What Language to Learn?

[Ramor]

I want to learn a new language but I don't know which one to learn. Plenty of choices but I'm hoping to pick one up that would end up being useful at some point in my life. I'm mostly between Arabic, Chinese and then one of the romance languages (probably french). I'm not sure which language would end up being most useful later in life though. I'm an engineer so being fluent in both arabic and english would be a big help, but I can also see chinese being just as useful.

Any thoughts or opinions on what language would be useful or maybe which one might end up being easier? I've only done latin before in HS/college so picking up a romance language wouldn't be so bad, although I'm a bit concerned about learning a character-based language rather than an alphabet based one. Will a character based language be much harder to learn or is it just a different type of learning?

Also if anyone has any good ideas on ways to practice what I've learned that'd be good information too!

[Conformity]

Mandarin-Chinese for profitability

Persian-Farsi for being a true pimp and to be able to talk to the hottest women on the planet

[Ratatapa]

French Spanish and Chineese would be it imo

[Meat]

american sign language

[SephYuyX]

ASL or Japanese.

[Blabj]

C++

[Ramor]

I might try and pick up ASL in my spare time, with that I know I can at least spell things out when I don't know a word not to mention I know all of the grammatical structure (or at least I'd imagine it's extremely similar)

[Omnipotent]

Seeing how we are owned by the Chinese.... chinese.

Seeing how spanish is practically more dominant than english in the U.S now....spanish.


Personal opinion

[Woozie]

I might try and pick up ASL in my spare time, with that I know I can at least spell things out when I don't know a word not to mention I know all of the grammatical structure (or at least I'd imagine it's extremely similar)

Deaf people hate when you finger spell everything. That's only useful for proper nouns. Otherwise they may not even understand you. So don't think that just because you can spell things means you can actually communicate with the Deaf using signs.

And when you say the grammar structure is similar, what do you mean it's similar to? It's closer to French than English.

Also, you should pick up ASL, because that way you can take my exams for me so that I don't have to learn it. I hate languages. If math is the universal language, why am I required to take another one?

Edit: But seriously, the Spanish-speaking population is growing like crazy. I'd pick Spanish or ASL. I don't know what languages an engineer would use at work.

[Demosthenes11]

chinese is actually not too difficult and with computers now, you don't even need to know how to write it with the way typing chinese works

[Atreides]

unless you're taking professional classes or going to a university to study, you probably won't make much progress learning Chinese on your own. Chinese grammar is actually relatively simple, so once you get past the tones learning to speak is pretty easy. Writing is another matter, lol

edit: in terms of languages the government/CIA/military would consider useful though: Chinese, Arabic, and Farsi are pretty high on the list. Hindi/Urdu, Korean, and Russian are a close 2nd. Other than that French or German, Spanish, and Portuguese (Brazilian, not continental) would be good as well.

[Julian]

Ruby

[thetruepandagod]

farsi is damn good

[Suited Aces]

I work for an interpreting agency, and our second biggest pet peeve is hearing people say Chinese when asking for a language (the first is it being called translation). You would want to learn Mandarin or Cantonese, those are the most used dialects.

I terms of usefulness, learn Spanish. I'd say 75% of our business is Spanish. Then followed by Vietnamese and Arabic. Recently Haitian Creole has jumped too, but that won't last. Then stuff like Russian, Indonesian and Portuguese.

[Dareus]

Russian is a fun language. It can be pretty challenging at times, but the government offers a ton of scholarships if you are currently a student. A friend of mine is going to Russia for a year to become "fluent" but has to work for the CIA when she gets back for 3 years. Free trip to Russia+secure government job? Yes please! I'm sure similar things are out there for Chinese and Farsi.

[Deadgye]

Japanese, then Latin, then German(or Russian maybeh)!

That's my plan at least.

[Weiing]

With how things are going internationally speaking, I'd say Chinese/Mandarin would be a smart move. I'm also thinking about picking up ASL and French. hmmmmm. I'd agree perhaps FArsi too.

[Mayareira]

French is easier to learn after english.

[Rhyis.]

Klingon.

Somebody had to do it.

[Demosthenes11]

Japanese, then Latin, then German(or Russian maybeh)!

That's my plan at least.

thanks for pointing yourself out as a douchebag so i dont have to sift through your posts instead