I would recommend against learning any language with the goal of making money, but learning something like Mandarin or Spanish or any language can connect you to the people in a deeper, genuine way, especially if they're living in your country. Showing kindness and asking about their lives in their language can teach you a LOT and make a lasting friendship. My neighbors are from El Salvador and only speak Spanish, and so does a woman who has a kid at the place I take my kid to, and I was able to talk to them in a conversational enough way at B1 that their eyes lit up and they didn't feel so alone.
Tell that to a Philippino who gets access to a salary 5x the norm just by working in a call center for American clients. This is extremely wrong. Not my case, still English is a must to make good money.
@ call centers are being replaced by AI. I know a few that have swapped over to AI services here in Australia. There’s also a backlash against outsourcing for the exact same reason I mentioned in the video, accents. So that was probably true for the past but won’t hold up in 10 years. They’ll probably be for the most part completely gone by then or moved in house for special cases.
When I came to Germany I was determined to learn German. I had spent a year in Korea and left only knowing a few phrases. It took me five years but I did learn to speak German which was very useful because I have been here for forty years. It is also a requirement to be able to read and write German at a basic level to have permission to live here.
I live here in Australia and for work I install insulation in houses. I love language, history, religion, philosophy and have spent thousands of hours immersed in all of those things and I’m still yet to see a single dollar gain from any one of those haha… When people I work with and speak to discover I can speak and understand latin, their immediate go to is “why?!” or “you should be a translator.” no one can simply grasp the fact that some things just purely bring joy and enrich your life without there being a need to earn from it. I always say it’s seeing the world in a whole new way, almost like if you were colourblind but now can see colours and each language or culture you dip into is a new colour. The world is huge and exciting - that will always be reason enough for me to spend my precious time here having totally unique experiences even if it takes thousands of hours 😅
Totally! The way I explain it is using the movie concept or a video game. Some people like to blow their time playing games I prefer to use mine diving into a random language and culture! Next time I meet someone who does insulation for a property I’m going to be so tempted to ask “Do you speak Latin” lol
I'm a heavy duty mechanic and have spent thousands of hours working on languages, if I have put the same amount of time into my career I'm sure I would make more money, but I would probably be miserable 😂
Ive landed on french recently after language hopping to my next hyperfixation language, but it would be somewhat usful money wise. You should do a video on how to stay focused kn a single language while your adhd keeps tellign you to learn another constantly. Merry Christmas 🎄
I feel your pain. That's true for probably every single hobby activity I have ever done. ADHD is a real pain in the ass in that sense. I think the only way is to build habits and find a way to really enjoy the activity. But even then our brains will crave novelty. So I don't know if it's even possible.
I can't focus on a single language at a time. So, at the moment, I just try to prioritize German and Romanian, but I still learn a little of other languages on the side. Ideally, it would be 80% of the time studying German and Romanian. It's closer to 50-60% actually, but that's okay, anyway.
Increase your dosage when studying or use a stronger stimulant. I had a vyvnase prescription but used methamphetamine when I first started studying Japanese and it helped significantly.
I learned python and chemical engineering for money, mandarin for my personal interests. There's a good synergy since engineering has a lot of mandarin speakers, but it's not enough to justify it - like you said 6000h might be required to get to the technical vocabulary of my native speaker peers
The problem with learning a foreign language as an English speaker is that translation and intercultural interaction jobs are likely going to go to native speakers of that language because they are more motivated than English speakers to invest those 6000 hours. Translation today is just for texts that are still too difficult for AI and need to be at a higher level, like published. Latin is most useful for teaching grammar concepts. Once you study Latin, you can tackle most languages fairly easily. Aside from the necessity of forced migration to an area that does not speak your language, the only real motivator I have seen is love, and even that fails more often than it succeeds. The best variant is each partner speaks their native language and then the kids are automatically bilingual, or more. As to economics, the answer is pidgin, i.e., you learn just enough to get by. Most immigrants live in communities where their native language is spoken and only their kids learn the local language, a result of schooling.
