<p>I've already taken five years of Spanish and plan on at least minoring in college, but I want to learn a third language. My local community college offers:</p>
<p>French
German
Italian
Arabic
Chinese
Polish
Japanese
Russian
Korean
Hebrew
Hindi/Urdu</p>
<p>I'm pretty much open to any of these, I was just wondering if any of y'all could provide some rationale for learning one over the other? I don't really know what my career prospects are, or whatever... but I love learning Spanish, so I thought it would be cool to learn another language.</p>
<p>Well, if you took Italian or French itād probably be easier to learn since Spanish and (some of) English come from the same general grouping, so youād be starting with a bit of a basis as opposed to the other languages where I assume youād have little to none. Besides that, the romance languages areā¦wellā¦awesome.</p>
<p>In my biased opinion, Iād say Hebrew but only because it was my first language and I absolutely love Israel. </p>
<p>Practically, either Chinese or Arabic will be most beneficial to you in a career. China is the new business super center. Arabic is highly desired in many jobs. I would definitely take one of those if youāre up for the task. Neither uses the English alphabet so itās a lot of work but it will be worth it if you can obtain fluency.</p>
<p>Iām Chinese, so yup Iām clearly biased, but Iād say definitely Chinese !! Itās pretty practical seeing how Chinaās like this huge business centre and stuff, but trust me itās lots of work cause Iāve been studying Chinese since I was born, which is like 17 years ago, and Iām still not great at it. The characters are totally different O:</p>
<p>But the culture behind it is cool and all, and each word is really a picture!! :)</p>
<p>Iāld learn an Eastern language just for the sake of diversity and since youāve already taken Spanish anyways. Iām a bit biased towards Arabic jut because I personally love the language :D</p>
<p>As you probably already know, French and Italian are Romance languages, so theyāll be the most familiar to English.</p>
<p>Arabic and Urdu have VERY similar alphabets, and you write from left to right in those languages. There are some letters which make sounds which arenāt in the English language, so these languages could be a bit hard to pronounce.</p>
<p>From what Iāve heard, Chinese is the hardest language to learn (at least for English speakers) due to all the characters and tones.
[quote]
Mandarin Chinese has four tones (simplified Chinese: 声č°; traditional Chinese: č²čŖæ; pinyin: shÄngdi</p>
<p>Japanese and Korean donāt have tones. I would say Korean would be the most fun language to learn. It is very logical (the alphabet is so easy to learn. You can definitely learn it in one weekend if you find the right sites. I can recommend some free ones if you want) And kpop is pretty good and different from American. Everybody can dance</p>
<p>On a side note, can anybody recommend some sites to learn Mandarin? Hopefully free? :D</p>
<p>Though Chinese is probably the best choice overall, I wouldnāt recommend it unless you already had some background in it because youāre not going to learn enough to be helpful in college. Pick a related language like French where youāll become proficient quickly and know 2 languages well, rather than 1 well and 1 at a very very very basic level.</p>
<p>French or Italian would be easiest, as they are most similar to English and Spanish.</p>
<p>Practically/Career speaking, Arabic or Chinese would be best, as they are really in demand and give you an edge especially in the business world.</p>
<p>Iām trying to choose between Arabic and Chinese to learnā¦ which one do you think I should learn? I love learning languages in general, and Iām thinking about going into something political, specifically international relations.</p>
<p>For looking good on your college app or just for fun?
For the app, pick the language that makes sense to your possible academic and future interests- I know you said you donāt know. But, eg, French, Italian or German are helpful for scholarly research. Arabic for international rels, Chinese for business- but you wonāt learn enough in the latter two to use them professionally unless you become quite proficient. That said, one of my kids did Arabic and Chinese for several years and loved both.</p>
<p>Iād honestly recommend Hindi or Chinese. India and China are booming, especially in tech-related fields. They are replacing the US as the center of a lot of things. Knowing either one of those will be beneficial if you ever plan on going there.</p>
<p>Learning Hindi is pointless. Any educated Indian, in any situation where he/she is involved in anything multinational, will speak English. And more likely than not, he/she wonāt even speak Hindi. Only about 40% of Indians speak Hindi. Learn Mandarin.</p>
<p>Chinese should be your first choice (by HUGE MARGIN!) ā¦</p>
<p>If not , then Arabic probably? If you want to work in energy sector , or you are planning to go to middle-east ā¦then learn Arabicā¦it will come pretty handy! Remember , doing job in Middle-East means ALOTTT of money! ā¦</p>
<p>So I donāt know what your future plans areā¦but take Chinese or Arabic , I would say.</p>
<p>Donāt make this choice thinking youāll be fluent enought to conduct professional business, dealing with management or clients in their language or reading/writing high level documents. Thatās a whole different level of vocab and savvy than youāll get in the usual college courses. A large part of business will be conducted in English.</p>
<p>I definaetly agree. Conversational level ability is useless as far as working and doing business in china. You have to be able to understand specific technical terms and unless you put forward a tremendous amount of work, or you are a native speaker, hoping to pick up a language in 3-4 years for buisness use is folly.</p>