I speak English, what’s next?

With the development of information technology, communication barriers are breaking down and speaking English is becoming standard. To make a difference, having a good command of a second foreign language is essential. But which one should you choose?

According to the British Council , a well-respected organisation in the language study industry, around 750 million people across the world can speak English as a foreign language. As a result, using the language of Shakespeare has become as common as using a word processing program. This can be felt on the job market too, where the command of a second foreign language is required more and more often.

What is the impact on language learning trends? A European poll demonstrated that people usually give priority to the languages spoken in the countries bordering their country of residence. In Europe, the languages that are considered to be the most useful after English are

• German (17%) ;
• French (16%) and ;
• Spanish (14%).

The same survey registers the increasing popularity of Mandarin Chinese, which is believed to be the fifth most useful language for children to learn by the respondents. 6% of the people surveyed also think Chinese is the second most important language to learn after English.

ESL – Language Studies Abroad carried out its own survey on its website in order to find out what motivates people to learn foreign languages. Here are the results of this survey:

A majority of web users answered they learn languages out of interest in languages, rather than because it might be useful to them (especially for work purposes).

This does not apply to languages like German, which most people learn for educational or professional purposes (62% of the respondents). Given the current economic crisis, mastering a third language is obviously a significant asset to stand out in the job market and the fact that Germany currently has the “less bad” results in terms of economic performance could account for the popularity of German among language learners.

48% of people learning Spanish said they were doing so because they love the language, with the notable exception of Belgians, for whom work opportunities come first.

“Exotic” languages like Japanese or Mandarin Chinese mostly attract people who are interested in the language itself (43% of the respondents for Mandarin Chinese, 75% for Japanese). However, a quarter of the learners of Chinese declared they started learning Chinese for professional purposes.

To conclude, it can be noted that the languages spoken by our geographical neighbours – with whom we are more likely to have professional or personal relations – are usually considered the most important after English, which remains the most widely spoken lingua franca around the world. But learning a language out of love for your partner or for the language itself is certainly one of the noblest reasons to do it.