Thread: Most valuable languages

Originally Posted by Lord Toaster

5. Russian (Russia = big important country, and it's similar to other East-European and Asian languages)

I didn't include German on my list because Germany's really the only place you can speak it, and it's not really similar to any other languages (maybe dutch)

How is Russian similar to other Asian languages? Unless you mean Kazhastan (and others). I don't think you'll be able to understand anything apart from slavic languages in Asia.

About German... What about Austria and Switzerland (maby Luxemburg, I'm not sure)?

Originally Posted by Sandform

Lol i'm confused. Why did you say no? Was it just at the notion of Africa?

That's just how I wanted to begin my post.

Ah well I see.

So when do you plan on picking up Swahili?

When I plan on going somewhere that I need it =P.

I hope to take real vacations when I'm done with school, have a nice job...etc. I think the first vacation I'll take will be a (safe) exploration around South America. I don't think I ever want to go to Canada, and I pretty much assume everyone in America is more or less the same (because we have the same government though states have their own idiosyncracies.)

Then I wanna venture around Europe the next vacation...then go check out Australia the next time...and then perhaps Africa for a very short time, and then Asia.

Of course I assume that it will take me all of my life to do everything I want to do, most of it being done after my retirement. I will need to get mucho dinero =P.

But I want to travel around South America while I'm young.

Being a multilingual myself, I've come to a veredict, which I believe applies worldwide.

1. English
2. Spanish
3. Portuguese, French or Italian (only one)
4. Japanese
5. Chinese Mandarin

Of course those may vary depending on what you aim for. If you mean business, then Mandarin is surely a high one, and German joins the list. If it's for literary value, French, Spanish and Latin are important. If you're into linguistics, learning some very unique languages such as Finnish and Vietnamese is rather recommended.

Though I'll go ahead and say I dislike the idea of "valuable" language. Each language is unique and of extreme value. The correct term would be "more influential language"