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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) by goodie on Sunday September 27 2015, @02:14AM
In 1982, my grandma took a trip there. She learnt Mandarin, and went on a 3 week organized trip. This was 1982, not something as easy as it is today. And she was in her early sixties. I'm always impressed by her achievements regarding this. Anyway more to the point. She showed me a few months ago her pictures from that trip after she found her albums and I swear I wish I would turn back time to see it then. It looked like the exotic, hospitable country that I imagined back when I was growing up and got interested in Asian cultures. It looked like old martial arts movies where people sit at a large round table, eat and drink tea, play games etc. But now they're running so quick to destroy all that that what took thousands of years to build and cultivate will be gone within a century or so at this pace... I find it very sad.
I have a coworker who's mother in law came to visit Canada once and she would spend 20 min washing vegetables before every meal and using boiled water to do it. The guy had to tell her, every time, that vegetables and water were a lot cleaner here. And yet I'm not sure I love our veggies that much here ;).
(Score: 2) by goodie on Sunday September 27 2015, @02:16AM
Oh and the lanscapes on those pictures... She took a cruise along the Yangtze river and the pictures were breathtaking. Now you're lucky if you can see the sky in Shanghai apparently...