What language would be the most helpful to learn for someone who wants to go into the International Development Sphere?
I want to apply to a language internship where I do an immersive language program and am having trouble choosing a language. There isn't really one that stands out to me, I just really want to be sure I choose a language that will be helpful in my future aspirations. I do not fully know what I want to do when I graduate, I am currently a 3rd year at UCLA, but my major is International Development. I definitely want to work in that area or maybe the state department? I am just not sure what languages would be helpful or that are used a lot abroad/ are well known. Thank you so much!
· Akan/Twi - AFLI*
· Albanian
· Amharic
· Arabic
· Armenian
· Azerbaijani
· Bambara
· Belarusian
· Bengali
· Bosnian
· Bulgarian
· Cantonese
· Croatian
· Czech
· Gan
· Georgian
· Haitian Creole
· Hausa
· Hebrew
· Hindi
· Hungarian
· Indonesian - SEAFLI*
· Japanese
· Javanese
· Kannada
· Kazakh
· Khmer (Cambodian)
· Korean
· Kurdish
· Kyrgyz
· Lingala
· Macedonian
· Malay
· Malayalam
· Mandarin
· Moldovan
· Nepali
· Pashto
· Persian
· Polish
· Portuguese
· Punjabi
· Romanian
· Russian
· Serbian
· Sinhala
· Slovak
· Slovenian
· Swahili - AFLI*
· Tagalog
· Tajik
· Tamil
· Telegu
· Thai - SEAFLI*
· Turkmen
· Turkish
· Uighur
· Ukrainian
· Urdu
· Uzbek
· Vietnamese - SEAFLI*
· Wolof - AFLI*
· Yoruba
· Zulu - AFLI*
1 answer
Karin’s Answer
I can't really answer your specific question because there is no ONE language that would be "useful" everywhere. It would totally depend where you want to go with that language.
Maybe a general consideration would be if you want a widely spoken language that would give you "access" to a large number of people, or if you want a language that's rare enough that you would be one of a few people outside of that country who speak it.
Another consideration would be which part of the world you are drawn to. South America? Spanish! Arab world? Arabic! Sub-saharan Africa? Lots of different languages, but Swahili is widely spoken. Asia? Cantonese and Japanese! Eastern Europe? Russian!
But if you want to work with a particular population somewhere, a more "rare" language would give you an advantage in that particular area, but not outside of it.
I hope this helps! All the best!
KP