I wish people understood that stuff about forgetting English in places like China. It's true in Japan too for instance. Any large country not dependent on English for day to day purposes, especially with a mother tongue distant from English, this happens with. Their level gets decent (often low to mid intermediate), but usually not great, which makes it easier to forget. Then they enter the workforce and get busy with day to day, and it rusts away as they don't use it. Typically their receptive abilities stay a little better. My experience anyway. Related, I find it interesting to think that machine translation and LLM stuff you were talking about might help preserve local languages a little. People will feel less pressure to reach high levels in auxiliary (to them) languages like English, and may communicate more often in their native tongues. Maybe, anyway.
I’m pretty sure LLMs and similar software will actually help preserve languages as people will always take the easy route and companies will always want to cater for that. So we’re probably at the peak of English learning right now.
Great video. I'd argue, if you're young and haven't built a career or any skillsets yet, learn that first, then later on in life learn the language you want. Language learning, to the point of taking in culture, is fucking hard. Hours upon hours of shadowing, drilling, grammar, vocab, listening. It never ends. And, if you think you don't need to focus on grammar, well then good luck with any conversation beyond ordering breakfast or making a reservation.
Language difficulty depends on the language. An Italian speaker won't have to do bruteforce shadowing when learning Spanish, nor will it be as hard as learning Mandarin, so it won't require countless hours. And as for hardship, there are people who dont find the process of language acquisition disagreeable at all, but rather an enjoyable challenge, so it's not always this braincrackingly hard thing.
Now that gave me some food for thought! Which is surprising because I absolutely agree with the main argument. Most people would be better off investing their time in other skills. And if it has to be language related skill, you'd be better off improving your communication skills in your native tongue. The majority of people are also quite bad at writing and expressing their thoughts in general, which could be improved with 100 hours of focused training, if that. And even if you're native, AI will usually improve your writing (I'm saying this as a technical writer). What I would like to challenge instead is your point about culture. While Chinese and English are indeed almost 100% different (if you discount grammatical parallels), the differences between the cultures are actually very relative. Most differences are quite superficial and are easily understood by analogy. The difference between an Australian family today and one from 150 years ago would be greater than between a modern Chinese family and an Australian family. More to the point, the difference between two related families in Australia might be greater than the difference between an average family in China and one in Australia. There are indeed some deeper differences in terms of social aspects, but all in all, they don't comprise more than 10%. If it were an alcoholic beverage, it would still be enough to get you drunk, though ;-). I might feel this way because I grew up with two cultures and see customs and conventions as something relative to begin with. The differences might feel much bigger to someone who hasn’t had that experience, so that’s just food for thought from my side. That said, learning languages can also have some other benefits. The first one is well-known, but you need to experience it to truly understand it. If you can master a language, especially an unrelated one, you'll really learn how to learn and apply this to other aspects of your life. You'll know that you have to put in vast amounts of time to get good at a new skill, and you'll be willing to do so because you'll understand that if you dedicate the time and experiment until you find the right method, you can succeed, while others who lack that experience will give up halfway. If you hadn't mastered Esperanto, maybe you wouldn't have taken up Chinese again. The second argument is a little more interesting. Learning a foreign language is something of a rain check. Historically speaking, many people had to emigrate even though they hadn’t planned to. If you know a couple of major languages, you'd be in a much better position if a black swan event were to hit you. Australia might be much safer than other places, though.
You make a really interesting point with the culture critique. I grew up in the Australian outback in a monolingual town, then lived a military life and finally moved to the city in my mid 20s so I’m probably more sensitive to these differences as I didn’t experience a city life growing up. It’s also true that I’ve been surprised by not just differences but weird and interesting similarities especially here in the countryside. A fun conversation I had was with an ex-Chinese soldier and his experiences versus my own. Finally, that rain check argument is actually something I’ve seriously thought about before. Having worked in the military I’m always a little paranoid about “society suddenly collapsing”. I often joke to my wife that if America maintains its dominant position I’m fine as I speak English, if China takes over I’m Chinese and waving the red flag now :p
I do see job ads saying you need to be a native English speaker, jobs like shop assistant. They don't say you need to be fluent in English, but you must be a native. What about Scottish people who are native English speakers but have an accent, so different from the Australian accent?
