be Spanish, Chinese and Arabic. This is because all these languages are widely used in a variety of important countries whose economies or populations are expected to grow quickly. This suggests that for a Chinese who already speaks English, Spanish and Arabic may be very useful languages to learn.

In addition, there are two other languages that are likely to be very important for Chinese and those are the languages of its two large neighbors, Japan and Russia. It is hard to imagine a future in which the ability to speak either of those languages will not be very useful for an educated Chinese, and the strong cultural links between these countries will bring pleasure to those Chinese who want to enjoy film, books and theater from either of these two countries. India is also a very important neighbor of China, and it would certainly be helpful to learn the languages and culture of that fascinating country, but I don’t include Hindi3 as an important language partly because it is simply one of many languages used in India and not universally spoken, and partly because nearly all educated and traveled Indians speak excellent English.

If you are interested in learning another European language, the question becomes a little complicated. The most important European language after English is Spanish. Since Spanish-speaking countries outside Europe, especially in Latin America, are culturally more dynamic than Europe and of growing importance to China as a business partner, this is a strong reason for learning Spanish. As an aside, the largest country in Latin America, Brazil, speaks Portuguese, a language close enough to Spanish that speakers of one can usually understand the other without too much difficulty, and that makes either language fairly useful.

French is also a popular language to learn, and if you wish to learn it because you love France’s soft music, romantic movies or feminine4 fashions, you should certainly do so. But countries that used to be great cultural and political centers have a certain momentum5 in the use of their language, and many people learn it because of its past importance. That means that even though fewer people study it, there are probably more French speakers in China than are justified by the country’s current cultural or economic achievements. That may not matter, but if you want to learn a language to participate more fully in today’s world, you are probably better off learning another language.

The same is probably true, although to a smaller extent, of Italian. Like France, Italy is a country with a great cultural history that, in certain areas of culture such as food and fashion, continues to be very important. Outside of that however, its importance has diminished. Even in Europe not many people study either language. For example fewer than 10% of German students choose to study French or Italian as their second language and most of those who do are girls, suggesting that the two countries’ reputation for romance and fashion are their biggest selling point.

A more useful language to learn than either might be German, although as many people have pointed out, a lot of Germans speak English fluently. I don’t know many Chinese students who are learning German, but it is a very important economy and as the country learns to deal with its historical legacy it is likely to take on an even greater weight in international politics.

What about learning languages of smaller countries? Chinese students who are studying Vietnamese, Norwegian and Dutch have told me that the advantage of studying these languages is that they are almost certain to get jobs related to those countries because so few Chinese speak the languages. The disadvantage is that their careers are limited, and there are not too many interesting opportunities for them. I suspect that this is probably true of many of the less-widely-used languages, and although these languages and cultures are often exciting and vibrant, there may be few opportunities to enjoy them.

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