Best foreign language to learn for American engineers?

[Ryuk1990]

What would be the most useful foreign language for an engineer? Germany is known for having a huge engineering industry but I've heard that German employers usually don't care about someone speaking German as long as they know English and the resume is impressive.

So would you say it's necessary at all for American engineers to learn a foreign language?

 

[Pengwuino]

Learn C++.

It's pretty foreign to me.

 

[Ryuk1990]

^Hahaha.

 

[twofish-quant]

Looking forward, I'd say one of Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, or Swahili

 

[AlephZero]

Looking forward, I'd say one of Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, or Swahili

I would replace Spanish and Swahili with Portuguese and Hindi, but I agree with your basic logic.

 

[teroenza]

One of my biggest upcoming questions is choosing between Japanese or Chinese. I am interested in both so this is not just a career-based question. Both seem to have potential, and I am leaning towards Japanese, however the constant barrage of "China is taking over the world" reporting keeps Chinese on my mind.

(I am a physics major in his 3rd year of undergraduate study.)

 

[Vanadium 50]

I know what you're trying to say here, but it's not so simple. While Hindi is the official language of India, it's only spoken as a first language by about a quarter of the population. English is the dominant language of science and technology in India.

Swahili is spoken in Tanzania and surrounding countries. If you were thinking of South Africa, the largest Bantu language there is Zulu, but it's a situation similar to India: other languages like Xhosa have comparable populations of native speakers, and again English has become the dominant language of science and technology.

 

[Mute]

One of my biggest upcoming questions is choosing between Japanese or Chinese. I am interested in both so this is not just a career-based question. Both seem to have potential, and I am leaning towards Japanese, however the constant barrage of "China is taking over the world" reporting keeps Chinese on my mind.

(I am a physics major in his 3rd year of undergraduate study.)

Although lots of people are learning Chinese these days because of China's growing economy, in the 80's people were also learning Japanese for the same reason. It's hard to say if a decade from now China's economy will still be as hot as it is now. So, while it's not a bad reason to learn Chinese, it really helps to have other motivations to do so. (Otherwise you might end up like the people in my class who only really care about learning Chinese as a means to an end, and as a result their Chinese is really not very good).

 

[Pyrrhus]

In both Latin America and Spain (with some minor exceptions in Spain), English is the language of Science and Technology. You will need spanish to read theses, but not articles as they are typically written in english, except for some journals in spanish hosted by the Spanish Science Community.

 

[twofish-quant]

Although lots of people are learning Chinese these days because of China's growing economy, in the 80's people were also learning Japanese for the same reason. It's hard to say if a decade from now China's economy will still be as hot as it is now.

That's one important reason to know Chinese now. A lot of the information that will let you decide whether China is going to blow up or when it will blow up is in Chinese only, so if you can read Chinese, you can see what happens before it happens.

One other difference is that China is far, far more interlinked with the US economy than Japan ever was, so if China blows up, then it's going to have a major impact on the US economy. Again, being about to read Chinese gives you a clue as to what those impacts may be.

(Otherwise you might end up like the people in my class who only really care about learning Chinese as a means to an end, and as a result their Chinese is really not very good).

Learning Chinese for the sake of doing international business isn't that great of a motivation because you'll find it easier to switch to English. Since English is a required language in China, it's possible to function quite well in the major cities knowing only English, but you have the problem that you can only read what people want you to read.

Curiously the people that I've found with the *best* language fluency are either missionaries or people in the military, and both of those groups have extremely strong motivations for learning the language.

 

[twofish-quant]

In both Latin America and Spain (with some minor exceptions in Spain), English is the language of Science and Technology. You will need spanish to read theses, but not articles as they are typically written in english, except for some journals in spanish hosted by the Spanish Science Community.

The same is true in China. All of the important papers are written in English, and most scientists and engineers are fluent in English. The reason learning Chinese is useful is that Chinese is the language of politics and economics in China, and you are at a huge disadvantage if someone can read your cards and you can't read there's.

 

[Angry Citizen]

I think it depends on your field. If you're an aerospace engineer, I'd learn French. It opens up a lot of job opportunities to you. Bombardier in Montreal is a major aerospace company. It also (indirectly) opens a path to the European Space Agency if you're that kind of aerospace engineer. There's also aerospace companies in France.

I think the craze for 'exotic' languages like Chinese, Arabic, and Japanese are largely going to be wasted. The Chinese bubble will burst, and when it happens, engineers are going to be the last thing they want.

