Guys what's the most important language to learn?

Gee thank's for all the input I've decided I'm going to learn Arabic as there is clearly a social movement and Muslims will soon rule the west.

 

Spanish for sure.

 

Not all Muslims speak arabic....

 

My sister works for a government contractor, and she says that the government pays you the most if you know Chinese or Arabic, followed by Spanish. So in my opinion those the three most important languages. By the way you should have posted more poll options

 

Half English and half Cantonese. So you could understand half of what they're saying. Besides, they have no Chinese accent, it's more of a North American accent.





Anyways, Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world, and there's only four tones you need to know, and most Westerners can pronounce it. Pinyin is used to write Chinese characters on computers and et cetera, and mostly for Westerners to learn. People speak Mandarin everywhere around the world.

Cantonese is good for communicating with North American Chinese people, since most North American Chinese people speak Cantonese, but it's way harder to learn, they sometimes have between six to ten tones in the language.

-LeetNeo.

 

Chinese/Hindi: Lots of people. lots of job opportunities. Herp derp derp.
Japanese=manga freak. No real reason why. Japan is already so westernized, why learn japanese?


I do speak chinese lol

 

That's ballin'! You speak Mandarin or Cantonese? Maybe both? I hear from some people that say "If you don't know Mandarin, you'll lose a lot of opportunities in jobs and work, et cetera". Also, thumbs up, Chinese respect.

-LeetNeo.

 

我说中文

你也说吗？
如果你也说，你学在那儿？
mandarin

 

Haha, shit, I never learned how to read. My parents sent me to a Chinese school when I was young, but forgot everything when I stopped doing it for a month or two, I remember acing a test though. But I can't read because the teachers didn't teach the class the pattern or alphabet to making a Chinese character.

My mother also tells me back when she was in Guangzhou, and most of her homework and work she did at school was to write Chinese characters none stop to remember them, and she told me the teachers there didn't teach her an alphabet or pattern system to remember it, so whenever she wrote a word, she had to remember the whole thing.

But these days, my friend told me that there's a pattern or alphabet style system to write now. I saw in a movie from Hong Kong, this guy was trying to write a word, and he didn't know it, asked this other person and the other person told him how to write it, and he got it right.

Anyways, I only speak Cantonese, but I can maybe understand a little bit of Mandarin if you speak really slowly. Also, Cantonese and Mandarin speakers can communicate through writing, and also Cantonese speakers can sometimes understand a Mandarin speaker, and same thing around, but it's harder to find Mandarin speakers understanding Cantonese speakers. Because my grandma on my mothers side, she can speak Cantonese and some other Chinese dialect, but she can't speak Mandarin, but she can understand it.

-LeetNeo.

 

I started off writing traditional which sucked, now I'm on to simplified

you really should learn to read. If you can read, you can use a computer and ping yi to write the characters.

Either way it's a hard language, but well worth the difficulty. I wish I also knew some Cantonese, but alas, no schools in the USA teach it.

 

Yeah, Traditional is like really old style which is hard to read and write. Simplified is easier, because it's easier to write and read of course, my parents told me.

I wish I can learn to read, it's sort of past the learning point for me to start learning, it's better to learn when you're young and when you're a kid. I tried, I was in a Chinese school for a year, then two months later another year, et cetera, but it never stuck to me. I can understand a little Jyutping (Cantonese style Pinyin), I can pronounce nearly every word in Mandarin.

Also, it's sometimes not worth learning Cantonese, since a lot of Northern Chinese people are moving to North America, but before the Southern Chinese people and Hong Kong people were immigrating more than Northerners. But knowing Cantonese is a big plus sometimes, since a lot of people know it, like in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong Province of China, Malaysia, Singapore, and a lot of other places. Cantonese speakers like the sounding of Cantonese, so their preference of speaking it would usually be Cantonese.

Mandarin is more useful in some cases, a lot more people speak it, because it's mandatory to learn in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Singapore, and many other places, and well... The Pinyin is easier than Jyutping, because you always have to put a number at the end of a word, to specify the tone, which is a lot harder. Like my Chinese name is Zhou Jia Jin in Mandarin, but my Cantonese name in Jyutping is Zau1 Gaa1 Zeon3. See what I mean?

Anyways, it's great that you can read Chinese characters and write it as well, because sometimes I'm going through a website, and it's all in Chinese, so I get one of my parents to help out.

-LeetNeo.

 

Not really. If you're going to Tokyo then you're good with English, but prepare for a lot of people speaking broken English. And once you move out of the major cities, less, and less people speak English.



I learned the hard way in Kyoto. But I've gotten better.

 

How old are you, and how much language experience?
I'm 16 and I've done 3 years of Chinese at prep
school, and a month of immersion. Going into soph year.

China's market > japans market

but if you know you want to be involved with japan for your job, than go ahead


Most of language is personal preference

 

I'm 16 going through Study Abroad.

 

A lot of people speak broken English in Mainland China as well, in Hong Kong it's better because it used to be a British Colony, but most of the rappers in Hong Kong speak nearly perfect English without a Chinese style accent, more of a North American accent.

That's crazy, I forget a lot of the Chinese stuff when I was in school if I was out of it for around a month. Also, my father and his friends are crazy in a good way, my father used to know like four languages, Cantonese, Mandarin ( a little bit), Teochew and Vietnamese(he probably forgot it all, but once in a while I hear him speaking it), but his friends know like five to six languages, like Cantonese, Mandarin, Teochew, Taishan, Hainanese, Vietnamese, and Buddha knows what...

I'm 15 years old, I stopped advancing in Cantonese a long time ago, but I still watch TVB to catch up and a lot of Hong Kong movies.

-LeetNeo.

 

Arabic if you want a job with the FBI or with the Military as a translator. I don't see why Japanese is important but I know some people who are into anime are trying to learn it because they're into the culture. It depends what you want to do with your life, if you live in the U.S. and plan on having a job here you should learn Spanish since that's like the secondary language here.

 

How about Mandarin Chinese? It's the most spoken language in the world.

-LeetNeo.

 

Manderin Chinease Is a very good one if you want a job .

 

Yeah, good all around the place, whether in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, and et cetera. Also, a lot more Northern Chinese people are coming to North America, I think it's a good idea to learn.

-LeetNeo.

 

Mandarin Chinese and Spanish in my opinion. The two most popular languages in the world, so.....