Useful languages

[sarahg]

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What are the most useful languages for health professionals to learn, besides the obvious English and Spanish? Obviously it depends not just on the number of speakers of a language, but also on how many of those speakers don't speak English (most of the Japanese speakers and nearly all the speakers of French/German/Dutch/Portugese/Italian/Hindi/Arabic I've met speak fluent English). Which languages do you think there is the most need for in different regions of the US? (Hawaii, west coast, east coast, etc)

I'd like to pick up a fourth language (after English, Spanish, French) and I'm deciding between Mandarin, Tagalog, and Japanese, but open to other suggestions.

 

[MsKrispyKreme]

Esperanto

 

[sarahl86]

American Sign Language! But, that's my personal bias.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Definitely pick up some Chinese if you're gonna be living on the west coast. Lots in Seattle, Nor Cal, and So Cal.

 

[NickNaylor]

Arabic, duh.

 

[physcigirl27]

i'm an arabic minor and i LOVE it.
I dunno how useful it'd be in a healthcare setting, but I remember when I was interning with a pretty well known newspaper they were telling me how they were desperately looking for someone that knew arabic and that there weren't enough people that could speak it.

plus it's so cool!

 

[rabidpanda13]

Latin

 

[Ashers]

As I told people in the middle of nowhere Missouri when I was asked, "What language do you speak in Hawaii?" "Spanish."

Spanish is useful everywhere. Hawai'i specific though, when I worked there as a phlebotomist, I did have a few Tagalog and/or Ilokano only speaking patients.

Esperanto

I was totally going to say this.

 

[MsKrispyKreme]

I was totally going to say this.

Soulmates, we are? 😳

 

[SB25]

This one may sound a little odd, but definitely Hmong. We have a huge Hmong population here in the upper midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota), and many in the older generation do not speak English or rely on their children/grandchildren to translate for them. There's a need for Hmong translators in hospitals here.

 

[Ashers]

Soulmates, we are? 😳

Totally. 😀

So being in med school in WI. I've had 1 Hmong patient that couldn't speak English, and I easily used the blue phones. I've had countless Spanish speaking patients that couldn't speak English, and I'm able to speak with them.

 

[Zona Pellucida]

Depends where you see yourself practicing.

Where I live, other than English speakers, we have a large community of Italians, Hispanics and Turks.

 

[SB25]

Totally. 😀

So being in med school in WI. I've had 1 Hmong patient that couldn't speak English, and I easily used the blue phones. I've had countless Spanish speaking patients that couldn't speak English, and I'm able to speak with them.

Really? Only one? Just during my shadowing hours I've come across 3 Hmong patients that had to come with family members to translate for them. Maybe Milwaukee doesn't have as high of a Hmong population as the Wausau/Eau Claire region?

 

[jinx520]

Either Klingon or Elvish.

Seriously, though, I'd have to second ASL.

Although, my cousin did tell me that in her state they were looking for psychologists/counselors who were fluent in Klingon. True story.

 

[deleted202457]

I'd go with Mandarin because most other ppl you come in contact with will probably know either english or spanish (depending upon your location of course)

 

[Chemdude]

Simple English: English with all the useless jargon taken out

"Me is Hungry", "Me is Thirsty", "Let's make baby", etc.

 

[SB25]

Either Klingon or Elvish...

Oh my gosh! I just found out that Madison offers a course in Elvish because some ancient languages professor did some research and extended whatever words they had come up with for the movie/book/or whatever. Sounds like a fun time for you Lord of the Rings lovers out there...

 

[easyrock]

Mandarin or Cantonese hands down. Tagalog would be useful as well since Filipinos are everywhere, however, they are well versed in English. This is rarely the case with previous generations of Mandarin or Cantonese speaking people.

I speak Spanish, Mandarin and Tagalog. After living in CA and NC with several other places sprinkled inbetween, I found Mandarin and Spanish to be indispensable. As for Tagalog, it is almost a useless language (for your purposes) since every Filipino knows english save a small %. Unless you plan on pounding a few San Migs with the locals in Manila or would like to really impress some filipino patients I wouldn't prioritize it.

Good luck with whatever you choose. Learning new languages can be fun. I'm working on German at the moment.

 

[sarahg]

Although, my cousin did tell me that in her state they were looking for psychologists/counselors who were fluent in Klingon. True story.

I guess if you're taught Klingon as your first language, you probably will need a psychologist at some point...

 

[LizzyM]

I'd go with American Sign Language. Regardless of geographic region, you are going to have non-English speaking patients who communicate using ASL. We had a long thread awhile back following a successful federal case against a physician who refused to provide a sign language interpreter for a serious ill woman who requested one.

 

[RedState]

I'd go with American Sign Language. Regardless of geographic region, you are going to have non-English speaking patients who communicate using ASL. We had a long thread awhile back following a successful federal case against a physician who refused to provide a sign language interpreter for a serious ill woman who requested one.

I agree. let's accomodate those who need it and push for others to learn English.