That’s a really interesting point and I’d love to hear from anyone who’s actually had this experience. I guess an English native from Kenya or India might also face the same issue!
When I reveal that I learn Esperanto or try to learn Swedish, I am immediately asked or\and convinced like why do I need that useless language (especially Esperanto)? If I ask what else should I learn instead I basically get an answer about English. Fuck :D I am a translator by one of my diplomas, I am already able to use English and I do use it at work, but I want something else in this life. I already know one of so-called useful languages, so give me the fucken right to make a damned choice :D :D :D Why don't I have my right to learn a language just for pleasure, not for the sake of potential earnings? Actually, speaking of Esperanto, it was very useful, because after that learning French and Spanish is a bit easier and smoother compared to learning those from a scratch. As for English, one can get advantages basically living beyond English speaking country. If you live in the US or even in Australia, e.g., it instantly stops being a special skill. Speaking of the reasons and motives to learn languages nowadays, given all kinds of rapidly developing technologies, I'd say that the necessity to learn those will not disappear. If you communicate remotely, chat GPT can be helpful, but it comes to offline communication, the ability to speak a language properly is still valued, because as far as I know interpreting machines has not been invented yet, and it would be weird and wildly inconvenient to bear smarphones and show them to each other every time you want to tell something. Modern technologies can help in doing routine stuff and thus save your time as well as learn languages overall but I don't think they can replace languages entirely. I am very optimistic about technologies in this regard, since those help a lot in learning languages. A super long sheet again, sorry :D Ok, I stop rambling :D
All good, my videos are essentially just long rambles so I expect nothing less from people commenting. I hope your optimistic view is true but I also know humans like to take the path of least residence and so I get the feeling that tech will solve this problem eventually to. I will always personally learn languages but economically I get the feeling they’ll be less and less important. And also you’re comment about English made me laugh as my wife literally said today “When I’m in Australia no one complements me on my English but here in China you just get endless praise for your Chinese! It’s so unfair” hahaha
@@Evildea I agree about the less economic necessity, though I still think that the necessity to learn languages in general will not totally disappear, but take rather other forms and motives. Well, interesting. I think maybe that's because one can barely impress with English spoken abroad. But Chinese despite the tremendous amount of speakers is still rarely used beyond China. I also suppose that Chinese know about the difficulty for foreigners to learn their language, so if they happen to hear good Chinese from a white person, they sincerely admire it. But it's solely my assumption, since I never been to China, so correct me safely, if I'm wrong :D Maybe it depends on a language, but I don't think I can impress somebody with my English in the US, Canada or Australia, for example. Yes, some people are impressed by a person, who learned English living in a non-English speaking country, but they often get used to this and start taking it for granted :D I said this in the previous comment what is based on my experience
Your assessment is pretty on point. The need for those experienced at acquiring languages or mastering specific random languages will also never completely disappear just as we still have leather workers now and people who make horse shoes.
@@EvildeaI suspect that English will still be a global lingua franca even when AI translation becomes flawless, because it's already influenced the world so much that it's inertia wont go away anytime soon when AI becomes a super reliable translator. In fact, it may be the case it will still be learned by many in the world, at least whose native language is IndoEuropean, due to the relative grammatical ease of English compared to other languages. And just how Latin stuck for centuries and millennia, so too may English stick among the intelligentsia of the world. And I say all this as a non native Eng speaker
@@AbsurdScandal Latin lasted for centuries because technology took for longer to progress. The lifetime of French as a Lingua Franca was a lot shorter. I have my suspicions about how long English as a required Lingua France will last but I’ll never know for sure because it will definitely out last my lifetime but how many lifetimes after that is the question. A great example is Russian was a Lingua Franca of the Soviet world and now it has been supplemented for the most part in one generation. I think technology is going to have insane ramifications that most of us can’t even imagine at this point. One great example is the Chinese government in the last year actually started pulling back on English as a “required language of study” in many areas of life. There is even debates happening right now about whether is should be required at all anymore.
