Pursuing a Language in College

I'm a senior in High School and am starting to look at schools. I have three major limitations.

1. Do they offer a Computer Science Major? (Getting any more detailed is an entirely different problem)
   
2. What, if any, language classes do they offer?
   
3. Cost
   

I'm meeting with a friend of a friend of my mom's who teaches in hopes of tackling the first limitation. The last limitation is hard to address without a small list of colleges first. That leaves languages.

I have to take a second language. I want to be bilingual and this is nonnegotiable, but I don't really know what to learn. I've taken, at one point or another, the following languages in a class room. This does not mean I remember anything from it, though.

• French Preschool and 2 years of High school
  
• Mandarin Year and a half in 6th and 7th grade
  
• Less than a Semester of Latin in 6th grade
  
• Less than a semester of Arabic in 6th grade
  
• Spanish 7th grade
  
• Year of Japanese in 9th grade
  

I took French in High school because I needed two years of a language to graduate, and I didn't want to go back to Japanese after getting a D - enough for credit, not enough to move on (????). It was French or Spanish, I chose the lesser of two evils.

Logically, I'd continue French but I cannot stand it's phonetics. I know English has no right to talk in this aspect, but I was raised with it. I'm use to it. French is impossible for me to pronounce properly and I hate it. There's too many words with more silent letters than active ones.

I then considered German, in part because it seems to be a common theme and in part because it shares origins with English - and thus easier pronunciation? I know it has a lot of cognates, like French, but learning new words is easy. I have plenty of ways to do that. It's either correct or wrong, unlike with pronunciation. I cannot study that alone. I need someone who knows it to tell me what to do differently. In short, learning new complicated grammatical structures and words is easier than learning how to make new noises with my mouth. Ergo why I think German might be better than French.

Neither of these have any actual application for my field, though. I don't have any idea what does. A lot of video games come out of Asia, so would those languages benefit me at all? Japanese has pretty easy pronunciation, as I recall. Again, learning a new alphabet and grammar is do-able. Unsure of Korean, but I am familiar with how their written system works. Mandarin is crazy. Every word is it's own symbol, albeit often times combinations of symbols ( "girl" + "boy" = "good", I remember that much), and the tones. This might rival French.

So I come to you, SouthPerry, and your multilingual, multicultural -ness in hopes you can help me sort this out. What languages, if any, benefit computer science majors? Does it differ by specialization? (ie, game designers - Japanese, programmers - something else, et cetera)

I know many of you are bilingual, so maybe you could compare English with your language with what I see it as. (^)


tl;dr: Help me choose a language to take after High school that might help me with Computers.

Mandarin or japanese. Those are the big ones you WILL be glad you learned once you actually get out there.

Mandarin, there are so many job opportunities for you if you can speak it semi fluently.

JoWood is, or was, a German video game company, so not completely inapplicable. There are others as well.

Mandarin or japanese. Those are the big ones you WILL be glad you learned once you actually get out there.

Japanese is useful for leisure but not for business. In general you'd want to take a language that interests you because any serious businessperson in the world will speak decent English. Plus CS is a foreign language per se.

Chinese, definitely. German is a no-go, trust me. It's one of the harder languages around.

Chinese, definitely. German is a no-go, trust me. It's one of the harder languages around.

Thats not entirely correct.

If i were you id go with german. You guys in America already use many german words and you dont even know that you use them. for example.
Kindergarten, angst,beer garden,bratwurst,rucksack and a lot more.

For me as a german. English is not "that" hard to learn but French was way harder to understand and to learn.
About Asian languages; i have no clue sry.

But if you ever any questions about the german language, ask me

Gruesse aus deutschland
Greetings from germany

Kindergarten, angst,beer garden,bratwurst,rucksack and a lot more.

And my personal favorite, schadenfreude.

And my personal favorite, schadenfreude.

lol i didnt know that. Schadenfreude = glee or gloating right?

At the misery and suffering of others.

At the misery and suffering of others.

Ya ok its the same like in german f3.

Problem with German is that German's structure compared to English is goddamn difficult.

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/l...index.html

I solved your problem.

Japanese is useful for leisure but not for business.

That all depends on what you're looking to do in life.

For instance, let's say I want to work in the video game industry. Quite a large portion of video games are produced in Japan, so I would want to become a translator for a Japanese game company and do localizations for my own country. You can be paid quite a lot of money doing that and that's just one of the smaller things you can do if you're fluent in both or are a native in English (Usually, they want native English speakers more than people who've learned it).

