How to Choose a Language to Learn: 7 Key Questions to Help You Decide

Wondering how to choose a language to learn? We’ll be honest, that’s not an easy question. 

Deciding which language to learn is deeply personal. It depends on many different factors such as your social, professional life, even neurological behavior.

You probably know that learning a foreign language has many benefits, from endless job opportunities to extensive memory development.

That’s why, in this blog post, we’ll help you find your language learning path.

After you take into consideration everything we have to say, you’ll be able to find suitable tutors here. And now, let's dive in.

7 Key Questions to Help You Decide Which Language to Learn

In the following lines, you will find 7 key questions that can help you determine which language to learn.

What is Your Native Language?

Your mother tongue can impact your further language learning a lot.

If your native language is English, for example, deciding to learn some similar languages can be easy for you. Since English is a Germanic language, deciding to learn one of these language families can be a good decision.

In case you are fluent in Spanish, learning some other Romance language, such as French, Italian or Portuguese can be a piece of cake for you.

Pay attention, however, that if you speak Spanish on a decent level, but you still aren't fluent in it, perhaps learning another similar language may confuse you.

What Other Languages Do You Speak?

Speaking more than two ( or three, even four) languages is a blessing.

When you speak several languages, you'll learn one faster and easier than the one who speaks only one language.

Your language learning experience is on your side.

Even if you decide to learn the language linguistically and grammatically different from the ones you already know, you'll learn it faster because you already know which parts of the language to pay attention to better.

Are There Any Learning Resources Available? 

If you want to study German, Spanish, French, or Russian, this isn’t an issue.

The situation gets complicated if you wish to study some other, less popular, languages, such as Ukrainian, Estonian, or Icelandic, for example.

Things as available courses online or 1-on-1 lessons with tutors, or sites on less studied language, such as Wikipedia are vital because if you don’t have resources available to study the language, you won’t succeed in it.

Can Learning a Language Help You With Your Career?

It is well-known that speaking foreign languages helps in professional fields.

You have more job opportunities and more chances to get promoted. Besides using the language you are learning, you improve it with constant practice with native speakers. 

But before you start dreaming about your career, you have to make something clear: you have to determine whether you want to learn the language because of the job opportunities.

If the answer is ‘yes,’ maybe you should take a look at the most spoken languages in the world that can help you decide with your choice.

Do You Want to Learn More About The Culture Through The Language?

Language and culture are closely connected.

There isn’t one without the other and vice versa.

But some of you perhaps prefer knowing as much as they can about the culture.

That’s not strange. Many people share that passion.

Culture isn’t just about some fun facts or history and art information about the people of the target language you want to learn. It is about making new friends, learning about their habits and lifestyle. When you speak their language, you are getting to know all that.

It is about being part of their world, which can be entirely different from yours. And it can be an amazing experience.

How Do You Learn Languages?

Your language learning style can be one more thing you should consider.

If you for example are having difficulties learning grammar rules and patterns, perhaps you should think about learning one of the languages where grammar doesn’t give you a headache, such as Chinese.

In case you are a natural talent for accents and pronunciation, maybe you should consider learning melodic languages, such as French or Hungarian.

The way you learn languages can affect how challenging the language can be for you.

What is The Reason You Want to Learn The Language?

This is probably the most important question you need to answer, so that’s why we’ve saved it as the last one.

Why do you want to learn any language?

Do you want to expand your circle of friends?

Do you think that learning a language can help you with your career?

Do you have a passion for learning foreign languages and you want to enlist one more?

All these questions are one reason why you want to learn any foreign language.

Have in mind that there are no right or wrong reasons for learning the language, just like there are no nice and ugly languages.

Which Language Should I Learn?

With more than 7.000 different languages there surely must be at least one you are impressed with.

If you want to make new friends and communicate with a lot of people, in the following lines, we suggest you consider learning these languages.

Chinese Mandarin

Right after English, with more than 920 billion speakers, Chinese Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world.

It is also the language with most of the first language speakers.

Mandarin is one out of ten Chinese dialects spoken in China. It is also the most spoken dialect, used in business, politics, and education.

One of the reasons why learning Chinese mandarin is a good choice is its growing economy. Chinese companies are in expansion all over the world, so speaking this language can give you a lot of great opportunities.

Spanish

Besides being the easiest language to learning, Spanish belongs to a group of the most spoken languages worldwide.

With 21 Spanish-speaking countries all over the world and the second most spoken language in the USA, Spanish is the second most common language in the world as well.

Whether you want to travel to Latin America or Spain to meet amazing people and admire nature or because of professional reasons, learning Spanish can be a good choice.

Arabic

Many people like learning Arabic because of the culture. Others, however, admire the language.

What you perhaps don’t know about Arabic is that this language is the official language in more than 20 different countries.

With expanding business and companies in the Middle East, the importance of Arabic is increasing rapidly. 

So, if you want to learn the language to help you with your career, you can consider learning Arabic.

French

French is one of the fastest-growing languages.

An official language in 29 countries worldwide, one of the European Union official languages, and one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

French is a descendant of Vulgar Latin and, along with Spanish, it is one of the Romance languages.

Its rich history and connection with English, today, French shares with English more than 10.000 common words, which makes it even easier to learn.

French is widely used in many different fields, such as diplomacy, jurisdiction, economy, and journalism.

Basque

Now, this must be quite a surprise for you.

The Basque language isn’t one of the fastest-growing languages in the world, nor one of the most spoken ones.

So, why do we mention this language anyway?

Sometimes, it isn’t all about learning the most spoken languages.

Polyglots and language lovers will understand this.

This language is spoken in Northern Spain and what makes it even more mysterious is that it is a language isolate, which means that it has no language relatives.

And how did the language survived if it hasn’t any relatives, nor it is the most spoken language?

Well, that’s on you to find out.

Final Thoughts

As you see now, there are many reasons and questions to answer yourself before you decide which language you should learn.

Languages are a vital part of our lives. They are part of our jobs, personal desires, and social opportunities.

In the end, it doesn’t matter which language you will learn. What matters is that you learn the language properly and be proud of yourself.

And for that, we suggest you learn and practice with Justlearn tutors.

Which language did you choose? Share it with us in the comments below!