 

[teroenza]

I had actually had my mind set on Japanese or Chinese before I did on physics, so this is more than just a career move for me. I agree that I had good luck to be born in an English seeking country.
I also agree to really have to know the language to get insights into a countries direction. I get little to no real "news" from China or Japan simply because of the language barrier. Though I am a native English speaker, and don't feel that offers a special insight into the next decade's economic or political future of the U.S.
I know Japan had a thriving research/scientific community. I wonder if China will begin putting comparable amounts of money into such things as basic research.

 

[twofish-quant]

The Chinese bubble will burst, and when it happens, engineers are going to be the last thing they want.

Personally, I don't think that China is in a bubble. Part of the reason that I think this is that I can read Chinese.

Even if China is going to collapse, it's important to be able to read Chinese. China is more interlinked with the world economy than Japan ever was. There is no way that a collapse in China can not effect the United States, and being able to read Chinese can let you figure out how the crash is going to affect the rest of the world before anyone else does.

Just to give an example, if you could read German in 1925 after the economy collapsed, you could quickly figure out that this idiot with a funny mostauche is going to cause major problems. Now I don't think that there is anyone that insane in China right now... But you are going to have to take my word for it rather than see for yourself.

Just to illustrate how useful reading Chinese can be...

There is another thread in which someone is wondering whether or not they should stay in nuclear engineering. It's obvious that the US is not going to build more plants, but what about China?

Now it so happens that I've been looking at the press coverage of the accident, and I don't think that it's going to significantly slow down China's efforts to go into nuclear. But again, you have take my word for it rather than seeing for yourself.

 

[twofish-quant]

I agree that I had good luck to be born in an English seeking country.

Personally, I'd argue that being born in an English speaking country is bad luck. If you want to do anything substantial in science in China, you have to learn both English and Chinese (and it's also likely if you live in the south that the Chinese that you learn in school is completely different from what you speak at home).

I know Japan had a thriving research/scientific community. I wonder if China will begin putting comparable amounts of money into such things as basic research.

Present tense. China is putting a ton of money in science. One thing that China is doing that the United States is not is to focus very heavily on getting Ph.D.'s jobs. If you are a foreign high technology multi-national trying to set up business in China, the government will force you to hire Ph.D.'s in order to get the licenses to operate.

I'm *seriously* concerned the US is having a massive brain drain as China is giving some very sweet offers to people with physics Ph.D.'s and the US tends to treat new Ph.D.'s like dirt.

BTW, don't assume that I'm posting this from the US.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Brazil is following the same footsteps. There are a lot of STEM people moving into Brazil because of job opportunities. Also, Brazil is investing heavily on research, especially after their "Embraer" took off, and thus they want to develop other areas.

 

[teroenza]

...(and it's also likely if you live in the south that the Chinese that you learn in school is completely different from what you speak at home).

I do not understand. Are you referring to different Chinese dialects?

 

[Mute]

I do not understand. Are you referring to different Chinese dialects?

It can be more than just dialects. It's also accents. Everyone in China is taught Mandarin, but the accent can vary by region. It's not uncommon to hear someone from southern China or Taiwan remark that they can't understand the accent of someone from northern China (e.g., Beijing) when speaking Mandarin. The Mandarin taught in schools is "standard Mandarin", which doesn't always sound quite like the Mandarin that a native speaker speaks at home. It's like American English versus Irish English - if you don't have an ear for it it can be hard to understand.

 

[twofish-quant]

I do not understand. Are you referring to different Chinese dialects?

Chinese works differently than European languages. Calling something a dialect doesn't fully describe the situation.

The difference between Mandarin and Cantonese is much larger than French and Italian, so people who grow up where the local language is not Mandarin have to learn standard Mandarin as something that is just different. Also in southern China, each village has it's own speech that is different from neighboring cities. So Hong Kong Cantonese is rather different from Taishan Cantonese. The characters for formal writing are "sort of" standard, although for informal writing people will also local characters.

Also people in northern China speak something that is theoretically close to standard Mandarin, but even then the language of the classroom is different from the home language.

Just to give a practical example of how reading Chinese can be useful for an engineer. If you google "mediatek" and "shanzhai" you'll get some English websites that talk about the cell phone market, but these are scraps of what is going on. To really keep up to date you need to read sites like

http://www.shanzhaiji.cn/

Google translate is useful for some of it.

 

[teroenza]

Thank you for the information.

I also, agree with others who put forward Portuguese (Brazil) as a promising language.