During a kayaking trip last year, my friend Seth and I were discussing our individual efforts at learning Mandarin and Spanish respectively.
While I'm by no means done learning Spanish, I have in recent weeks considered studying a third language to the point of being capable of at least a basic level of communication. While I've seen Mandarin as the next logical choice for me, I've felt that I should search for information and opinions on the relative merits of various languages before selecting one and comitting myself to the overwhelming task of studying it...
After briefly reading a handful of wiki pages, articles, and other sites today, I'm still presently at the conclusion that Spanish and Mandarin make the most sense. I look first at the incredible time and effort that it takes to learn a second language. I would propose that in the time/effort it takes to become truly *fluent* in a language, you could get a Masters Degree in something very useful. Therefore, for me, the language I study needs to be worth it.
I found an article that I really like, in which the author explains why he believes Spanish or Mandarin should be the first choice for an American when picking an initial second language to learn. http://johnaugust.com/2009/spanish-or-mandarin
Here are the criteria that he used to decide which language(s) ought to be learned first:
1. Number of people who speak it worldwide
2. Usefulness in daily life
3. Usefulness in international business or travel
4. Availability of media in that language
5. Applicability to future language learning
6. Economic power of native speakers
The author explains how some of those points tend to favor Mandarin over Spanish, and vice versa.
At the end, he challenges people to respond and make a case why a language other than Spanish or Mandarin should be the first to learn. I enjoyed reading the feeback he received from people. Although some of the responses were less than helpful, others were thought-provoking. At this point, I'm of the opinion that Spanish and Mandarin are the two most worthwhile language pursuits for me personally. However, I'm still going to look into this a bit further.
