The 5 Best Languages to Learn in College

English may be the lingua franca, but it’s still just one of thousands of languages spoken around the globe. Despite its popularity, not everyone speaks English or is comfortable using it to conduct business or negotiate.

This is what makes learning a foreign language so valuable for college students. Knowing a language other than English allows you to not only travel abroad and communicate with people who don’t speak English, but it also makes you a more competitive applicant for jobs — especially positions in government, trade, and international relations.

A 2019 survey conducted by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages revealed that 90% of U.S. employers depend on employees with language skills. Additionally, a quarter of employers said they lost business because their workers lacked critical foreign-language skills.

Other research found that college graduates who speak a second language earn 2-3% more, on average, than those who only speak English.

Mastering a language isn’t just helpful for careers, though. Studies show that learning a foreign language can reduce biases in your decision-making process and help your brain process information more efficiently.

Regardless of which language you choose to learn, you’ll enrich your life in several key ways. But picking a language can be hard — after all, you’ll likely be dedicating years, if not the rest of your life, to mastering this language.

Here, we introduce our picks for the five best languages to learn in college based on factors like global demand, job opportunities, and time required to achieve proficiency.

It’s likely no surprise Spanish tops this list. The primary language of Mexico, Spain, and many Latin American countries — and the second-most widely spoken language in the U.S. — Spanish remains the most popular choice for U.S. college students.

This Romance language is far and away one of the most useful for domestic jobs, especially if you plan to work in a city with a large Spanish-speaking population, such as Houston or Los Angeles.

Industries like sales, customer service, healthcare, law, finance, and IT all look favorably upon candidates who possess strong Spanish skills. On the job site Indeed, nearly 200,000 positions pop up when you search for the keyword “Spanish.”

One downside of learning this language to boost your career is that Spanish-speaking jobs tend to be fairly competitive, so you’ll likely need to be fluent or near-fluent to stand out.

Spanish is considered one of the easiest languages for native English speakers to learn due to its similarities to English. According to research conducted by the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State, learners can expect to reach Spanish proficiency in six months, or around 600-750 total class hours.

Although Japanese is mainly spoken in just one country, it’s an extremely practical language to know, particularly if you hope to establish a career in the technology or automotive sectors.

Japan boasts one of the most thriving economies in the world, ranking below only the U.S. and China in terms of GDP. The country is home to globally renowned companies such as Sony, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Honda, Nissan, Panasonic, Toshiba, and Nintendo, many of which maintain branches across the U.S.

Japanese has around 130 million native speakers and is the fifth-most commonly studied language among U.S. college students. It’s also one of just two languages (the other being Korean) whose number of learners at U.S. colleges has increased, rather than fallen, in recent years.

While Japanese is often considered tricky to master — it has three alphabets after all — some students may find it less intimidating than languages like Chinese and Spanish due to its relatively simple pronunciation and lack of gendered vocabulary.

The former lingua franca (which has since been replaced by English), French continues to be one of the most widely spoken and studied languages, with around 300 million global speakers.

In addition to being the default language of France — which boasts the seventh-largest economy in the world — French is officially recognized in nearly 30 countries, including Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, and many countries throughout West and Central Africa, where it is the fastest-growing language on the continent.

French is also an official language of several international organizations, such as NATO, the U.N., the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and Amnesty International. This makes French ideal for government and nonprofit positions.

Research shows that French is relatively easy for native English speakers to learn, which makes sense considering that approximately 30% of English words come from French. What’s more, knowing the language of love can help you more easily pick up other Romance languages, like Italian and Spanish.

While Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French are some of the most useful languages to learn, it’s ultimately up to you to decide which language you want to study. In reality, any language can be considered useful — it all comes down to your interests, goals, and resources.

Other factors you might take into consideration when choosing a language to learn include where you live (or hope to live), whether you want to use the language mainly for travel or work, and how fast you want to become proficient in it.

Even if you decide to study a language not on this list, that doesn’t mean it’s not useful or worth learning. What’s most important is pursuing what you want to study and being able to enrich your life through the learning process.

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