Which Language Should I Learn?

I’m an indecisive guy.
Choosing an outfit to go out? Stress.
Deciding on a restaurant for dinner? Stress.
Picking a movie to watch? Stress.

Typical night after thirty minutes of futile scrolling through Netflix. 

So how in the world do you expect me to choose one out of about 6,500 languages to start learning? It's cruel.
That’s a daunting number of options, especially when choosing between the same three restaurants once a week is enough to induce a mild identity crisis. Like, do I even actually like this food? Am I thinking too hard about this? Who am I? Who are you? Is poke the right choice? Yes. Yes it is.

I know I am not the only one who loathes decision-making. When you’re sitting with your friends (who may or may not actually exist) and every single one of them shrugs their cute shoulders and says, “I don’t really care”, well, they’re hiding their indecisiveness behind a cool, thin veil of impartiality. But guess what, friends? You can’t fool me. We’re one and the same. Grow a spine! Pick a restaurant, damnit, I’m hungry! And I for one will not be the one to do it!

But back to the topic at hand. Languages.

There are many. About 6,500. I said that already. And now you can use that as a fun fact, you're welcome. 

Although there is an intimidatingly large amount of languages, you can whittle that scary number down to a much more manageable group by asking yourself some basic questions about why you’ve decided to learn a language. Do I like it? Is it useful? How difficult is it? So, let’s get down to business (Mulan is the best Disney animated film, fight me) and figure out how to pick a language to tackle.

Interest

May I pique your interest? No? Alright. Your loss. But whatever language you decide to begin learning better pique your interest. It’s all too common that someone begins to learn a language only based on its practical use (which is important, and we shall get to that), rather than considering their own level of personal interest in it.

Being interested in a particular language is absolutely CRUCIAL for success. It needs to be an enjoyable experience, otherwise the process becomes a chore, and you’ll struggle to make any progress, because chores are not fun. You need to stay motivated.

Besides trying to learn how to read Korean in middle school circa 2009/2010 because of my undying love for the Korean girl group 2NE1, my first significant language learning experience started when I was a freshman in high school (that’s at age 14, for you non-Americans). My sisters had taken American Sign Language classes, and I wanted to follow suit. They would sign rude things about me and I wanted to be able to defend myself from those two banshees whom I love so much. 

2NE1 is the blueprint. I miss them dearly. God, I hope they are having a good day today. 

But alas, the introductory ASL class was full and so I enrolled in my second choice, French. At the time, I didn’t have any special interest in French, but over some months I grew to really love the language, and began putting in independent effort outside of formal class time to expand my French powers. Hon hon hon.
For students who never gained a genuine interest in the language, learning never went beyond doing the bare minimum in class to fulfill the language requirement. And that’s okay!
But if you decide to buckle down and learn a language, your choice should first and foremost hinge on whether or not it interests you.

If it doesn’t spark joy in your life, Marie Kondo that bastard.

Life’s short, friends, spend your time doing what you love.

Utility

Something to take into consideration is how useful a language might be to you. There are, of course, many different ways to determine how useful any language might be, but two statistics that are pretty easy to find on Google (or Bing if you swing that way, this is a judgment-free zone) are the number of speakers globally, and the distribution of these speakers geographically.
How likely are you to use the language? Face to face communication is important, but you can also consider the presence of speakers online as well. 

These are flags.

If you're a lazy bum (idle hands are the Devil's workshop, you know), don't worry your pretty little head, here are the top five languages with regard to highest amount of native speakers:

1. Chinese has about 1.3 billion native speakers, the large majority of whom speak Mandarin. Not a bad choice. China's global influence has gone up exponentially over the last few decades, so learning Chinese might come in handy down the road.
2. Spanish comes in with around 460 million native speakers. Impressive! Knowing Spanish will help you out considerably in Central and South America, Spain, and, yes, even the United States (which has no official language, by the way).
3. English claims approximately 379 million native speakers (and over 700 million second language speakers), which is not to scoff at. With the massive cultural influence that English speaking nations still have, English remains the primary language of business and politics. But if you're reading this you are likely already an English speaker. Though some of us could use some brushing up on English grammar anyways.
4. Hindi, the most largely spoken official language of India, has close to 341 million native speakers. There are arguments over whether or not Urdu (found in Pakistan) and Hindi are the same language, but should you decide to learn Hindi, you'll be having a smoother time traveling in either location than if you go in without it!
5. Arabic has about 315 million native speakers. There is a caveat, though. Arabic is a pretty regionalized language, meaning that the dialects that are spoken in different countries (or within the same country) can vary quite a lot. You can learn Modern Standard Arabic to understand texts, primarily, but it would be smart to choose a specific regional dialect of Arabic (Palestinian, Egyptian, Iraqi, etc.) in order to communicate with actual people.

Difficulty

Please raise your hand if you have ever felt personally victimized by a page of Chinese writing.

If you're torn between two languages because you're equally interested in them, and can see yourself making use of both, you can also consider the difficulty/ease you'll have in learning each one.

How difficult a language is to pick up really depends on which language(s) you already know.

For instance, as a native English speaker, you'll likely have a much smoother ride studying Dutch than studying Thai. Why? I'll tell you.

English and Dutch are very closely related linguistically. They are both West Germanic languages. They share a history. They have the same roots. They've got the same genes (True Religion, to be exact). They're family.

Dutch sounds like English after someone had one too many drinks at the party.

English and Thai, on the other hand, are not even remotely related. They don't share the same writing system. They're about as different as can be in any manner.
Now, that's not to say that going for the easier language is always the best choice! It's simply something to consider.

I've chosen to learn French, which is high up on the list of languages for native English speakers to learn with some ease, due to about 45% of English words being of French origin. Thanks, William the Conqueror.

Subsequently, I've chosen to learn Mandarin and Korean. Those two rank pretty consistently as two of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn. Huh. Maybe I'm just a masochist. You learn something new about yourself all the time. But they interest me. And that, in my opinion, should override any fear you have of difficulty.

Here is a link to some languages categorized by difficulty for native English speakers, courtesy of the United States Foreign Service Institute (thanks, feds). Take a little peek for yourself, you peeping tom.

That's about it for this one, folks. Hopefully your decision is made a bit easier going forward. But if you can't pick one language, the world will not end. Just do both. ¿Por qué no los dos?