 

[NotAndrew]

Considering the fact that English and Spanish are the only languages spoken by more 1% of the US population, learning any language other than these is a waste of time. American sign language might be useful, however most deaf people are able to write English. French would be useful if you plan on working abroad.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

I'd go with American Sign Language. Regardless of geographic region, you are going to have non-English speaking patients who communicate using ASL. We had a long thread awhile back following a successful federal case against a physician who refused to provide a sign language interpreter for a serious ill woman who requested one.

I remember that one. That was ridiculous.

 

[ODorDO]

I'd like to pick up a fourth language (after English, Spanish, French) and I'm deciding between Mandarin, Tagalog, and Japanese, but open to other suggestions.

I would choose mandarin bcos that pretty much covers Japanese and some Korean.

 

[sarahl86]

I'd go with American Sign Language. Regardless of geographic region, you are going to have non-English speaking patients who communicate using ASL. We had a long thread awhile back following a successful federal case against a physician who refused to provide a sign language interpreter for a serious ill woman who requested one.

If I had found more adcoms that felt this way at the schools I applied to this year, maybe I'd have an acceptance by now 🙂

Considering the fact that English and Spanish are the only languages spoken by more 1% of the US population, learning any language other than these is a waste of time. American sign language might be useful, however most deaf people are able to write English. French would be useful if you plan on working abroad.

Deaf people can write English (but to be more accurate, a garbled sentence in ASL structure using English words) - I think anyone who spent enough time in an English-speaking country could mimic the characters and write down what they look like, but that hardly means they comprehend it. I spend all day working with Deaf people to whom I can sign "What is your mother's maiden name" and they will understand, but if I write it down they stare at me like I have two heads. They'll only ask me to sign it to them anyway, given the choice.

 

[ProteinChemist]

Latin

Represent!

 

[binko]

I would choose mandarin bcos that pretty much covers Japanese and some Korean.

WTF? I don't know Mandarin or Korean, but I do know that Japanese is a completely independent language from any Chinese dialect, with different pronunciation and even the borrowed symbols (kanji) from Chinese are pronounced differently and have different meaning in Japanese.

I have a strong suspicion that Korean is vastly different from Mandarin as well.

 

[BlueElmo]

I would choose mandarin bcos that pretty much covers Japanese and some Korean.

Wow, Mandarin and Japanese and Korean are three totally separate languages. What you posted is an utter garbage.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

I would choose mandarin bcos that pretty much covers Japanese and some Korean.

I guess if you're talking about writing, old korean and japanese writing is pretty much chinese. But that's not useful at all. Korean and Japanese are completely different from Chinese. Even the hundreds of dialects within Chinese, most of them sound completely different from one another.

 

[easyrock]

I would choose mandarin bcos that pretty much covers Japanese and some Korean.

You have got to be kidding me...

 

[JeetKuneDo]

You have got to be kidding me...

Reminds me of that King of the Hill episode when Hank asks Minh if he's Chinese or Japanese and Minh says he's from Laos.

 

[ODorDO]

wow wow.... so much hatred over one night!

excuse me for not making myself clear earlier, what i was trying to say was that by learning mandarin first would give you a pretty solid foundation of 2 other asian languages. I heard this from my Japanese professor, and i think it's definitely true. Majority of my classmates in japn class were native chinese speakers and they were able to ace the class without trying (not just kanji, grammar and pronunciation too). I understand these three languages sound distinct from each other, but i strongly believe learning mandarin first for me did help.

and yes take my previous post as garbage

 

[BlueElmo]

wow wow.... so much hatred over one night!

excuse me for not making myself clear earlier, what i was trying to say was that by learning mandarin first would give you a pretty solid foundation of 2 other asian languages (japn and some korn). I heard this from my Japanese professor, and i think it's definitely true. Majority of my classmates in japn class were native chinese speakers and they were able to ace the class without trying.

and yes take my last post as garbage

japn and some korn? korn?! WTF. Seriously, you got to be kidding me.

 

[Element]

Russian anyone?



Russian fairytales by far the best class I have ever taken.

 

[Perrotfish]

Once you're fluent in Spanish, I've always been told that the next most in demand language for hospital personel is vietnamase. As you said, it's not just how many people speak the language, but also how many of those people also speak English and how many translators are usually available on the hospital staff. Vietnamese immigrants tend to not no English and often there isn't anyone who speaks the language in the hospital. Chinese speakers generally know english and, failing that, you'll probably have at least one doc in the hospital that speaks the language. Sign language was also an interesting option.

Also you need to take into account how easy the language is to learn. You can get pretty fluent in Spanish in 6 months in an immersion program. Haitian Creole is so simple (I'm told, haven't studied it) that you might be able to learn in 3. Learning to translate Japanese, though, is a profession rather than a hobby. Most people I know who are even intelligable in Japanese lived in Japan for at LEAST a year, and that was after a full college education in Japanese. Chinese is better, but still pretty danged bad if you want to really translate rather than just repeating memorized constructions for phrases and sentences (danged tonal languages. Xie xie to whatever @sshole thought that up).

 

[Kickback]

Russian anyone?

It can be. In St. Louis and Chicago there are huge Russian/Slavic populations.

They had this conversation over in the MD/PhD forum as well.

I would put a vote in for object-oriented programming languages (Java, C++, etc)