Which languages to learn

But how do you decide which languages are the most useful to learn? With the new Rosetta Stone Unlimited you can also try out the languages that interest you.

Unlimited gives you access to all the 24 languages we teach in one account. Get Rosetta Stone Unlimited and Get 24 languages in one.

Chinese and Spanish have that honor. But in 55 countries, English is the most commonly spoken second language , so it makes sense to speak English if you plan to live or study abroad.

With more than 1 billion native speakers , Chinese dominates Asia and the world as the most frequently spoken language. But keep in mind that Chinese includes ten Sinitic languages like Mandarin and Cantonese.

The most widely spoken second language in the United States is Spanish. Standard Arabic is the written language in many countries where various Arabic dialects are spoken. Academic Experience. UoPeople Difference. Online Learning at UoPeople. Global Network. Career Development. Life After Graduation. Student Life. Program Advising. Virtual Tour. Transfer Credits. English Proficiency. How to Apply. Prepare for University.

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In Brief. Fact Sheet. President's Council. Board of Trustees. Our Academic Team. Academic Partners. UN Partners. Corporate Partners. Foundation Partners. Worldwide Recognition. UoPeople in the Media. Contact Us. Number Of Speakers Unsurprisingly, it is very important to know how many speakers there are of a language before you set your heart on learning it.

Geographic Region This is where your goals and interests come into play. Usability And Versatility When choosing a language, you may want to look at versatility. Career Opportunities Think of your current or future field, and location of business. Mandarin Chinese With over one billion Mandarin Chinese speakers in the world, of course it tops the list of most important languages to learn in Spanish Spanish has a large number of native speakers, and a large number of overall speakers as well.

French French, also called the language of love, was actually the international, diplomatic language for centuries. Photo by Chris Karidis on Unsplash 5. Arabic Arabic started as a nomadic language, spoken between moving tribes. Russian Russian is an extremely influential language among many Eastern European and Europeasian countries. Portuguese Portuguese is spoken all over the world — it is the official language of countries in Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa.

Hindi With some of the highest numbers of speakers in the world, Hindi is one of the most important languages to learn without a doubt. Photo by Braden Collum on Unsplash English English is one definitely one of the most important languages to learn in and beyond. Korean The Korean language is an interesting one to learn, as its characters are phonological: the shapes are similar to the shape of your mouth as you make the sound. However, Chinese grammar is relatively straightforward, compared to European languages.

Other languages present you with even more challenges. For example, some indigenous languages of the Americas have extremely compex phonology and syntax, small speaker communities and limited materials and resources to help you learn them. Navajo, for example, has no regular verbs at all. Some African languges use sounds, such as clicks, ejectives and ingressives that are difficult to pronunce and distinguish for each other. Xhosa , for example, has 64 different consonants, 18 of which are clicks.

Even pronuncing the name of the language is a challenge. The language with the most complex spelling system is probably Tibetan, which uses many letters that are not pronounced, and which indicate historical spellings.

The list below gives you an idea of which languages are in demand and is based on job ads posted on recruitment sites. You can find links to the recruitment sites on the Careers using languages page. Books on how to learn languages Language courses, dictionaries, etc.