Optimal knowledge of languages

[obi]

Is there a list somewhere showing which languages someone would need to learn to be able to speak to the largest number of people given that they are willing to learn some arbitrary number of languages? The only lists I can find give me that language for knowing only one language (it's English). But once I am willing to learn two languages, I don't know which two pair best. It could be that two languages with each over half the amount of speakers of English have such little overlap in speakers that knowing both gives me more people I can talk to than English + any other language, for instance.

I would be interested in writing a program that determines stuff like this if I could find at least a list of how many people speak combinations of languages (for instance, 300 million people speak only English, 200 speak English + Spanish, 500 million speak only Mandarin, 27 speak Estonian + Lojban, etc.).

 

[Vineon]

Regardless of numbers, I'd launch towards spanish if I were you. America has quite a sizeable amount of spanish speaking citizens and you do aim for a political career.

 

[b0b3rt]

What Vineon said.
Otherwise, learn Chinese/Japanese for Foreign Affairs/Business.

 

[Phantom_IV]

Mandarin/English has the best coverage of any combo. Less overlap than Spanish/English too. Plus China is an emerging market and is likely to be the dominant consumer during our lifetimes. Additionally, mandarin speaking white businessmen command a lot of respect over there. The only difficulty is that Mandarin and English are quite different on syntax, tone, writing, everything lol. Even with years of practice you're likely to still have an accent.


p.s.- lol @ 'coverage.' Definitely the right word choice for this forum.

 

[crabnebula]

p.s.- lol @ 'coverage.' Definitely the write word choice for this forum.

Definitely.


I would suggest Hindi going by this list!

 

[keelhauled]

I think it's got to be at least two of English/French/Spanish/Mandarin
The first three cover most of the Americas, Europe, Africa and Oceania, and Mandarin iirc is one of the most commonly spoken native languages, so that would definitely be up there.

 

[Wstfgl]

It seems overly simplistic to merely count the number of speakers - you need to look at the number of countries to which you gain access with a given language.

For example, Hindi has one of the largest pool of speakers, but most educated Indians can speak English reasonably well. Similarly, Mandarin has a massive pool of native speakers but it will only actually give you extra access to China; countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong are equipped with English, and a very large number of those native Mandarin speakers are Chinese workers you need never speak to.

Spanish and Russian seem to give the widest additional access geographically; Spanish gets you around most if not all of Latin America and is increasingly important in the US, and Russian is understood in the former Soviet Union states. Both Latin America (mainly Brazil) and Russia look to be of increasing importance on the world stage due to their economic growth.

They also won't be as ridiculously difficult to learn as Mandarin or Japanese, and easier to retain. I think that non-Asian languages (except for Indonesian, your dog can probably learn that) are superior in payoff and actually achievable.

 

[Drakhun]

Spanish and Russian seem to give the widest additional access geographically; Spanish gets you around most if not all of Latin America and is increasingly important in the US, and Russian is understood in the former Soviet Union states. Both Latin America (mainly Brazil) and Russia look to be of increasing importance on the world stage due to their economic growth.

Two huge points that nullify what you are saying: Brazilians speak Portuguese and most former Eastern Bloc nations have their own tongue other than Russian (Other than Russia of course). Don't make such wild assumptions unless you want to have the living crap beaten out of you for speaking to a Brazilian in Spanish or a Ukrainian in Russian.

 

[Yuri]

Actually, spanish and portugese are pretty similar languages, to the point someone who can only speak portuguese and someone who can only speak spanish can comunicate well enough. But perhaps you mean that a brazilian would be furious by the assumption that his language is spanish. While annoying, it is quite understandable given their surroundings. I, for one, would not punch you in the face.

Don't know about Ukraine.

More on topic, the best bet is probably either spanish or mandarin. Spanish because you can comunicate with literally the entire Latin America and mandarin because of the points made above for China. I suppose one will always meet language overlap along the way, so it is not something I would be primarily concerned with. Besides, knowing or making and effort to learn someone else's language has got to score a few extra points right?

 

[Nate]

Two huge points that nullify what you are saying: Brazilians speak Portuguese and most former Eastern Bloc nations have their own tongue other than Russian (Other than Russia of course). Don't make such wild assumptions unless you want to have the living crap beaten out of you for speaking to a Brazilian in Spanish or a Ukrainian in Russian.

Furthermore, HK is canto, not mandarin.

So let's make that three.

 

[The Plant]

Two huge points that nullify what you are saying: Brazilians speak Portuguese and most former Eastern Bloc nations have their own tongue other than Russian (Other than Russia of course). Don't make such wild assumptions unless you want to have the living crap beaten out of you for speaking to a Brazilian in Spanish or a Ukrainian in Russian.

All he said was that he'd be undertood, not that he was speaking their national tongue.

 

[Caelum]

I don't think there is any technical data regarding this specifically.

What you could do is look at the total number of native speakers of a language. Locate the geographic regions where that language is predominate as a native language and then look at the list of English-speaking population in those areas and calculate which has the best advantage. It's imperfect, but the most reliable metric I think there is available.

