I’m a native Spanish speaker and have taken classes throughout middle/high school. I want to (and am required to) take language classes (past intermediate level) for my major. I was considering German, French, and Russian; however, my advisor said French or Russian would probably be best. I know that French would be easiest; however, I’m still indecisive. I am wondering if Russian would be beneficial, and if I would be proficient/fluent by the end of university? Will I be more appealing with French or Russian to an employer? Also, would it be best to just wait until my sophomore year to begin language classes? Is a beginner language class going to be easier than something like international politics or an intro to econ?
I’d recommend French because you’ll reach a usable level faster and it’s very useful for all of Western Africa + France’s role in Europe.
On the other hand, someone who knows Russian well is in need, since its so difficult to learn and Russia is an adversary explicitly trying to undermine the West (to summarize: Vladimir Putin declared about 20 years ago that in his view the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the fall of the Soviet Union and that Russians had agreed too easily that the West had won, so he’d dedicate his life to fix that mistake. So Russia is not an enemy per se, we’re not at war, but it’s not an ally either and they are clearly adversarial.) Knowing Russian well is very difficult so it depends hoz much time you plan on dedicating to it. I think 8-10 hours of prep a week would be sufficient for French but I don’t think you could make it with less than 12-15 a week for Russian, at least your first year.
You can watch TV5Monde and France24English, as well as RT (Russian ) to help making up your mind. Listen to the language, see if you can pick out or figure out anything, but also see if there’s a channel you find more interesting, a culture with issues you’d like to discuss more…
It also depends on what regions of the world you may be interested in. For example, Mandarin Chinese and Arabic are useful in some parts of the world, but are probably among the most difficult languages to learn for someone who initially knows English and/or Spanish.
If you do choose a difficult (for someone who initially knows English and/or Spanish) language, you want to start as soon as you can, since it will take more semesters of instruction to get to a usable level of proficiency.
German, French, and Russian do happen to be the three languages most commonly suggested for those going into math research (math PhD programs may require a reading knowledge of at least one of them).
If you search online the phrase “why learn German” you might decide German is the best language to study – despite your advisor’s bias against it. I won’t bother retyping all the reasons you can find with that search. Also enter “why learn French” and “why learn Russian” and read the lists of reasons that come up in the search results. The reasons will tell you how many speak the language and where, and what type of business and economic impact is made by companies from countries that speak the language, and many other details. Consider that you might want to use your skills working for one of those companies one day, so think about these things as you look at the reasons why to learn each language.
Also consider what interests you most. If someone offered you the chance to spend three months in a country that spoke one of these languages, which place would you choose and why? If you were to follow the daily news of a country that spoke one of these languages, which country would you most want to read about regularly? What about pop culture, architecture, land, literature, art, music, history, religion, ethnicity, government, business and many other aspects that vary among the places that speak these languages – which ones interest you most? What about food and festivals where each language is spoken – do you have a preference? You will be learning about all of these things in your language studies over time, so it is best to choose a language that opens up the part of the world you want to get to know.
Don’t assume that French would be easiest, just because it is similar to Spanish. You are also an English speaker, and English is a Germanic language, so German is not too difficult to learn. Russian has very simple grammar and a very limited number of verb tenses compared to these other languages, so it is not difficult either. Once you learn the alphabet, which doesn’t take long, then you can recognize many words because they are just like English only written with different letters. I studied all of these languages, so am speaking from personal experience.
Russian has the benefit of being a “critical language” for the U.S. government, so there are Critical Language Scholarships and other programs that you can apply for to help you gain fluency and study abroad at the government’s expense. It also means the government might have jobs using that language.
As far as usefulness, in either international relations or economics, how about Chinese?
The State department publishes a list of critical languages. Russian I believe is on the list, but not French. I would think learning a critical language (with a perceived need) will get you further in International Relations.
German??? I was advised to take German back in the 70s as I was a STEM student (of course that acronym hadn’t been invented yet). I never read a single technical paper in German.
For foreign relations, among the three listed, Russian for sure. Among those not listed, Chinese or Arabic.
http://www.languagetesting.com/how-long-does-it-take lists languages in terms of difficulty to learn for someone who initially knows English.