When 1st study Japanese, I was doing a bit of Japanese homework on the train on the way home and this one guy once yell at me angrily saying that I shouldn't be learning Japanese in Australia.
Actually, what you said is true for any language, including your native language. When I realized that no one pays me for speaking my native language, I stopped using it as much as possible and now replaced it with Prolog. Unfortunately, no one around me understands logic, but that’s not my problem unless they pay me to use javascript
Totally agree. The main reason to learn a language is if you plan on interacting A LOT (in person or otherwise) with people who speak that language and don't speak English well (or any other languages that you speak). Another reason is to be able to read texts in that language. But if you learn a language just to earn money, you will likely be unsuccessful in that endeavor, unless you already have a solid plan. Especially if your native language is English, there are probably tons of native speakers of your target language who also speak English well, so there's lots of competition. I originally started language learning in high school just for the fun of it. I never had any goal in mind; I just always found it to be interesting and fun. But now I do it for practical reasons: I regularly communicate with Chinese people who don't speak English well, and I regularly read books in Chinese. The books are translated into English, but I prefer to read them in their original language.
I never thought about it from an economic standpoint I did end up having to use one of the languages i learned (beside English) at one of my jobs But what I am currently learning is almost a dead language (Syriac Aramaic), so no direct economic use, just personal interest
May I ask why that language caught your interest? Most people who go for the classics choose Latin, Greek and sometimes Egyptian. Is it for religious reasons? Very curious :D
I do tentatively aim to immigrate to a Latin American country eventually, but that was never a factor in my desire to learn the language. I just love it.
My prior reason to learn language is to reduce my stuttering level and getting a confidiance. I am stuttering in my native language but when l talk in my target language , I do not stutter. it is very weird but it is like this. Not stuttering give me a confidiance probably in the future l gonna delete my native language and gonna speak only in my targets languages.😅
Bro that is the most random example and kind of cool as. I’ve actually got a mate who has turrets and he swears all the time but loves hanging out with me because we speak Esperanto together and then when he swears in Esperanto it just sounds like English fruit names to passerbyers haha
This sucks. My social worker said the same thing. I wanted to be a Portuguese, German, Russian, Danish or Norwegian interpreter and found there is zero work where I live for it. The only options are call centers and the FBI which they would most certainly prefer I know almost any other language. The only language I did learn growing up is ASL and everyone but my dad learned it because my mother is a speech pathologist. There is plenty of work and not likely to be replaced by AI anytime soon. I’m glad I have that option however I left teaching special education because the effort was not worth the pay. I thought interpreting made big bucks and it does if you are a simultaneous interpreter for the UN or a large corporation but again is the possibility of 152k-182k a year worth all that time, effort and traveling? Not to me. Thanks for the video. It really validated everything happening in my life recently.
Sorry to hear that man. My ultimate dream was the be an actor and make Esperanto movies but there’s literally no market for that. It’s a punch in the face but have a good think on how you could use the languages in other ways to fulfill your inner desires.
2:15 worked as an interpreter for more than a year, been paid peanuts, it was rewarding only as a noble thing to do, helping people in need, the ill and the oppressed. Languages don't give any considerable money in most cases, though there are still ways to work for food with them.
I learn languages for the pleasure of "finding things out". That's the reward in itself. I've worked in China already three times and all I used was english, so there's no need for me to learn chinese. But the kind of connection you get from people when you speak their language cannot be bought. So, I'll continue to repeat my sentences and watch hours of peppa pig until I get this language.
If you live in Wales then definitely learn Welsh for job prospects. Elsewise whatever reason floats your boat - as long as - it is Your reason and not cause you met some cutie-pie and want to speak her native language. Married and want to learn, sure. But the reason must be strong enough to keep you going for thousands of hours. IMO, learn whatever you want and never tell anyone what or why, your reasons are your own and they only need to make sense to you.
Great video. I am so sick of hearing that school children should learn Japanese, for example, for economic reasons. But when you leave school there is no way your Japanese will be good enough to be able to use it for business, for example.
@@Evildea It is 3am here. I have a terrible toothache and can't sleep. Your video made me forget my toothache for a few minutes. I hear it so often that Esperanto is useless whereas learning Spanish, Chinese, Indonesian, etc is very useful for business, but of course most people will never use those languages for business, whereas if they learn Esperanto, they might not use it for business either, but they can use it to make friends with people from many different cultures and get to fluency which is so satisfying unlike if they try a national language and never reach conversational level.
I was actually wondering what you were still doing awake haha. Yeap, a very common annoying argument I hear quite often. But I’ll make sure to keep educating people as I go!
Me, living in Europe, working in three languages, two of them were obligatory to get a job with NO additional payment for knowing said languages: how cute. Just learn the language, or if you really are so money driven learn finances or plumbing, or welding or become electrician - these will definitely pay you much more. Languages are useful, but not necessarily economical.
Yeap… I was in the military for a long time and I’d literally get a bonus token payment for each recognised language I could prove fluency in (None of the languages interested me). Additionally, the token payment was akin to a McDonald’s meal a month. Cry.
Here, you day that for you learning a language is about diving into a different culture. I remember you mentioning in another video that you learned (or started learning) Esperanto because you wanted to learn a second language and it was an easy option to get started with (I'm paraphrasing). Esperanto does have the mystical Esperantujo, but I'm not that sure about its culture. Perhaps you can make or have a video about that.
Checked my phone screen time for this year and it was like 80 days. Almost 2k hours. Imagine if I spent that learning my target language instead of watching videos on how to learn the language
Well I do agree with most of this but I see some counter examples that seem worth mentioning (see, my english is not that good idk how to write that word). I live in switerzland and there is a huge advantage of speaking another of the main languages for jobs that require interaction with clients and are located in the cities on the language border. It is a small field, yes, but it is almost mandatory in that situation. Mi malkonsentas kun via propono enslavigi homoj kiuj decidas ne lerni Eon ;). Ni ensklavigu nur tiujn kiuj malkuraĝigas lerni Eon
being bilingual in spanish in the u.s puts you at an advantage depending on where you live (california, texas, and florida for sure). not a significant one, but it's there
Yeah but I think that still applies to the point "because you live in an area with a high level of speakers of that language." It mostly provides an expanded social network and connection with a community which is extremely valuable, but isn't going to directly put dollars in your pocket or improve your economic standing. It can help you survive if shit gets hard though.
just to clarify - i can only speak for the u.s but bilingual positions do typically get paid more hourly, a difference between $3-$5, and working in the nonprofit sector it's a desirable skill anywhere even outside of states where latino immigrants constitute a significant part of the population. i'm learning because i want to live in latam and adore the different cultures or course, but there is still some financial incentive. again, not significant, but it is there
Guys, just do what makes you happy. You can always choose something as your main source of making money, but as your side hobby, do what really makes you happy! Also, you don't have to choose between languages. Think of it as learning a musical instrument: you learn to play guitar, and after some years, you decide to learn bass. You can always grow and learn more, and trust me, if you love your hobby, it will most definitely come in handy! So go for it! Learn that instrument, that painting technique, learn sewing, baking, and that language you're curious about.
Interesting, been learning how to code first with JavaScript and React and I had quit around mid 2023. Started again by learning Kotlin for Android development. Also, Ive been learning Italian for the past couple of months. It is a lot of fun learning new things but lately feels as if I'm wasting my time. The IT market is really tuff, I may try out freelancing. Heard you were a programmer and wanted to share. Excellent video!
Yeap, I’m a game developer and work almost exclusively with C++. It’s a tough market because it pays well but even if you’re slightly above average you’ll find a job :)
I figure I'll never make money from the languages I'm learning because I'm too shy to talk to natives. I mostly just find joy in reading and understanding what I've read. For me, language learning is just a hobby.
I've reached a stage where I could envisage starting to make money with languages since last year, but that's when ChatGPT became a thing. ChatGPT and his family made my language skills obsolete instantly. There's some money that could be made teaching and creating teaching materials, but the same could be said of teaching math, chemistry or coding. Speaking 5 plus languages could have some high value (usually coupled with other skills) until a few years ago. ChatGPT killed translation. Even if it makes mistakes, most people don't care about that at all. Getting the message across is more than enough for most. To compete with tools like ChatGPT you'd have to have 10k hours of imput and study hours under your belt. If you are very good, but not excellent your translations skills are obsolete. Teaching still has a lifespan because people like to learn with other people and some can only learn that way, but teaching languages pays the bills at best.
I love languages. I do it for the purpose of being able to understand the culture and individuals of a certain country. In fact, English isn't even my native language. I would want to do something with languages in the future, for example, interpretation. However, I am aware of the fact you got to be near native and preferable C1 in the languages, which is very difficult to achieve considering the fact I am still in High School. I will eventually go to the Netherlands to study (in two years). Do you think it is a good idea to be an interpreter nowadays, with these technological developments?
If it’s your dream and you’re 100% committed to it and you understand how hard it realistically is going to be then go for it. But opportunities will become less and less in the future and you need to be 100% aware of that. Despite that, there will always be jobs for the best of the best but they will become fewer and further in between. So approach it with a realistic mindset and be prepared to swap career paths.
Languages Over time Using technology (fairly simple technology Subtitles, Audio, Dictionaries) if it is easily available and accessible. Usually not. (funnily enough) It's worthwhile
There's a certain country I can think of that has two official languages gating all political power for the last few decades that has effectively usurped all power from a majority english population to a minority upper class. Broadly I agree that we learn languages for emotional reasons but there are cases where career trajectory is arbitrarily very limited. And of course if you are coming from a very poor country learning the language of another country may be your best bet for economic mobility. I really pity people who have to learn a language they have no interest in outside economics because that is so not enough to sustain interest. On the other hand if you at least have social motivations its doable even if the culture is not a big draw.
There’s always edge cases like this and in those few cases you’ll know it if you’re living it. This was more directed towards the majority of us not living those edge cases :)
Obviously you use your new language skills to shock people on the street who speak that language and make viral TikTok and RUclips content based on it. It's a solid living. If you learn Latin, you use it to pester random Italians who are just trying to go about their day to "see if they can understand it," or see if you can embarrass priests at the Vatican for some variety. Seriously, though, for a lot of multinational corporations, including the one I work for, your career is severely limited if you don't speak English because you will not be permitted to take any role involving any kind of international calls, which are routine, since headquarters has their fingers in everything, unless you and speak, understand, read and write English pretty fluently. I deal with people all over the world every day who are forced to engage with English if they possess the slightest scrap of ambition, even if they never set foot outside their home country.
English is probably the one true exception to the rule but at the same time still is useless for the vast majority of people. Up to the individual though to figure out where they want to take their career. Additionally, you still need some other skill set as English just adds to that. I had a good laugh at your first paragraph and I know EXACTLY who you are talking about haha.
@Evildea granted, but English is an *essential* asset to many people who invested in those other skills in order to remotely achieve the potential earnings and career advancement that their other hard-won skills could provide. Even if you could somehow function with, say, a degree in biochemistry without English by limiting the kind of role you take, many companies want to hire someone who could be versatile or advance and won't even look at you. Sure, there are many jobs, such as street urchin, that don't technically require proficiency in English, and yes, people without advanced skills are the the majority of the population and don't really need English in any area without a significant tourism industry, but we're still taking about millions of people who represent the most educated and influential people in many societies. If that's "you," then "you" need English. To say nothing about tourism, where English is the single most important language to know to work in tourism and the single most useful language to know no matter where you want to go.