That all depends on what you're looking to do in life.

For instance, let's say I want to work in the video game industry. Quite a large portion of video games are produced in Japan, so I would want to become a translator for a Japanese game company and do localizations for my own country. You can be paid quite a lot of money doing that and that's just one of the smaller things you can do if you're fluent in both or are a native in English (Usually, they want native English speakers more than people who've learned it).

I couldn't reply to your last thread on this topic since it was closed but: It's very hard to get a job as a translater (see ProZ). I tried looking for freelance work but it was like winning a lottery; there are thousands of bilinguals @ native level willing to do the work for half the money. Video game translations are often done by these hired guns (see the postings @link) so you're not going to make money. High-level positions like miltary liaisons and diplomatic attachés require the highest level of language proficiency and often demand an extensive resumé and past experience.

You have to keep in mind people in Germany or France or Japan speak English. Those people usually beat out the American translators when it comes to localization. You're most likely going to use second languages to communicate with partners abroad which means you have to consider what field you're going into after you finish college. The OP says CS so Chinese or Indian is appropriate.

Chances are you're likely not going to be able to communicate in any secondary language (I took six languages and can count to ten in four) so the easiest and the most interesting language is the best. You'll forget about it by senior year, I promise.

I couldn't reply to your last thread on this topic since it was closed but: It's very hard to get a job as a translater (see ProZ). I tried looking for freelance work but it was like winning a lottery; there are thousands of bilinguals @ native level willing to do the work for half the money. Video game translations are often done by these hired guns (see the postings @link) so you're not going to make money. High-level positions like miltary liaisons and diplomatic attachés require the highest level of language proficiency and often demand an extensive resumé and past experience.

You have to keep in mind people in Germany or France or Japan speak English. Those people usually beat out the American translators when it comes to localization. You're most likely going to use second languages to communicate with partners abroad which means you have to consider what field you're going into after you finish college. The OP says CS so Chinese or Indian is appropriate.

Chances are you're likely not going to be able to communicate in any secondary language (I took six languages and can count to ten in four) so the easiest and the most interesting language is the best. You'll forget about it by senior year, I promise.

Well, obviously, if you go out looking for a job blindly without knowing what you're getting into or knowing everything about the career path your taking, you're just going to hit dead end after dead end. If Hazzy wants to become bilingual to help his career in computer science, he's going to have to know what is wanted from him in order to use his language abilities.

I hate to go off on a tangent here, but when I went to the Toyota company in Tennessee when I went to visit my mother, they said that I could easily get a job doing corporate translations between the companies in Japan and the United States as a liazon if I were proficient enough in the language. So, in order to be able to use language as a career, you MUST know what you're doing. If you just merely put yourself out there and hope you get welcoming arms like those people on Proz are doing, you're not going to get anywhere. Life in this era is all about connections and knowing what you're doing. Without all of that, you're pretty screwed and you're not going to get anywhere.



Hazzy, if you want to pursue a language for the betterment of the career you're going into, do the research. If you find a language you wish to pursue and a way to apply it, then don't hesitate -- just go for it and work your ass off.

Hard to give you an opinion here. I personally think that English is all you'll ever need. Here's why, most or all countries are teaching their students "English". I went to Vietnam during the Summer, and I was amazed that at college-level over there, they are basically learning how to speak English at our proficient level. It's kinda rough, because they can't pronounce words correctly like we do. English is literally the business language. Many countries are trying to pick up English for only one purpose only, which is "business". You need to know English to work, especially if overseas. Ever notice how when you go from America to China, or to anywhere else, a lot of signs will be in English? English is a great 2ndary language if your native or mother-tongue language is not originally English.

Personally, I'm Vietnamese, and my English speaking skills actually beats my Vietnamese speaking skills. This is pitiful to myself, but to other English speakers, it's surprising. As long as you can speak English, you'll get by. Also, don't take Japanese if you think you're doing that just to watch anime as soon as they come out, because I'm sure some idiots will do that. :| Japanese is a good language only if you intend on living, or working in Japan. It's not exactly a great language to learn for business. If you want to learn something else besides English (derp), might as well pick something like Chinese. Companies like Walmart gets their goods from poorer countries such as China, and knowing Chinese can be a great thing if you want to learn how to import/export sh`it out of their country.