In terms of difficulty as evaluated by the DoD, French is level 1b, German level 2, Russian level 4. It means that to reach a usable level (“threshold” or CEF B1) you’ll need about twice as much time for Russian than for German, and not quite twice as long for German compared to French but about three to four times more for Russian compared to French.
That being said, Russian is indeed a critical language, with critical language flagships at Bryn Mawr (women’s college), Portland state (primarily adult commuter urban college), UCLA, and UWisconsin Madison.
If you’re gifted at languages and are ready to invest in learning your new language, it can easily become a strategic choice, especially if you major in Russian area studies or get into a flagship.
My S is econ grad student, tho not international studies. He feels Op’s question is broad, not knowing quite yet what more specific field the student desires. But based on the bit of info, he feels German is best, largely because of huge banking and finance in Deutschland und Schweiz. Also believes it’s true since learning the language takes less time(as touched on in post 8).
@yvoon98, I’d agree that your choice of language depends on your geographic and cultural area of interest (and also the choices offered by your school). For example, if you’re leaning toward Europe, then French or German. For Central and South America, you’re covered with Spanish, but may want to add Portuguese. For Africa, French. For the Middle East, Arabic. For Asia, Chinese.
There are other less common taught languages that are spoken by millions of people (in some cases hundreds of millions) living in some of the world’s political and economic hotspots, like Korean, Farsi, Hindi, Indonesian. Again, it depends on your interests.
If you know Spanish there’s no question French would be the easiest. (I speak that as someone who speaks French and German and studied a little Spanish one summer.) I liked German, lots of cognates with English, the grammar appealed to my mathematical mind, and while the grammar was more complicated than French I felt like there were fewer exceptions, and for me, at least, it was easier to get a good accent.
My IR son studied Arabic. He studied for four years, included an entire year in Jordan, but he’s not a natural linguist. I don’t think it helped him particularly. He’s now in the Navy - as far as I know they aren’t planning to use his Arabic knowledge, but it’s early days yet.
The OP listed the above as a parameter; s/he also listed French, German, and Russian as the options. So mentioning Arabic and Chinese is really not helpful because 1) OP did not express an interest in them and 2) even with study abroad, it is unlikely that s/he will be proficient in those languages in 4 years.
This is really the bottom line, IMO.
French easiest, German in the middle, Russian the hardest (I’ve studied all three at different times in my life). Whether any will make you more attractive to potential employers, I don’t know. Being a native Spanish speaker probably will be a bigger draw than any other language that you start learning now.
Choose the one with the culture where you feel most at home. If you learn Chinese, for example, but aren’t excited about spending time in China or hanging with Chinese, you’ll have a "useful " language you have no enthusiasm for using.
At the end of the day, speaking another language well allows you to participate in a community where it’s spoken.
To the OP. I recommend going with your interests. I learned Spanish in middle and high school, German and Russian in college. I actively used Russian most in my (academic) career. If you do want to learn Russian, I think you should begin it as soon as possible, and take advantage of possibilities for intensive exposure in summers, perhaps at Middlebury or another intensive program (Columbia, Indiana, Norwich, or others). You could become fluent if you work hard at it – 3-4 years in college, supplemented by intensive speaking opportunities.
On a degree-of-difficulty scale for you (as a native Spanish speaker), say on a 5-point scale, I would put French at 1. German at 2.5, and Russian at 4. (Chinese would be a 5+.) But in the end, it’s a question of exposure and the amount of time you give to it. Exposure could include travel and a period of study in-country (France, Germany, Russia) for summer or semester abroad.
Not necessarily true with study-abroad if one’s goal is verbal/speaking proficiency and being able to read the a newspaper.
Knew many non-heritage speakers who became fully conversant in Chinese and other East Asian languages verbally and reading well enough to read the local newspapers and some light books within 3-4 years. And most weren’t natural polyglots*.
To be fair, they did have a strong demonstrated passion to learning the language and were willing to work hard to learn it well.
- A couple who are have a nice moonlighting option of acting as translators for publishing houses and law/corporate firms.
For international business, China is the future so learn Mandarin. If you want to work for the government or State department, Russian would be valuable.
^^or better yet, Arabic.
But as mentioned earlier, neither of those two are options.