Commonly Learned Second Languages

The world of commonly learned second languages is constantly in flux. At one point, most students simply picked up a French course and considered themselves done. More recently, other world languages are increasingly studied by college students and businesspeople.

Traditional second languages

In the United States, the study of French is declining. With good reason, more and more students are taking on the study of Spanish. Not only is Spanish the easiest language for native speaker of English to learn and pronounce, but it is increasingly important to learn. Right now, Spanish is second only to English as a language that is spoken at home in the United States. Another language that international businesspeople sometimes learn is Brazilian Portuguese. With a much different pronunciation and vocabulary than European Portuguese, this language is almost a separate language in itself.

Around the world

Increasingly, students of foreign languages are branching out past Europe. Russian, Arabic, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese are studied more and more. The study of Mandarin Chinese has skyrocketed in recent years. The only disadvantage to studying these languages is that they are more complex than Romance languages, often involving the study of dozens of new pronunciations and letters. Mandarin Chinese is arguably the most difficult language for a Western reader to memorize, because it contains thousands of characters called pictograms.

Because of changes in the international job market, the world of commonly learned second languages is changing. People who used to study French are increasingly tackling Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Arabic.