Which languages are most useful?

[iampurestyle]

What languages, *other than* French or Spanish, are the most useful to know?

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[mercaptovizadeh]

It depends on your interests. If it is communication, then all of the ones you've listed. To that I would add Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and possibly Indonesian, Korean, Turkish, Farsi, and Tamil.

If you are interested in literature/humanities, then maybe add to the above, Latin, classical Hebrew, ancient Greek, Sanskrit, and Dutch.

 

[nicholonious]

Maybe because I'm from California, but I would definately add "spanish" to the list. It's definately very important to know where I live.

Also, French used to be the most widely used internation language (before English).

 

[MWillie]

Maybe because I'm from California, but I would definately add "spanish" to the list. It's definately very important to know where I live.

Also, French used to be the most widely used internation language (before English).

I think he specifically precluded those two languages from the list.

 

[iampurestyle]

Yea, those are all great languages. In what order should I learn them? I already know French and Spanish and I am looking to learn 2 more by the time I apply for med school...which ones>? prolly Chinese and arabic right?

 

[tacrum43]

What languages, other than French or Spanish, are the most useful to know?

I would say sign language. Did you know it's the third most spoken language in the U.S. after Spanish?

 

[nicholonious]

I think he specifically precluded those two languages from the list.

My bad, that's what I get for not reading thoroughly. I got zinged!

 

[Iwy Em Hotep]

What languages, other than French or Spanish, are the most useful to know?

ASL. Used by up to 2m (depending on who you believe) people in the US.

[edit] Someone beat me to it!

 

[ishaninatte]

It's certainly not Japanese...

 

[Megalofyia]

I would say sign language. Did you know it's the third most spoken language in the U.S. after Spanish?

Damn you.. that's what I was gonna say.

 

[Megalofyia]

ASL. Used by up to 2m (depending on who you believe) people in the US.

[edit] Someone beat me to it!

The "depending on who you believe" would probably take into account those who can hear but use ASL as their means of communications. ie people who are autistic, downs syndrom, have speech impediments, developmental delays etc..
Overall it is actually quite a usefull langauge. For me I have noticed it's best used in loud bars where yelling is just a pain.

 

[stoleyerscrubz]

You may want to consider the demographics of the communities you may plan to work in or what communities your med school(s) do their rotations.

Maybe you could perfect the languages you know and add sign language.

 

[Doc.Holliday]

Yea, those are all great languages. In what order should I learn them? I already know French and Spanish and I am looking to learn 2 more by the time I apply for med school...which ones>? prolly Chinese and arabic right?

chinese first... but ummm, do you really know french and spanish all that well? if your not really fluent i feel your time would be better spent mastering those than starting a new one. If you dont plan on visiting and or taking an intensive language course, you can just about forget really learning them before med school, arabic especially.


but goodluck, you sound like me, it took me a long time to convince myself not to attempt to learn german (well actually there were countless others telling me not to also), so now i'll just be studying spanish, french and chinese (what a coincidence).

 

[stoleyerscrubz]

I was thinking to add a language to the french and spanish I already know. I actually learned a little russian and purchased some books and CDs and my fiance is from Russia but in the end I decided to be more fluent in spanish and french and save the russian for another year. Luckily I'm volunteering in a hospital that serves a spanish and french speaking community.

so now i'll just be studying spanish, french and chinese (what a coincidence).

 

[fpr85]

I would say sign language. Did you know it's the third most spoken language in the U.S. after Spanish?

Wow that's news to me, I didn't know you could speak sign language.

 

[stoleyerscrubz]

Wow that's news to me, I didn't know you could speak sign language.

seems like you can.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=speak

"3 a : to express feelings by other than verbal means <actions speak louder than words> "

 

[fpr85]

I would say Italian because it can help you with your Spanish and French if you're not already fluent.

 

[tacrum43]

Wow that's news to me, I didn't know you could speak sign language.

Yes, way to make the obvious asinine comment there.

Damn you.. that's what I was gonna say.

It's not a contest. But if it were, my mighty echidna just beat out your creepy-a$$ bunny rabbit.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

I reread your post. It seems that you are interested in language for communication purposes, and especially off the list you made. In that case, I would say, focus first on becoming fluent in Spanish and French.

If you already are, I would say you should then study Portuguese. Italian is a lovely language, but is spoken practically only in Italy. Portuguese is spoken in Brazil, and may be more relevant to your medical interests. Plus, if you already know two Romance languages, Portuguese will be easier, and it will help hammer down the other two.

Otherwise, I would say Chinese, but Chinese is such an extremely difficult language that I would say it is probably best to stick to an Indo-European language (and a Romance one at that), for now. As you pick up more European languages, you will be better equipped for learning the more complex and "different" languages of Asia.

Of the other languages you listed, German is of little use for communication (except in Germany and Eastern Europe), but is incredibly useful for the study of the humanities and some sciences (philosophy, chemistry, physics, math, theology, etc.). Japanese is difficult and is probably not too useful outside of Japan and you would need it more likely for business than for medicine. Arabic is a useful language for a doctor, but is difficult, so I would leave it for later.

 

[JimiThing]

Not to bash the cheese eating surrender monkeys, and maybe I missed something, but why are we assuming it's at all useful to know French? French-Canadians?

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Not to bash the cheese eating surrender monkeys, and maybe I missed something, but why are we assuming it's at all useful to know French? French-Canadians?

French is certainly not as important as Chinese, Spanish, Russian, or Arabic, but it seems that some people speak it as a second language in Africa and the Middle Easte. Yes, and there's also the French Canadians and the Haitians.

 

[stoleyerscrubz]

First you have the nations where the language originated from and then many countries that have a history of colonialization speak english, spanish, or french so they are very useful as many immigrants are from these nations.

Most germans speak english extremely well because they start learning it in school at an early age so I would probably nix the german and I am thinking the japanese as well for the same reason.

 

[UT_mikie]

You can say Chinese is probably the most useful out of those but good luck learning it (unless your parents speak Kitchen Chinese to you at home).

Chinese is completely unrelated to English so taking a few classes in it for 1 or 2 years will not get you very far.

And I have a gripe at people who take 2 years of college level language (and not studying abroad in that country) and go running around saying they are fluent in it. You don't know anything after two years, unless you have a talent for languages (and the requisite for being talented is already knowing at least 4, typically Eastern Europeans).

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

You can say Chinese is probably the most useful out of those but good luck learning it (unless your parents speak Kitchen Chinese to you at home).

Chinese is completely unrelated to English so taking a few classes in it for 1 or 2 years will not get you very far.

And I have a gripe at people who take 2 years of college level language (and not studying abroad in that country) and go running around saying they are fluent in it. You don't know anything after two years, unless you have a talent for languages (and the requisite for being talented is already knowing at least 4, typically Eastern Europeans).

That's why I think dabbling in Chinese is a complete waste of time.

Yeah, the last point is interesting. At my school, there are two Eastern-European girls who are like that and are really into linguistics. One is fluent in Serbo-Croatian, English, French, German, Spanish, and Arabic. She speaks the native language, English, German, and Spanish entirely without an accent. The other is fluent in Polish, French, Spanish, English, Russian, and Arabic. One of the reasons for this, in my opinion, is that Slavic languages are among the hardest of the Indo-European languages, and if you know one and English very well, you pretty much will have the grammatical experience (with cases, especially) and sound systems necessary to tackle most other European languages and even some non-European ones.

 

[drmanyee999]

Indeed French Canadians speak French, however, for those of you who know Parisien French, Canadian French is quite different (Different vocab, pronunciation etc).

I would agree with what's been said about Chinese also. It's very useful, but difficult if you have no familiarity with it, especially the oral side of things. If you really want to learn Chinese, however, I would suggest Mandarin. Apart from the fact that it's the lingua franca of China, it's also way easier than Cantonese (fewer tones, uses simplified rather than traditional writing).

Just my $0.02

 

[Iwy Em Hotep]

Not to bash the cheese eating surrender monkeys, and maybe I missed something, but why are we assuming it's at all useful to know French? French-Canadians?

Women love French.

But seriously, for breadth of knowledge, I would agree with the poster who suggested a difficult Indo-European language. Sanskrit is a good academic exercise. If you want an Asian language, I'd say the two easiest ones to learn are Vietnamese and Korean.

 

[TravisP]

Germany has the second biggest economy in the world. I would say german is far more important then Spanish. Why are you guys learning Spanish for Mexicans and so forth, shouldnt they learn English?

 

[DianaLynne]

I just finished taking fourth semester Spanish and while I know lots of words and am reading the Harry Potter books in espanol, I am by no means fluent. Dammit! In the ICU where I work, nurses will ask me to come translate and it's a shaky proposition at best.

Next summer I'm going to live in South America til I really get a hang of it. Then, I wanna learn French!

 

[OwnageMobile]

How :raises hand:,

I love learning languages because its like being a jedi; they are mental tools/abilities that you can't misplace. You can mac on girlies or eaves drop on people who think they are being clandestine while they talk ****. To see the expression of mexican mother who brought her sick kid into the my peds office as I greet and speak to her in her native tongue, is priceless. You get a sense of sympathy when you spend time abroad where you struggle to exchange ideas and information. It is a very frustrating position to be in, and to be able to comfort and understand someone who is in need yet has poor english skills( or none at all), is something that I will work intensly for again as I did in Honduras.

I plan to take 2 years off between my ME(BS) degree and my MD degree. This is mainly so I can study a bit of Mandrin and then go to china and hit it hard- not to mention return to a Spanish country to brush back up( in dire need).

It's often said that learning your second foreign language is much easier than your first. So to the author of this thread I say go for it and don't look back. Nick Hexum once quoted 'F*ck the nay sayers 'caus they don't mean a thing,' which I believe applies here more than ever. Chinese may be different and difficult, but how cool is Chinese! I'll be there in a year or so, hit me up.

Nage

P.s. I didn't quote 311 in my MCAT essays.

Edit- Travis, in 2020 something projected like ~50% of speakers will be native spanish speakers. You can say that they should learn OUR language, but that is not going to help you. German is an awesome language, but good luck practicing it here.

 

[wanderso]

I think if you have French, German, Manderin, Spanish and English you can pretty much communicate anywhere. French for the middle east, Africa, Europe,. . . German for Northern/Easter Europe, Manderin for China and many of the East Asian countries and of course Spanish.

 

[Doc.Holliday]

That's why I think dabbling in Chinese is a complete waste of time.

it really depends on the person. if you pick up on the pronunciations quickly, its really an easy language to learn, a lot easier than european langauges in my opinion.

 

[USCTex]

Germany has the second biggest economy in the world. I would say german is far more important then Spanish. Why are you guys learning Spanish for Mexicans and so forth, shouldnt they learn English?

This is a joke right?

Japan is easily the world's second largest economy. As well, as one of the world's fastest growing economies, China is going to overtake Germany, and any other european states ahead of it, in the next decade.

I think your post was a joke but, to continue, it is unlikely that all spanish speaking immigrants who are making up a growing percentage of America's populace will learn to speak english and since providing the best care for them requires good communication then Spanish is an important trait, especially if you're serving as a med student or resident in areas with high immigration...

This post was probably all for naught since your OP was probably a joke.

 

[Geronimo]

This is a joke right?

Japan is easily the world's second largest economy. As well, as one of the world's fastest growing economies, China is going to overtake Germany, and any other european states ahead of it, in the next decade.

I think your post was a joke but, to continue, it is unlikely that all spanish speaking immigrants who are making up a growing percentage of America's populace will learn to speak english and since providing the best care for them requires good communication then Spanish is an important trait, especially if you're serving as a med student or resident in areas with high immigration...

This post was probably all for naught since your OP was probably a joke.

Yeah, the OP dropped the ball saying that we should exclude Spanish and French. Spanish is just so obvious, I guess. Didn't our last count show we now have more hispanics than blacks, even though not all hispanics speak Spanish. A large majority of them do though. Spanish is just obviously necessary.

 

[lulubean]

don't forget farsi or arabic!

