What Languages Should You Know if You Want to Travel the World Freely

Hi, interesting list and I would say I pretty much agree with it. I know English, French and Catalan.
I just made a list of the top ten native languages with samples of their audio so you can hear what they sound like:
http://mlnlanguages.blogspot.com/
It is different to your list of course as the most spoken languages are not always the most useful ones in the wider world.
Jim

I speak English and Chinese, and can at least manage in Spanish.

I might get rid of French — with Arabic and English, you've already covered a lot of Africa (though certainly not all). The problem with Chinese is that, though China is really freaking big and full of stuff to see, it's only one country. Your knowledge of Mandarin, if you're looking at it from purely a traveling perspective, isn't that useful outside of China, as compared to Spanish or English.

I speak English and Chinese, and can at least manage in Spanish.

I might get rid of French — with Arabic and English, you've already covered a lot of Africa (though certainly not all). The problem with Chinese is that, though China is really freaking big and full of stuff to see, it's only one country. Your knowledge of Mandarin, if you're looking at it from purely a traveling perspective, isn't that useful outside of China, as compared to Spanish or English.

Given the sheer number of Spanish-speaking countries, I would advise to learn Spanish, versus Portuguese.

I think English, Russian, Arabic, Spanish… probably in that order. French is growing irrelevant these days, as English will get you by in most French-speaking countries.

As previously stated, Mandarin is only spoken in China. There may be a *LOT* of chinese, but they’re only in one place, so it’s not what I’d call a necessary “world-traveler’s language”.

If you know spanish and french, you can get by in the other three romance languages. Also, France is still the language of the intelligentsia. An old holdover to be sure, but I find that everywhere I go I am happy I know it.

In the Arab world French is useful as well, and that coupled with fusha (Q’ranic Arabic) will let you get by. Everyone knows the Q’ran’s Arabic so they’ll understand you, you’ll just sound a bit fancy. It’s fairly easy to pick up the local Amaya from there. If you were to pick one dialect, I would suggest Egyptian since the prominence of Egyptian cinema means other Arabs all understand Egyptian.

That’s a useful comment, Delia. I’ve always wondered about how Arabic works. I have done a short course in Egyptian Arabic but I never got to use any and have probably forgotten most.

I, too, enjoy speaking French but I find its usage just because it’s chic a bit snobbish at times. It is a cool language so I have nothing against speaking it for the fun of it, though. :)

Hey, cool list! As you know, it inspired me to write my own.
http://www.fluenteveryyear.com/2010/04/my-compl...

I think there is a good argument to keep French in there, though at the bottom of the list. I believe French is still the diplomatic language of the world, which means that although it may not be the primary language of many countries it is still very useful as a way to communicate in some places.

I agree with your list, though I'd actually say that French is more important than Mandarin and if I had to chuck one or the other, it'd be Mandarin, because Mandarin is really only used INSIDE China only, whereas French is much, much more widespread.

Cheers,
Andrew

Hm, Mandarin being spoken only in China is a severe misconception, I should think. Because of Chinese immigrants in the past, you will find a substantial number of people speaking Mandarin here in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and the South-east Asian region. There are bound to be Chinese people everwhere (even in England or U.S.A or Canada where English is normally thought of as enough) …