27 replies to this topic

[Kyle]

Awhile ago I posted a thread concerning what I want to do for my career and one thing I realized was a possibility was being a translator or linguist. And honestly, those really appeal to me. However, I want to make actual money, and I've been told a lot by teachers and family that the language you choose determines that paycheck. I'm honestly up for any language but I've been really interested by Arabic and French however I've been told Spanish is better. Any ideas what would be the best language(s) to learn and what are the most useful?

[Stars]

I'm sure there's a lot of need for people who speak Spanish, but on the other hand, there are also already a lot of people in this country who learn it as a second language.

 

As for the "best language" for you to learn, I'd say it depends on where you want to seek employment (both job-wise and location-wise). For instance, where I live we need people at hospitals who can speak Vietnamese and Korean since we so often have patients from those countries who don't speak much English. Or if you don't have something specific in mind, it depends on how specialized you want your second language to be (i.e., Spanish being very generalized and something like Arabic being more specialized).

 

My apologies if my post is a bit of a mess. I was distracted while typing and kept changing my mind on how to answer.

[Monkeydog]

Chinese.

Spanish wouldn't be useful, I feel. It's useful for day to day in America but it's not going to be a very lucrative language as its spoken by so many who also know English. Arabic and French would be more valuable.

If you honestly want to be a linguistic or translator you probably shouldn't be limiting yourself to one language or one family of languages (Spanish, English, French) .

[Kyle]

@Stars, Like, I myself plan to learn Arabic to work maybe as a foreign reporter. Honestly because I was raised learning Russian from my mom's side of the family I could easily get a job in Eastern Europe covering the Syrian/Chechen insurgents terrorizing Russia.

@Monkeydog Well honestly I want to learn those languages that will be in high demand for a long time. What would be the point of learning something like German only for the demand and pay to be lower once I am certified to work in that field and of age to work in that field. 

[Monkeydog]

Arabic to English or Chinese to English is always going to be in higher demand than Spanish to English. There are a ton of people who could easily be trained to do that already in this country for cheap. Why would you find value in Spanish if you want to do it for a living?

[Monkeydog]

Also your example is terrible. There is no need to have an English/German translator. The languages are very similar and Germany is a well educated country where a majority of people speak English as a second language. There is no need for a translator.

[Donkeymog]

If you're looking for something that pays I strongly recommend Mandarin. If you think trade with China is strong at the moment you have to realize that it's only the beginning. China has a rapidly growing middle class and the relationship with the West is changing. No longer is trade with them just about them exporting cheap products, now they want to import from us too. If you can learn to speak Mandarin fluently (one of the hardest languages to master) then the next century will be full of opportunities.

 

If you want to be a foreign reporter for the love of god learn Arabic. Arabic is spoken as a second language all over the world because the Quran is always taught in Arabic, so whether you're in India, North Africa, the Middle East or South-East Asia people will be able to speak it. Fluency in English is not guaranteed in these regions (except India). Learning to read it is an absolute bitch but is invaluable, but it's an absolutely beautiful language when it's spoken. It's also close to Farsi, Urdu and Hebrew, which are very useful if you plan to be a foreign reporter.

 

How strong is your Russian? There's a lot of opportunities to get you started just by knowing that language. I have a friend who is a Russian translator and it doesn't pay very much but there's a lot of interesting projects to get involved in as it's a somewhat unusual second language for a lot of English speakers.

[kspr]

basically look at america's enemies, and realize that we're afraid they're stronger than us. learn whatever language from that group speaks to you the most. german is a fun drinking language, but most germans know english. hell, english is already the beat damn language there is. what other language has the syntactical flexibility? what other language can you just make up retarded shit on the fly, and have it come out perfectly cromulent?

[Donkeymog]

english is already the beat damn language there is. what other language has the syntactical flexibility? what other language can you just make up retarded shit on the fly, and have it come out perfectly cromulent?

 

You'd be surprised. I've heard the Spanish language is pretty good for making up shit, anything based in latin generally works pretty well. Mandarin has a lot of quirks too, you can really fuck around with the tone of how you say things to create new meanings. If you really want a fun language you could learn Amharic and do all the clicks. Some people in North West Africa speak Arabic with the clicks too, which sounds pretty funny.

[Kyle]

@Bean, my Russian is I'd say to the point of semi-fluent. I cannot read it well though, but I've been reading up on how to read the Cyrillic. I'd imagine being a translator is more face to face, voice to voice, than to words on paper I guess, but it comes handy to know. As for Arabic I really agree. I think Arabia is a very mysterious and majestic place (minus ISIS). Arabic would definetely be my top pick for a language. And the writing looks like a challenge, but everything is when you first start. :p 

[Stars]

When I started learning Japanese, our first several weeks in class were devoted to learning the alphabet. It was a bother, but it definitely helped to have that out of the way as we progressed. (...Then it got more confusing when we started learning the second alphabet, but that's not something you'll run into with many languages, I have a feeling. =p) And having been out of practice, I tend to forget letters from time to time, so I'd say definitely write things out in whatever language you learn using the native characters as much as possible so that it sticks with you.