 

[UT_mikie]

When I studied abroad I met this Uzek girl who was fluent in Russian, Japanese, Arabic, Uzbekistanian, English, Spanish etc. Its ridiculous!!! I also knew another Romania guy who was fluent in just as many. Eastern Europeans are crazy. I guess they have to learn the languages in a way b/c there are fewer opportunies at home vs. being abroad.

Also I might have just happened to meet the cream of the crop who were able to study abroad.

I spent my college career learning one of the languages listed up there but as soon as I enter med school i think i need to start hitting the Spanish books as well.

That's why I think dabbling in Chinese is a complete waste of time.

Yeah, the last point is interesting. At my school, there are two Eastern-European girls who are like that and are really into linguistics. One is fluent in Serbo-Croatian, English, French, German, Spanish, and Arabic. She speaks the native language, English, German, and Spanish entirely without an accent. The other is fluent in Polish, French, Spanish, English, Russian, and Arabic. One of the reasons for this, in my opinion, is that Slavic languages are among the hardest of the Indo-European languages, and if you know one and English very well, you pretty much will have the grammatical experience (with cases, especially) and sound systems necessary to tackle most other European languages and even some non-European ones.

 

[rbfiji13]

Swahili......... that's just the first thing that popped into my head.

 

[chaeymaey]

don't forget farsi or arabic!

Yay, that's what I was thinking. I'm fluent in Farsi (I used to teach it and may start again), and I took Arabic 1 and 2 and found Arabic to be pretty easy since it's so similar to Farsi.

 

[tigress]

I second (or third or fourth) the Arabic. It doesn't seem as difficult as the Asian languages (although that may be because I already know Hebrew; most likely because it's more closely related to English). And Arabic seems like it would be pretty useful. If you have to choose from the list, I'd probably pick Russian. I put up a new shower curtain the other day with a map of the world on it and I've been struck by how huge Russia is

Also, like others said, work on your French and Spanish to maintain them. I'm planning on spending time this summer brushing up my Spanish. I really need to spend some time immersed in a Spanish-speaking environment, but that isn't happening any time soon so I'll just have to do my best.

 

[Dr. of The Soul]

Spanish or French?
Both of them belong to one linguistic affinity group. It's proven if u know one of them it's easier for u to understand the second one. My opinion u should take them all I'm studying French now, but in future I'm gonna take some Asian language, Turkish isn't so hard for example.

-Merhaba!
-Selam!
-Nasil sin?
-Cok iyim, tesekur ederim...Ne gidiyor?

That's my hobby

But one of the most fancy memory I have is visiting Arabian library. There were lots of books and one inscription on every 5-6 of them. Harry Potters room, really

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Spanish or French?
Both of them belong to one linguistic affinity group. It's proven if u know one of them it's easier for u to understand the second one. My opinion u should take them all I'm studying French now, but in future I'm gonna take some Asian language, Turkish isn't so hard for example.

-Merhaba!
-Selam!
-Nasil sin?
-Cok iyim, tesekur ederim...Ne gidiyor?

That's my hobby

But one of the most fancy memory I have is visiting Arabian library. There were lots of books and one inscription on every 5-6 of them. Harry Potters room, really

Are you sure that Turkish is easy? Honestly, I don't know, but as it's agglutinative, I would think it might be rather hard.

I know that Hungarian and Finnish, both Uralic languages, are devilishly hard for Indo-European speakers (well, for anyone!). If you thought that 6 cases in Russian are hard, think about 16 cases in Finnish!

 

[NPursuit]

Not to bash the cheese eating surrender monkeys, and maybe I missed something, but why are we assuming it's at all useful to know French? French-Canadians?

French is spoken by HUGE percentages of Africans. To be fair, English is becoming more influential in many of these regions, but it is easily the most unifying language in Africa. It's also spoken in parts of the Caribbean (though again, English is generally spoken there, as well).

I'd personally choose Portugese, but that's simply because I love the Portugese people, would rather do medical mission work in Brazil (and feel more productivve doing it there) than elsewhere, and kind of have a thing for fado music.

 

[RaaMD]

latin and spanish