For example, Mandarin is spoken by approximately 885,000,000 - 982,000,000 native speakers. If you are a native Mandarin speaker it is virtually guaranteed you live in mainland China. Looking at China's English-speaking population you'll find it's less than 1% (or 10,000,000 people) - so it appears for coverage English + Mandarin would be incredibly intelligent in terms of number of people covered. In a similar vein, Spanish would be an excellent choice (Hindi rivals it as a second choice depending what stats you use). I was surprised when I calculated Spanish out, it appears my original intuition and others in this thread were incorrect that there would be significant overlap; based on the stats this isn't true.

Again, this is obviously imperfect; but I think that is your best luck for what you are looking for.

 

[danana]

I don't think Hindi would give you optimal "coverage" with English, mainly because English is very commonly taught in schools in India (having been a British colony and what not, the British school system is still predominant). I think a significant proportion of schools in India teach English as well as Hindi (and probably the local language and 1 other regional language), although uneducated people aren't likely to know much English. However, I'm basing this on my family's experiences and not based on any kind of reliable data.

 

[Phantom_IV]

Furthermore, HK is canto, not mandarin.

Most if not all of them will understand Mandarin, though. I'd know lol.

 

[Carparama]

You people were a lot smarter than I was. I thought I'd be good if I learned English, Pig-Latin and Braille. (The only three languages I can "speak".)

 

[Terminator]

I'd say English / Mandarin / Spanish / Arabic / Hindi will help you cover half the world. Portuguese is basically restricted to Brazil, and French is restricted to France (even though you already know it). But for the time being, I'll recommend Spanish because of how many people you can communicate with.

 

[keelhauled]

I'd contest with your point of French being spoken only in France, as it is the main language, (apart from regional dialects) spoken in most of Africa, not to mention countries such as Belgium and Switzerland, and even French Canada.

 

[Age of Kings]

Actually, spanish and portugese are pretty similar languages, to the point someone who can only speak portuguese and someone who can only speak spanish can comunicate well enough.

My Spanish is pretty fair and when I went to Brazil I found Portuguese to be extremely....foreign. In my experience, they're only sparsely similar. I expect to get a bunch of crap about "BUT SPANISH ISN'T YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE" though, but I'm just throwing this out there.

On topic: English and either Mandarin or Spanish. It largely depends on who you work with in a future career. Another alternative to consider is French, which can help with European businesspeople who don't know English, Quebecois (in addition to gaining brownie points in any part of Canada) and some Africans as others have noted.

 

[Polis4rule]

Portuguese and Spanish have a 89% lexical similarity, which is comparative to accents of some languages.

 

[Mobius]

It Depends

Well, it would mainly depend on the type of people that you are talking to and where you are. Statistically, the most common language is Mandarin (sp?), a type of Chinese. However, in America, there are a lot more Spanish speakers than Chinese, so Mandarin would be somewhat useless. Ironically, this is coming from someone who lives in Western Mass. and is learning Japanese out of all things. Then again, I'm mostly influenced by Japan and their language is actually easier for me to pronounce than English, which is my native tongue.

 

[Zach Is Ginger]

The most common language in the world is Chineese (Mandarin dialect if I remember correctly).

 

[Doctor Heartbreak]

have you thought about trying latin first? you won't be able to talk to anybody, but you'll be able to decode and understand spanish, portuguese, italian, french, romanian, romansh (a minor, but national language in switzerland), plus about 40 minor languages and dialects

it will also help you pick up any romance language in the future, which it sounds like you're probably thinking of doing

 

[Terminator]

Can you please tell me how Latin will help you learn Romance languages? Learning a language in hopes of having an easier time learning another is stupid. I also think he knows Latin. And as mentioned, someone who speaks Spanish won't be able to understand a Portuguese speaking person; unless he took some basic Portuguese classes. They're from the same family and seem the same to a person who never studied them, but that doesn't make them extremely intelligible.

From his well thread: 18. I understand (to varying degrees): English, French, C++, HTML and other basic languages (but not BASIC), Spanish, and Latin (pig and otherwise). I will some day learn Assembly, Mandarin, Arabic, Afrikaans, and Russian, I hope.

Maybe I misinterpreted "understand", but I'm pretty sure he knows Latin.

 

[Doctor Heartbreak]

Can you please tell me how Latin will help you learn Romance languages? Learning a language in hopes of having an easier time learning another is stupid.

the romance languages evolved out of latin, dogg. that's why certain words in english and french etc sound the same; they're from the same latin word. it's certainly not stupid to do some groundwork before you attempt anything as difficult as learning a whole bunch of languages, possibly simultaneously.

but anyway, i didn't realize obi already knew it! never mind me everybody

 

[Terminator]

Yeah, but knowing Latin wouldn't help you learn Spanish that quickly. There are a lot of different words, but most of them have the same roots. However, Latin grammar is more complex. And English is a Germanic language...But, I guess English sapped some words from Latin! Haha, I think we're arguing about our agreement. ;-