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The Washington Post has an article asking the question "Which languages will dominate the future?" The answer depends on your interests: making money in growth markets; speaking with as many people as possible; speaking only one language while traveling; or learning about culture. As you might imagine, the article concludes
There is no one single language of the future. Instead, language learners will increasingly have to ask themselves about their goals and own motivations before making a decision.
[...] In a recent U.K.-focused report, the British Council, a think tank, identified more than 20 growth markets and their main languages. The report features languages spoken in the so-called BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China — that are usually perceived as the world's biggest emerging economies, as well as more niche growth markets that are included in lists produced by investment bank Goldman Sachs and services firm Ernst & Young.
"Spanish and Arabic score particularly highly on this indicator," the British Council report concluded for the U.K. However, when taking into account demographic trends until 2050 as laid out by the United Nations, the result is very different.
Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and Indonesian will dominate much of the business world by 2050, followed by Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Russian. If you want to get the most money out of your language course, studying one of the languages listed above is probably a safe bet.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2015, @01:00AM
There is a lot of value in being able to speak a language but not look like you speak the language. My wife is indian born and speaks hinglish with her family, her parents barely speak english at all - just enough to run a convenience store. But she does not look indian at all and knows how to keep her mouth shut. And so she is constantly underestimated by native hindi and urdu speakers who think they can talk about their business in front of her with impunity.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2015, @01:12AM
Wow, your wife is the exact opposite of Mindy Kaling, who looks Indian and sounds like a Valley Girl.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 25 2015, @12:29PM
I had this experience all the time in Japan. My girlfriend there was Japanese-Canadian and didn't speak a lick of Japanese. I did. Japanese would often turn to her and talk about me, not realizing we were together. She'd look at them blankly and I'd reply in Japanese. The double- and triple- and quadruple-takes they did were legendary.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday September 25 2015, @06:46PM
I had a similar experience in Florida, when a couple of Hispanics were making fun of English speakers. I laughed, and said "You guys sound pretty funny, too" in Spanish. Their faces turned red and their jaws dropped.
Spanish is a very useful skill in many American places, like Florida, Texas, California, Chicago...
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron