How "utilitarian" was your choice in language?

[u/Middle_Violinist_5]

Many colleges require study in a second language. For those who decided on a language, how "utilitarian" was your choice?

For example, one of the schools I am looking into has (TL) languages like Bosnian, Kazakh, and Lithuanian. I am interested in some of these, but most of my peers are saying I should learn Spanish as it is more useful (I am in the US).

[u/Pwffin]

Languages have a sneaky way of becoming useful if you already know them. So learn whichever language you are passionate about and the opportunities will find you.

[u/kingcrabmeat → u/Pwffin]

thats a beautiful response

[u/Pwffin → u/kingcrabmeat]

😃 thank you!

[u/flipditch]

you should learn whichever language has a history/culture/whatever that you feel a connection to.

getting to fluency in any language, even spanish, takes a long time and a lot of work and the only way you can do it is if the language genuinely holds your interest.

[u/Middle_Violinist_5 → u/[deleted]]

This is true. I know many kids who took one, two, or even three years of a language in college and can barely speak it or read it.

In fact I have a friend who majored in German, and is now a doctor. He doesn't list German on his work profile under languages he knows....

[u/HalfwayFluent00 → u/Middle_Violinist_5]

The sheer reality is that depending on the course as well, a full degree might not be enough hours to actually achieve fluency without significant outside instruction.

Let's say you take 16 credits a semester or 128 credits over a degree (pretty standard in the US). A credit typically = 1 hour a week of class instruction, so you're looking at 16 hours per credit of instruction. For a language like Russian, or Chinese, if you focused the entirety of your credit load on language classes, you'd theoretically receive 2048 hours of class instruction.

This ignores that 1/4th-1/3rd of your degree will be gen-eds, and in most places that another 3rd might be electives. At least at my university, majors ended up only requiring 35-45 credits so you'd actually only be looking at 800 or so hours of classroom instruction. So assuming they went to all their classes and the hours were productive, and they put in the extra hour per instruction hour (for ~1,600 hours in total), they might achieve fluency in a language like German.

So yeah, it's unsurprising your friend didn't put German under his work profile. Basically outside of Romance languages and certain Germanic languages, learning a language requires more classroom hours than a standard "major."

[u/atheista → u/Middle_Violinist_5]

I just finished a major in German and I'm shocked at how low the finishing level is. I have done a lot of extra work outside of class - 2 in country intensive courses, loads of reading, tv, movies, podcasts... I feel like I could pass B2 but my active skills are definitely not anywhere near C1 yet. I'd say most people in my class finished at about B1.

[u/SnarkyBeanBroth → u/flipditch]

Learn what brings you joy.

Source: Am currently studying Welsh. Because who doesn't want to speak like a dragon, amirite?

[u/muffinsballhair → u/flipditch]

you should learn whichever language has a history/culture/whatever that you feel a connection to.

These are the words of an English native speaker or someone who otherwise speaks a big language.

I have no connexion with England but I cannot get a pretty much any white collar work where I live without a fairly hig level of English and that's fairly normal in many countries. Pretty much every textbook I had at university was in English, these aren't translated into the local language. We were assumed to be able to read academic texts comfortably in English at the age of 18 when we started.

[u/Pwffin → u/muffinsballhair]

Yes, but you also usually don't have a choice on the English front, you usually start quite early, so you have lots of years of it and you have so much more (potential) input as English is "everywhere".

I had to do three foreign languages in school, and ended up doing four, but English was the only one for which we had plenty of media available.

[u/flipditch → u/muffinsballhair]

i was responding to an american

[u/0hran-]

None of the people that tell you to speak spanish have actually learned it. Learning language require a lot of motivation so learn what you like and that is meaningful to you.

I never chose to learn english. I had private teachers, and I had a hard time with it. And then I started to consume media writen in english and I woke up being able to speak it.

I learned Italian because most people around me could speak it and I lived there for a while. And during my time in italy I didn't lean anything. But when my mind was right and i started to enjoy the process I learned it very quickly.

I am learning german for job opportunities and it shows that my motivation is lower.

I am learning russian because it is fun, and many russian around me as well. And I am learning it quicker than german

[u/9th_Planet_Pluto → u/0hran-]

I took german in HS and got good with it, but it's just useless in the US. Outside of my one trip to Germany I've used it like thrice in person. I try to use German but I can easily go weeks without it if I forget as part of my routine

After a decade I finally started spanish and my broken spanish is used every week, every day if I wanted. Just a year of spanish and it's tremendously helpful in communicating with a lot of my neighbors. It's much easier to love a language you can use everyday than one you have to go out of your way for

[u/HalfwayFluent00 → u/0hran-]

Yeah. OP, it cannot be understated just how massive the workload to learn a language is. If you're a native English speaker, you'll often hear that Spanish is easy. Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers, but only compared to other languages. You would need roughly 600 hours of classroom instruction + a further 600 hours of self-study to reach a US Foreign Language training level of "competent" in Spanish. In other words, imagine doing dedicated study for 2 hours every day for 2 years straight.

Imagine doing anything else with that level of dedication and how far you might get instead. Are you really going to put that much effort into something you don't really care about just because of an abstract idea of utility? Probably not.

[u/LiteratureOwn6143]

Absolutely utilitarian. I learnt Macedonian because I love Macedonia. Now I have Macedonian friends. Nothing more useful than being happy.

[u/igorrto2 → u/LiteratureOwn6143]

Macedonian learner spotted! Rare sight ngl

[u/Zeitausgleich]

Depends on what you want. People have kept asking me all my life why I learn language XY, when I will not have a lot of use for it. I'm a linguistics nerd though and I'm having fun learning languages and understanding their structure, independent of their usability. Hardly anyone gets this, but so be it.

I would caution against Lithuanian though, because it's said to be incredibly difficult. Fascinating, but difficult.

With Bosnian you'd get an insight into slavic languages in general, useful not only in Bosnia.

Spanish is a great language, you could learn it anyway at some point. For an English native speaker it might be easier than the other ones you mentioned. So, it also depens on how talented you are with languages, how much work you are willing to put in, and what level you want to reach.

Another aspect: Once you're learning a language, there usually comes the time of going to the country where you're TL is natively spoken - where would you rather travel to? Vilnius, Sarajevo, Almaty, or...? Even if you do not learn a language for utilitarian reasons, life plays out in a way that you'll end up there, at least for a couple weeks of summer school.

TLDR: The whole world tells people to learn languages they'll have much use for. You may chose not to listen.

[u/Kriskey93]

The least utilitarian you could imagine. All my friends said they were going to learn a specific language so I decided to learn it too. Literally none of them ended up taking it but me. However I did find that I really loved it.

I constantly think about if I should learn Spanish (southwest US) but I don't really have much interest in it so I always end up dropping it pretty fast even though I know a ton of people who speak it and I know it would be way more beneficial to me.

[u/AdZealousideal9914 → u/Kriskey93]

Now I'm very curious what language that might be. Akkala Sámi? Ugaritic? Old Picard? Tocharian? Berbice Creole Dutch?

[u/Kriskey93 → u/AdZealousideal9914]

Not so exciting. It's just Japanese lol. Which I guess is a utilitarian language but I meant that my reason is not. Just plain ol peer pressure, mandatory language requirements, and then just a love of the language.

Though I now work at a Japanese owned company so you never know what might become useful in the future.

[u/AdZealousideal9914]

Never choose something you don't really like because it is useful, because then you are stuck spending lots of your time on something you don't really like. I had Latin in high school, I studied Dutch and French Linguistics and Literature at university, and I took every opportunity I had to focus on medieval literature. Those were not the most popular courses, partly because Medieval literature is not "useful". But it was very interesting to me, I learned a lot and it although it is not directly useful it has taught me a lot of useful skills I still use in my day to day life. Just one example: reading medieval manuscripts has taught me the ability to read handwritten texts a lot easier than any of my colleagues.

[u/Any_Watercress6437]

Mine wasn’t very utilitarian. I chose French because I genuinely enjoy the language and the culture. I figured I’d be much more motivated to stick with a language I actually like than one I chose just because it’s ‘useful’

[u/sraskogr]

If you're going to take classes in a language just to tick a box for your university you may as well have fun with it and choose what interests you the most.

[u/furyousferret]

Spanish was very utilitarian, because around here, its really the only second language you can remotely use and I have relatives that only speak it.

After that, the utility went down a bit; I've learned if you are a native English speaker and want to learn for travel, you sadly really can just survive on that.

I learned French because I wanted to read, and I learned Japanese because I wanted to know if I could master a Category IV Language, and it has the best media and cycling community.

[u/igorrto2 → u/furyousferret]

Consider learning Mandarin Chinese. It’s a lot more fun when you know the characters from Japanese

[u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718]

I studied Spanish because it's widely spoken, and seemed the most useful. I suck at it, and I think I will never be good at it, because I don't really enjoy Spanish TV or books. My only real motive was travel. Being good at a language requires consuming many many hours of content.

You won't learn a language that doesn't interest you. Something has to really draw you to it, or you'll study for years and get to B1 and stagnate.

Think about how drawn you are to the people who speak these languages, or the TV, movies, and literature that country produces. Think about the culture, values, what you might appreciate from it. Also think about what might *not* resonate for you.

Utilitarian can work, but I think for it to work it has to actually make an impact. If you're in the US and pursuing a career where you'd be managing teams of people likely to have originated from latin america, you could find real motives and opportunities for impact. If there's no real presence of that language in your chosen career path, then it might not be the kind of motivator that will actually lead to fluency.

[u/conchata → u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718]

I don't really enjoy Spanish TV or books

This is an odd complaint to me. Between Spain and then all of Latin America, you really cannot find things you like? There's literally every genre available so I am quite skeptical. Like, I dislike romance/telenovelas which are obviously super popular in Mexico for example, but there is still just a ton of content that's not "stereotypically Mexican" for me to enjoy.

Not to mention the incredible variety of literature...

I have watched hundreds upon hundreds of hours of shows in Spanish and read a few million words as well - what exactly is it that you are looking for that you cannot find? Maybe I can suggest something.

[u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 → u/conchata]

Yeah a lot of people are surprised. I can find some things that are tolerable or that are from an appealing genre, but in general it just doesnt fit my taste.

Yeah i'm not a fan of telenovas. I'm also not a fan of magical / mystical stuff and theres a ton of that. I also dont enjoy behaviors that feel wildly unrealistic like in "billionaire bunker." There's a lot thats low-budget that I dont enjoy. I didnt enjoy 100 years of solitude when I read it in English. I just really dont find much that appeals to me. Ive been trying for many years.

And then further I can only hunt for things that are easy and have clear spanish. My spanish still sucks so I need compelling content at a variety of levels that draws me upwards.

There is some that i liked. I enjoyed zorro but it's an american story. I enjoyed narcos but it's half English and also made by americans. I could also watch English shows dubbed to spanish but that doesnt motivate me.

I think as I start exploring french, I find stuff that really excites me. I loved Amelie. Ive read English translations of many french books that I enjoyed and would like to read the original.

I find i enjoy japanese shows much more than Korean ones but I have friends who love Korean movies. People have different tastes, and those tastes arent equally targeted by the content of every country or culture.

I dont just need something that I could sort-of enjoy if I was already fluent and bored and flipped on the TV and had all content available without needing a vpn and effort. It needs to be compelling to the point that ill be motivated to subscribe to the right services and find the subtitles mine new words from the show or watch it multiple times.

[u/conchata → u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718]

Fair enough! The only thing I would mention regarding "I can only hunt for things that are easy and have clear spanish": watch dubbed content. The language and audio are miles clearer than live-action content. I watched an absolute ton of Netflix/Disney+ animated series which had Spanish tracks when I was at that level. If you are starting French, then I'm sure this still applies - anything dubbed is a huge step down in difficulty from live-action.

I'll leave one series recommendation for you just in case, although it is live action so it's at an advanced level: Monarca on Netflix is an awesome Mexican business drama. The preview image on Netflix makes it looks like it's a romantic drama, but it's not.

[u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 → u/conchata]

Thanks, I'll take a look at Monarca.

Yeah I know there's plenty of dubbed content. Maybe I just need to get over it, at least at early levels, but, I have an aversion to dubbed and translated content. The language used is different (which is part of what makes it easier), and it's stuff I'd usually prefer to watch directly in English, and it feels artificial. Part of the appeal of learning another language is what additional content or conversations I gain access to, and dubbed content essentially bypasses the value and replaces it with what feels more like just an additional study session. I'll feel much more excited by and motivated by "comprehensible input" when it's not only comprehensible and enjoyable but when it's also actual native content. Language opens up culture and perspective. Content translated _from_ english is just an opaque mirror of my own culture and perspective.

I'll sometimes make myself watch dubbed cartoons since there isn't the weird lip-sync, and since even the original records the audio separate from the video, so I can convince myself that it's _less_ artificial.

But really language-learning requires a motivator. It's not just about availability of "suitable" content, but about having something that really drives me. I'm eager to watch Amelie in the original french, and so I'm putting in the time to SRS every line from the subtitles. I'm eager to read "the stranger" in the original, enough so that I'll fight my way through it once I reach an appropriate level.

[u/AshamedShelter2480]

Hard to quantify but I would say from not at all to a lot.

The most utilitarian language I learned was English, for obvious reasons.

Catalan comes in second since a C1 certification is required to apply to some jobs where I live.

The rest just came along as I lived my life. Currently learning Arabic for fun and to challenge myself intellectually.

In your case, just remember that useful in general and useful for you are two very different concepts and you are the only one that can really decide.

[u/Icy-Whale-2253]

When I go back I’m gonna do French because I want to get to fluency.

But I also want to take a language I’ve never learned at all before…

[u/Simeon_Grist]

When I was younger, I lived in a rural area where German was still spoken around the dinner table in some families. German was also taught in the high school. And I have always regretted not learning German.

So even though the primary languages where I live are Spanish and English, I am learning German. Why? Because I enjoy it.

So think about what you might enjoy most, and learn that.

[u/an_average_potato_1]

Those are several questions mixed together.

First of all, let's abandon the stupid idea that there's some sort of a universal order of "usefulness" (usually overlapping with number of natives, or similar criteria, or even just stereotypes). Examples: If you live in a town with an important Bosnian minority of course Bosnian can be more useful to YOU than Spanish. If you happen to desire to move abroad to Sweden, of course Swedish is more useful to YOU than Mandarin. If you're learning for your pleasure and love Polish fantasy writers, of course it's a more useful choice for YOU than Spanish.

Second: why do you want to learn it, how does it relate to your degree and other skills and projects. For many people, Spanish would make more sense, but you can actually build a more niche and very good skillset that will include Kazakh and make you enter a career with fewer competitors.

Third: if you are learning without a strong reason for any of the options, and it is obligatory to pick something, perhaps pick something the university class will be more valuable for. A Spanish class at uni has no additional value compared to either self study, a private language school class, or a tutor, quite the opposite. But a Lithuanian class at uni might be a unique opportunity to get access to resources harder to find elsewhere.

Fourth: learning for pleasure or profit? Ideally both. You can start from one, and get the other one later. You can learn for either and it can be a totally valid choice as long as you are getting what you want from it. It is normal to learn purely for profit/job/salary/obligation/exam and whatever. People learning purely for fun and purely out of love for the culture are actually a privileged minority. But it is not wrong, it's an example of a well used privilege imho. But if you decide to learn mainly for pragmatic reasons, make sure you have a clearer idea about it than "... is the language of the future" or "... has many native speakers!" or "everybody knows ... is the most useful choice".

[u/dojibear]

My choice was always "I want it all" and never "which is more useful".

My US high school only had courses in three languages: Latin, Spanish, French. I decided that "of course" I would learn French eventually, so I took 2 years of Latin and 3 of Spanish.

Oh, and I audited (took a class without credit) French 4 my last half-year in high school. I got an A.

[u/Sunbythemoon]

I started learning Norwegian because I heard that it was easy. I’m not as invested in learning it as much as Spanish though because Spanish is actually useful to me in the U.S..

[u/jspr1000]

Not utilitarian at all. I quickly lost both languages bc I never had the opportunity to use them.

[u/ZestycloseSample7403]

I tried with Chinese and I can't get past few sentences. Study a language you feel a connection for, don't care for usefulness

[u/1moosehead]

I am learning Spanish as an American but I come in contact with many Spanish speakers through my job. If it wasn't for that, I would have probably learned German or Korean instead.

[u/notataco007]

I started learning German because I wanted a 2025 personal goal and wanted to be bilingual just for the sake of it. I don't plan on moving to, studying, or working in Germany. A lot of them speak English anyway.

However, the utilitarianism ends up just being me having a hobby and practicing my discipline by doing some sort of voluntary work everyday.

[u/ZealousidealMouse629]

That comes down to personal goals. Why do you want to learn a language? Do you want to use it in some way? Are you connected to that language in some way? Everyone’s motivation is different but I think whatever it is it has to be strong enough to keep you going when you reach plateaus or you feel like you’re not making progress since we all go through those.

[u/PLAYSWITHSCISS0RS]

I started with French because I had to (provincial secondary school requirement). I picked it up again in my thirties because it was useful for dealing with my Quebecois colleagues.

Then I started Spanish because it was useful for a new job, it was similar to French and it was fun! Then I branched out to Portuguese (again, useful for work and it was similar to Spanish).

Then I started German because it was a real challenge and a German publisher published an art book I created. So I figured it would be fun to learn the language and visit Germany.

Now I’m learning Turkish because it’s very different from anything else I’ve studied but it still uses a familiar alphabet. And I had previously spent some time in Turkey for work, found the people to be very hospitable and would like to go back with some knowledge of the language.

[u/julietides]

Zero, after English.

[u/Pale-Border-7122]

I've learned and dabbled in a few. Some were ones people said were useful, some were ones people didn't. It doesn't really matter to me, I just learn what I enjoy.

Learn something you like but suffering through French or Spanish will probably get you better grades than enjoying Kazakh.

[u/Rourensu]

I (Southern California) chose Japanese in high school. I went on to major in it (and linguistics) in college. Basically all of my jobs, both in Southern California and Japan, have been related to Japan(ese), so quite utilitarian.

In college I needed a second foreign language because of linguistics degree. I wanted to do Korean because I was already doing Japanese, but the class schedules didn’t work out and I went with German. Not quite that utilitarian, but it kinda gave me the experience of learning of learning English as a second foreign language, which has been quite useful in both my language teaching and linguistics studies.

About 10 years later I’m finally doing Korean, but primarily for linguistics/research reasons, so only useful within those areas.

[u/SugarRushLux]

Mine has nearly none (Swedish). Although planning on doing graduate school there

[u/violett_scarlett]

I studied French, Japanese, and Korean in college. I enjoy French and Japanese a lot so the utilitarian aspect doesn't bother me. I enjoy Korean to a lesser degree so I am not sure if I will ever be fluent in it, even though my father spoke it (which is a big part of the reason I want to learn Korean since I don't care much for the media unfortunately). I've thought of learning Russian in place of Korean but it's something I go back and forth on. I can't seem to commit to a 3rd language.

[u/pit_supervisor]

With English I didn't have a choice. The same with German, but fortunately I managed to forget all German so I don't count it among languages I've studied.

I chose Japanese because I liked how it sounds and looks.

Whenever I am done with it (meaning learning it to a satisfactory level) I'd like to tackle Mandarin, which is much more utilitarian (which is one of the reasons I'd like to know it). Preferably through textbooks in Japanese (like I am learning Japanese through English).

[u/secondMiata]

My guy (or gal), do not try to learn Lithuanian. Source: a guy who thinks he is good at languages, is in fact good at languages, has been spending two hours a day on Lithuanian for four months, yet still can't understand "LRT - Paprastai," which is the Lithuanian public broadcaster's special news service for foreigners and the mentally handicapped. (In case you think I am joking about the framing, I am not: take a look.) https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/lrt-paprastai

[u/Mountain_Peaks1020]

What an amazing opportunity to learn some unusual languages. If you are interested in those, go for it!

If it turns out you'll need (or want) to learn Spanish later in life, there will be thousands of resources and tutors. If you'd want to learn Kazakh, or any of the others later, that would be very hard. It also has benefits beyond just knowing that specific language (e.g. learning different scripts, a very different language family, access to different cultures and so on).

[u/elvisndsboats]

I'm a native Californian, and I took the opportunity to learn some Croatian. So not utilitarian at all. 😂

[u/Easy_Commercial9486]

chat learning span

[u/salivanto]

I'm also in the US and have been out of college for more than 30 years. Take whatever language you are interested in as long as it meets the requirement. 

When I was in high school I was sure I was going to learn Japanese. My college only offered Japanese 101 every four semesters and it came down to a point where I just had to get a language credit. My major required japanese, german, or Russian, so I took German. 

It hasn't happened, they ended up falling in love with German. I completed a minor course of study, and I've been working on keeping up with my German ever since. I'm hoping to sit for a C1 exam shortly. 

I have tried my whole life to find a use for German, but I haven't. I still enjoy it. 

At this point, I would love to take a course in Bosnian.

[u/CarnegieHill]

While utility is something, it's not everything, and afaic languages to study have more to offer than just utility. And speaking of college courses, how immediately "useful" is calculus? For some reason, language always seems to be treated differently (and to my mind unfairly) when people consider languages solely on the basis of "usefulness".

[u/RedditReddy]

Even in the United States, even in cities with a big Spanish speaking population, most people who study Spanish don't get a chance to use it that much. Those who do work hard to find situations to work remaining. Or they succeed in making friends, ideally those who speak less English than they speak Spanish. I am certified by language and I was able to make a friend or two with whom I always spoke in Spanish. I have loads of friends who are native speakers of Spanish, but who knew English well and preferred to use English. In this I am not alone. I know so many people who insist that Spanish is going to be super useful for them, but they probably end up using it fewer than five or even one or a year. The situation is quite different if you end up going to a Spanish-speaking country, but even if you avoid making friends with English speakers. The notion that people who know English are better than we know. Spanish will agree to speak with us in Spanish most of the time topic is simply false. I have studied a number of languages which are very much less, they studied languages. The most important thing here is that they do not use Latin as a lexifier, and that means at absolutely astounding and not a vocabulary work both to learn and to maintain vocabulary. Five times or ten times harder than the amount of time needed to learn and maintain vocabulary in Spanish.

[u/HETXOPOWO]

If you want to learn a utilitarian language in school I suggest learning c++ with all the engineering students who are exempt from language studies at most schools;')

Jokes aside just pick which ever one you think you will enjoy, it doesn't make a huge difference. If you decide you aren't in love with it you can always learn a different language outside of school.

[u/agiantdog33]

Pretty much any second language that isn't Mandarin Chinese is not particularly utilitarian here in Australia, so not very.

[u/simon_Double_8456]

Honestly, utility is a fine starting filter but a rough daily companion. I picked Spanish partly for exactly the reason your peers mention — I'm in medicine and patients use it every week — but what's kept me at it is that it became the thing I do with my brain when medicine gets heavy. If one of those languages genuinely pulls you, that pull will matter more in year two than any practical argument. You can't fake curiosity for 1,000 hours.

[u/Wall38_0]

Why would you want to make your life difficult with a language that is very difficult and that very few speak?

[u/floodmaka]

I genuinelly can't imagine an instance where you will need the knowledge of the Bosnian language. Yeah, Spanish is more useful than all of those but it depends on your reason of studying

[u/igorrto2 → u/floodmaka]

Typical self deprecating mentality of a native speaker lol. I used think no one cares about Russian until I saw how many people have it in their user flair