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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*


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Karin’s Answer

Hi Charlie,

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
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