If you were to learn new languages, what would they be?

So Mandarin would be a logical choice, due to the largest amount of speakers. But for Western or European locations, English is a very good base language to have - and a lot of international companies use English as their main language for communication...

But Latin-based languages are easier to transfer learning techniques and your ear can pick up 'other' latin languages. You should consider what you want to 'DO' with your language choice though. There's great opportunity in learning languages that are somewhat rare, or not commonly spoken - as you can be really specific in a skillset then (using your language skills). So consider the country/language and then tasks or jobs or opportunities that can stem from there!

Spanish is definitely a language that is widely used but I have been seeing a growing need for Japanese. Japanese would be fun!

Depends on where your target workplace will be located. For the Americas then Spanish would definitely be the primary, French if you want to head for Canada. For Europe I'd go with French and German probably. If you want to head East, Mandarin and Japanese, or Hindi /Punjabi if you were thinking more of the Indian area. Think about where you'd like to travel or work, then see what their official and secondary languages are. If you plan to stay in the US and want to learn languages for business relationships, you could try seeing who the main trading partners/client base is for the industry you want to work in and use that to research the language you may want to learn.

I would be more fluent in Spanish. You will see that a lot of jobs are asking for an applicant to be bilingual in Spanish/English.

I would learn more Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese as I know some in each language

Spanish, definitely!

Dear Yong Kook,

Since I live in Texas, which has a large Hispanic population, I would learn Spanish.

Ray Finn, Ph.D.