Which language should I learn?

If you're not sure which language to study, here are some factors to consider:

Availability

Are materials and other resources available for the language you want to learn? Are there classes in your area? For the popular languages, like French, Spanish and German, this shouldn't be a issue, but it may be difficult to find resources and/or classes for the lesser-studied languages.

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Usefulness

If you want to learn a language with a large number of speakers and which is spoken in many countries, the ones to choose in order of 'usefulness' are: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), German, Japanese, Portuguese and Hindi/Urdu.

This list is based on the number of speakers, the number and population of countries where the languages are spoken, the number of major fields using the languages internationally, the economic power of countries using the languages, and their socio-literary prestige.

For a breakdown of these factors see:

http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm

The languages with the most speakers are:

Language L1 speakers L2 speakers Total speakers Mandarin Chinese 850 million 180 million 1,030 million English 340 million 510 million 840 million Arabic 240 million 250 million 490 million Spanish 400 million 90 million 490 million Hindi 260 million 120 million 380 million Russian 150 million 110 million 260 million Portuguese 215 million 35 million 250 million French 80 million 140 million 220 million Bengali 190 million 20 million 210 million Indonesian/Malay 60 million 140 million 200 million Urdu 64 million 94 million 160 million Japanese 130 million 11,500 130+ million German 78 million 8 million 86 million Javanese 84 million 84 million Telugu 74 million 5 million 79 million Tamil 69 million 8 million 77 million Korean 77 million - 77 million Wu Chinese 77 million - 77 million Marathi 71 million 0.3 million 71.3 million Turkish 71 million 0.3 million 71.3 million Vietnamese 68 million - 68 million

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers

Notes

L1 = first language, L2 = second language

Indonesian and Malay and closely related and mutually intelligible, though are considered separate languages.

While Hindi and Urdu are considered separate languages, their colloqiual forms are mutually intelligible. However they use different scripts and their formal forms are not so similiar.

There are many varieties of colloquial spoken Arabic which are not all mutually intelligible. There is also a variety of Arabic known as Modern Standard Arabic which is based on the Classical Arabic of the Quran and is used as the main written form and Arabic, and to some extent as a spoken lingua franca between Arabic speakers from different regions and countries.

Spanish is the most widely spoken language in the USA after English, with around 28 million speakers. The third most spoken language is Chinese - mainly Cantonese, with over 2 million speakers. Other languages with over a million speakers include French, German, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Italian. See: http://www.mla.org

There are around 600 million people learning English as a foreign language, 100 million learning French and 21 million learning Spanish. If these figures are added to the above totals, then there are 1.44 billion English speakers and learners, 320 million French speakers and learners, and 511 million Spanish speakers and learners [source]. There are maybe 1 million people learning Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language - in 2010 750,000 took the Chinese Proficiency Test [source].

The most popular languages to study in the USA are Spanish, French, American Sign Language (ASL), German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Latin and Russian [source].

In Europe the most studied foreign languages are English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian [source].

Here's an illustration showing where the most spoken languages are spoken.

https://www.couponbox.com/language-map/embed.php Source: Couponbox.com

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Difficulty

Each language presents you with a different set of challenges. Languages might have complex inflectional systems, complex writing systems, irregular spelling systems, and/or complex phonology. Generally the more a language differs from your L1 or other languages you know, the harder it is to learn.

For lesser-studied languages it can be hard to find language learning materials and courses. In some cases you might have to learn another language first, e.g. when learning indigenous languages of Latin America it helps if you know Spanish and/or Portuguese as most materials and courses are likely to be in those languages. Many languages are undocumented and have never been written, so training in field linguistics is needed in order to acquire them.

For English speakers the least difficult languages are probably: Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Portuguese, Romanian, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish.

Arabic, Korean, Japanese and Chinese are often considered among the most challenging languages to learn for English speakers, and speakers of other European languages. Learning to read and write Chinese and Japanese is certainly challenging, and Chinese tones can be difficult to master. However, Chinese grammar is relatively straightforward, compared to European languages.

Other languages present you with even more challenges. For example, some indigenous languages of the Americas have extremely compex phonology and syntax, small speaker communities and limited materials and resources to help you learn them. Navajo, for example, has no regular verbs at all.

Some African languges use sounds, such as clicks, ejectives and ingressives that are difficult to pronunce and distinguish for each other. Xhosa, for example, has 64 different consonants, 18 of which are clicks. Even pronuncing the name of the language is a challenge.

The language with the most complex spelling system is probably Tibetan, which uses many letters that are not pronounced, and which indicate historical spellings.

Language Learning Difficulty for English speakers

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers

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Languages in demand by employers

If you want to learn a language in order to improve your employment/promotion prospects then choose one that is in demand by employers. The list below gives you an idea of which languages are in demand and is based on job ads posted on recruitment sites. You can find links to the recruitment sites on the Careers using languages page.

Note: languages are shown more or less in order of popularity with employers.

Africa

English, French, Swahili, Arabic, Portuguese.

Americas

English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Japanese.

Asia-Pacific

English, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Malay/Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese.

Western Europe

English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Flemish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Finnish, Greek, Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, Arabic.

UK

English, German, Arabic, French, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Italian, Mandarin Chinese.

Source: http://uk.businessinsider.com/adzuna-jobs-data-top-languages-for-the-highest-paid-jobs-in-britain-2016-9/

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From: https://takelessons.com/blog/what-language-should-i-learn-z14

Books on how to learn languages

Language courses, dictionaries, etc.

Links

MLA Language Map Data Center - information based on census data about which languages are spoken in the USA: http://www.mla.org/map_data

Most common languages spoken in the U.S.

http://www.immigrationdirect.com/languages-spoken-in-us.jsp

10 Best Languages to Learn Right Now (i.e. in 2010 in the USA)

http://www.toponlinecolleges.com/blog/2010/10-best-languages-to-learn-right-now/

BBC Voices - details of the languages spoken in the UK, with numbers of speakers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/multilingual/

What is the best language to learn?

https://lingualift.com/blog/what-is-the-best-language-to-learn/

Most popular languages (2016)

http://en.bab.la/news/language-worldcup-2016

Language learning tips

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