[Monkeydog]

Another thing that might be "useful" is small dying languages few people talk.

 

Around here it's Hmong (Bee is Hmong, actually). It's pretty isolated in America. Really only Fresno, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Merced, and Denver. However, translators are always in demand. Most people who can speak both Hmong and English are the first generation kids among the Hmong immigrants. They aren't guaranteed to speak it very well or be able to write it, especially with so many different dialects. So things like schools and community out reach stuff always need people who can speak Hmong and English well to be able to talk to people who can only speak Hmong or are super isolated in their communities. I had a friend who worked in a law firm once, and they were having a hard time because the client was Hmong and there's like no one around who knows anything about them or their language.

 

Not saying you need to learn Hmong, of course. :P The usefulness of it might be dying out with the first people who moved here, and unless you're planning to move to Taiwan/Laos/China you'll never use it. But, it's just an example of a language/people you've probably never heard of that require very specialized needs that are often in high demand. Plus it's cool to know a language only so many people know, and overall if you really care about languages as a whole it's important to learn ones that are slowly dying out. If you're the only one in the world who knows a dead language? Think how popular you'd be.

[Phalanxman]

It's obviously Klingon. :P

[kspr]

 

You'd be surprised. I've heard the Spanish language is pretty good for making up shit, anything based in latin generally works pretty well. Mandarin has a lot of quirks too, you can really fuck around with the tone of how you say things to create new meanings.

 

latin in highschool taught me how to do it in the first place really well. learning latin doesn't just teach you latin, kyle, but will teach you how to dissect a language's parts.

 

english: hmm this thing computes, i'll call it a computer

mandarin: hmm this thing computes, i'll call it the electric brain

[Maelstrom]

If you're really set on becoming a translator/linguist, you will by force learn lots of languages. Not just one or two. For a degree, just assume you will be learning like, ALL OF THEM. The more languages you know, and the more fluent you are in them, the more people will be willing to hire you and at higher wages.

 

If you wanna be that guy who becomes the go-to guy if say your company/business is looking to do business with companies from other nations, choose a language that fewer people choose to learn.

 

Spanish is a really bad choice. Everybody and their gatos know some at least small smattering of spanish, and a lot of people are very fluent in it. You won't stand out or be useful just for knowing Spanish.

 

Other bad choices. German, French, latin languages. Because they're taught so commonly and the US at least has quite a few native speakers. Less so for German but you know what I mean.

 

Middle Eastern languages like Arabic and Pashto are probably far more sought after at this point.

 

Japanese is definitely getting more popular, so you'll facing competition there.

 

Different dialects of Chinese are definitely more difficult to learn. Not sure how competitive the scene is there.

 

I think Russian is categorized as a tier 5 difficult language too.

oh, guess I was wrong about that. http://www.effective...uage-difficulty

 

I don't think learning Japanese is all that hard. Except for the kanji. I minored in it. But I'm years out of practice and even when it was fresh out of class, we'd barely learned any Kanji at that point.

[Stars]

 http://www.effective...uage-difficulty

That list must not account for cultural exposure if they think Japanese is de facto the hardest language for an English speaker to learn. =p

Even without considering that, I would have thought Chinese would be way harder, if only for being a tonal language. But they didn't ask me, so oh well.

[Maelstrom]

That list must not account for cultural exposure if they think Japanese is de facto the hardest language for an English speaker to learn. =p

Even without considering that, I would have thought Chinese would be way harder, if only for being a tonal language. But they didn't ask me, so oh well.

 

I know, right? I'm pretty sure the army considers russian a tier 5. If you know any bit of spanish, pronounciation of Japanese is super easy. I know thinking and translating sentence structure that is the reverse of English is difficult, but I don't think Japanese is the only one like that.

[Kyle]

Just a little update, I'm going into my sophomore year of high school and my freshman year I took Spanish, loved it, and now ironically my summer job is dishwasher/chip boy at my local Mexican restaurant. So I'm learning a decent bit of Spanish there over the summer, the guys also know Portuguese so I'm learning tiny bits of that so I can later learn French because Portuguese is a mix of Spanish and French. Only problem is a word can mean one thing in Spanish or French, and is different in Portuguese and vice versa so it's a total headache sometimes.

[kspr]

if you learn latin, you'll learn how to learn a language by learning how language works

[Kyle]

if you learn latin, you'll learn how to learn a language by learning how language works

But wouldn't that just be for Romance languages?