Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, and French are the top 4 foreign languages with the greatest number of native and non-native speakers, respectively. Due to Germany's and Japan's robust economies and the abundance of professional opportunities they provide, German and Japanese are also very popular in India.
JavaScript, HTML/CSS, SQL, Python, TypeScript, Java, C#, Bash/Shell, and PHP are among the most sought-after and highest-paying programming languages, according to the recent StackOverflow survey.
Portuguese
Since Portuguese is the official language of 10 countries and territories , including Brazil, Portugal, and many African nations, it makes the list as one of the best languages to learn for the future.
Mandarin. Mandarin is likely to be the most spoken language in 2050 because of its vast number of speakers. The economic influence of China will also prove vital for the continued use and spread of Chinese languages around the world.
We currently find Urdu, Indonesian, Hindi, and Bengali among the fastest-growing languages. While some of these languages may not be among the most used today, a British Council report suggests that they will hold significant sway in the business world by 2050.
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
Of course, the world is constantly changing, and a new study has proclaimed that there will soon be a new global language on the world scene. Dr. Jeffrey Gill, a Flinders University academic, believes Chinese is set to rise shortly as a prominent global language spoken frequently outside of China and Asia.
As David Graddol notes in “The Future of English?”, there is no reason to believe that another language will become the global lingua franca within the next 50 years. English probably won't replace other languages, but its usefulness as the common language in trade, diplomacy, and pop culture will continue.
The French language is also one of the best foreign language to learn for jobs. It is also one of the romance languages of the Indo-European family. French is the official language in 29 countries.
1. Java. Java is currently the leading enterprise programming language and is expected to remain in high demand through 2025 and 2030. As a general-purpose language, Java is used for web pages, applications, and more.
Language extinction
Many of the languages spoken today are in constant extinction. Linguistic predictions say that of 6,000 languages that are globally spoken today, around 600 of them after 100 years will have simplified versions or will not exist at all.
As we have mentioned the importance of English and Mandarin, it is clear that these languages will be leading in 2030. A Chinese speaker has a different value among speakers of other lingoes.
The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it's only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.
Babbel actually ranked the easiest languages for English speakers to learn though, and technically, Spanish is higher on that list than French (Spanish came in third, versus eighth for French). This is mostly thanks to Spanish's easier pronunciation.
If you are mesmerized by the French culture, then you should choose the French language. You would be better able to appreciate the art, architecture, cinema, and food. But if you are a fan of engineering, analytical thinking, and scientific theories then you should choose German.
According to estimates by UNESCO, Portuguese is the fastest-growing European language after English. It is also the language that has, according to UNESCO, the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America.
The world's youngest language, coming in at only 100 years old (officially), is the South African language of Afrikaans. Surprised? Afrikaans, the natively spoken language of 7 million South Africans, was born from the white Dutch, French, and German colonizers in South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries.