<p>I want to take a language in college that will be useful to me. I am strongly considering the pre-med route.
I took French in 7th grade, 9th-11th, but not in 12th, as there was a schedule conflict. So, I was up to 3rd year French, but have not studied it for a year.
I could pick that up again - would it be worth it? Or perhaps Latin, for the medical field? Chinese, Arabic, for the usefulness?</p>
<p>Any opinions? :-)
Sorry if this is in the wrong place!</p>
<p>Browse job listings at federal agencies and see what they are looking for. Pick one of those languages.</p>
<p>Well, if your college offers placement tests, I don’t think it would hurt to take the French one. Then, if you don’t do so hot, you could consider taking another language.
Latin is the root for all the Romance languages, so that would be easier than taking Chinese or Arabic.</p>
<p>Spanish is useful for pretty much every job in the US it seems, especially in medicene. If you want to go to school in Puerto Rico you have to speak spanish…so if you run out of options keep that in mind I guess.</p>
<p>I know government wants Chinese, Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, Turkish, and Russian or Ukrainian that I can think of right now…</p>
<p>Spanish
not Italian.</p>
<p>Chinese and arabic would be great if u are thinking about business overseas or government. as for the us those two would still be great but spanish might be more useful</p>
<p>Well, I’m a little biased because I speak Mandarin and Arabic, so I say go with those two.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Still sour over your tough Italian classes? :)</p>
<p>Italian
not Spanish.</p>
<p>Italian isn’t tough, just impractical. I’ve studied Italian for 7 years and while my accent isn’t perfect, I’m pretty fluent. I plan to study abroad in Italy, but the classes are in English and the Venetians have their own dialect, so my Italian skills won’t be useful there. I wish I had studied Spanish because it would be a handy skill for a doctor to have, especially here in NY with so many Hispanic immigrants. Italian is a beautiful language, but unless you’re moving to Italy or southern Switzerland, I think Spanish is the better choice.</p>
<p>What language(s) are the best for reading medical/biological journals that aren’t translated into English? (Would Italian or German be useful?)</p>
<p>Hindi?</p>
<p>There’s a lot of medical research done in India these days. But I’m pretty sure Hindi is difficult to find in colleges. I imagine your choice of colleges would be limited.</p>
<p>The CIA is currently hiring non-Romance languages. So if you want another job route if your main goal doesn’t pan out, German, Slavic Languages (Russian, Romanian, etc), Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Arabic can be really useful.</p>
<p>You have to watch out too, because at a lot of schools, they might only do elementary for some of the more obscure stuff like Arabic, so you won’t be able to really get a good working use of the language from that class.</p>
<p>Lol, deja vu.</p>
<p>I actually made a chart about which languages would be the most practical:</p>
<p><a href=“ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs”>ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs;
<p>…the first four columns have to do with these languages’ Wikipedias. In other words, their intellectual depth, as well as their prominence in terms of global Internet usage. The other three columns are self-explanatory.</p>
<p>In all columns, the higher up, the better.</p>
<p>The calculations at the end average their overall scores. The highest are the best, and the lowest are the worst. Keep in mind that this is skewed by non-economic/financial factors (i.e., intellectuality). If you’re concerned solely with GDP (and thus global prominence), just stick to the two relevant columns.</p>
<p>Of course, Japanese and Chinese are much harder for a native English speaker than the European languages. And if you’re more interested in Africa, your current language of French would make more sense, and, of course, go with Spanish if you’re more interested in South America.</p>
<p>As for your particular case of the medical field, Latin also might be useful. I didn’t include it in the chart, because it doesn’t really apply to the criteria, but it’s still a possibility that you might want to consider.</p>
<p>Very nice chart. :)</p>
<p>Spanish seems it would be a very useful language… although sticking with French and perhaps doing something with Africa would be quite neat.
I think I have narrowed it down to Spanish, French, or Latin.
Chinese would be a fantastic language to learn, but I doubt it would be useful to me and would be quite difficult to learn. I wouldn’t mind the difficulty if I felt it would be useful in a medical field…</p>
<p>Hindi would be good, but fortunately just about everyone who speaks Hindi also speaks English. No worries there.</p>
<p>I would say go for Mandarin.</p>
<p>Spanish would be good for talking to patients in the U.S., but Latin would be more useful for roots and medical vocabulary. In addition, Latin classes often don’t fill up, so its classes are smaller.</p>
<p>This is true about Latin, but I think I would rather learn a language I can use to communicate with others. : )
So, that means probably French or Spanish. I am leaning towards French, as I have a background in it already and I think it could be useful? [Africa, Canada, France?]</p>
<p>I would try and take a foreign language that enriches my education, not one that is just convenient. Doctors should have an understanding of Latin. Those who aren’t going to become doctors or lawyers should try and take a foreign language that will help them study abroad or something. If you love international relations, study the language of a country that interests you.</p>
<p>No, doctors shouldn’t necessarily have an understanding of Latin. Doctors should be able to communicate with their patients, and they should be able to understand that the drugs they prescribe can have unintended consequences. Finally, they should understand that surgeries are not always the answer, even when they are clearly more profitable. I don’t think Latin courses teach any of that.</p>
<p>So it’s best to pick something that’s interesting because learning a language is so difficult, no matter which one it is.</p>
