Hello everyone!
I am an incoming freshman at college and wanted to take up a language. I am a pre-med student and thought it would make me more competitive if I spoke more languages and studied abroad.
Some INFO:
-I am fluent already in Spanish. I can speak it and write it.
- I was considering Portuguese or an asian language such as Chinese or Korean.
If anyone has any suggestions, please post them. Thank you!
If your desired location where you want to practice medicine has a large number of immigrants from non-English-speaking countries, you may want to consider what language is commonly spoken among such immigrants.
Portuguese is likely significantly easier for you to get to fluency and literacy than an unrelated (to Spanish or English) language like Chinese or Korean. I.e. you will need more course work in either of the latter to get to fluency and literacy than for a language that is more related to those you know.
ALSO: I plan to practice medicine in Chicago if that helps!
If you live in or near Chicago, you may want to observe what languages (besides English and Spanish) you hear spoken or see written in Chicago.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20131102/ISSUE01/131029782/what-languages-does-chicago-speak-at-home
Polish and Tagalog are two less common languages in the Chicago area. Arabic is in high demand, but you may have issues with dialects.
It also depends on what college you attend - many colleges have agreements with foreign universities, and sometimes they have intensive programs in the summer before your semester or year abroad. You might even be able to find a program that includes a pre-med volunteering element.
Are you looking to become fluent, or just get by? That’s an important question.
You can try Portuguese its more easy for people fluent in spanish.
I’ll don’t try another more dificult lenguages until know how hard is gonna be my premedic.
I’m not shure if study another lenguages make you more competitive or not, perhaps for work overseas, but here, all important hospitals have interpreter services.
On the other hand, you can check in which lenguage you can find more medical literature appart from English and Spanish,
I guess its Portuguese.
Good luck
Honestly, study a language THAT INTERESTS YOU. It’ll be more fun and you’re likely to learn it better than a language you picked because it seemed more practical/impressive to Ad Coms. And BTW, demographics change, as do foreign languages spoken in many urban areas.
Where Polish or Norwegian was spoken yesterday, today it might be Tagalog or Amharic