well Ive been learning Japanese to understand anime without subtitles and to learn to use anki which will help me to memorize and learn any ability I want lol
I've been going back and forth thinking for 2025 should I get my russian to c1 or spanish to b2. Spanish is more useful here and I often use it a bit for work but I'm just not really interested in the culture. But I'm very interested n Russian culture though it's almost useless here. However, I did meet a woman from Russia here and she lit up when I spoke Russian and actually spoke it well and knew Russian culture. Similas al Esperanto kaj tiu plendajho, ke la lingvo senutilas. Nu, utiligu ghin mdr
Ah yes, I’ve often played with the idea of learning Spanish because then I could do some cool trips to South America but at the same time don’t have that much of an interest lol. Spanish just seems like weird Esperanto to me :p
If I had that answer I wouldn’t be a second rate RUclipsr lol. In all honesty, you’d just need to invest more time than the competition and HOPE that you stumble across the right opportunity.
I have like 7k hours in Rainbow Six siege and I suck ass. So, not really. I'm good at languages. And I have been using English for work for the past 16 years. So, not applicable to be honest.
@@Evildea Well, in all honestly. Pretty much everybody sucks at R6 siege. Because it's a game to only cause you mental distress. Damn, I need to play some more.
Anyways, I guess that the view that it won't make you money only applies to native English speakers. I have been working remotely in the IT world for 16 years, and I know that without English it would be far less profitable for me.
I would recommend against learning any language with the goal of making money, but learning something like Mandarin or Spanish or any language can connect you to the people in a deeper, genuine way, especially if they're living in your country. Showing kindness and asking about their lives in their language can teach you a LOT and make a lasting friendship. My neighbors are from El Salvador and only speak Spanish, and so does a woman who has a kid at the place I take my kid to, and I was able to talk to them in a conversational enough way at B1 that their eyes lit up and they didn't feel so alone.
Yeap! 100% agree! It opens so many random doors in life.
Qué bueno. Continúa aprendiendo, será muy satisfactorio para tí. Saludos.
Tell that to a Philippino who gets access to a salary 5x the norm just by working in a call center for American clients. This is extremely wrong. Not my case, still English is a must to make good money.
@ call centers are being replaced by AI. I know a few that have swapped over to AI services here in Australia. There’s also a backlash against outsourcing for the exact same reason I mentioned in the video, accents. So that was probably true for the past but won’t hold up in 10 years. They’ll probably be for the most part completely gone by then or moved in house for special cases.
When I came to Germany I was determined to learn German. I had spent a year in Korea and left only knowing a few phrases. It took me five years but I did learn to speak German which was very useful because I have been here for forty years. It is also a requirement to be able to read and write German at a basic level to have permission to live here.
Makes sense as you live in the country! Ever think about going back and learning Korean now :) ?
@Evildea No, I am learning Russian and lithuanian and improving my German
I live here in Australia and for work I install insulation in houses. I love language, history, religion, philosophy and have spent thousands of hours immersed in all of those things and I’m still yet to see a single dollar gain from any one of those haha… When people I work with and speak to discover I can speak and understand latin, their immediate go to is “why?!” or “you should be a translator.” no one can simply grasp the fact that some things just purely bring joy and enrich your life without there being a need to earn from it. I always say it’s seeing the world in a whole new way, almost like if you were colourblind but now can see colours and each language or culture you dip into is a new colour. The world is huge and exciting - that will always be reason enough for me to spend my precious time here having totally unique experiences even if it takes thousands of hours 😅
Totally! The way I explain it is using the movie concept or a video game. Some people like to blow their time playing games I prefer to use mine diving into a random language and culture! Next time I meet someone who does insulation for a property I’m going to be so tempted to ask “Do you speak Latin” lol
I'm a heavy duty mechanic and have spent thousands of hours working on languages, if I have put the same amount of time into my career I'm sure I would make more money, but I would probably be miserable 😂
I can totally relate to that haha
It doesn’t matter to me. I’ve always DESPISED being monolingual.
That will definitely work as a form of motivation haha
Ive landed on french recently after language hopping to my next hyperfixation language, but it would be somewhat usful money wise. You should do a video on how to stay focused kn a single language while your adhd keeps tellign you to learn another constantly. Merry Christmas 🎄
Uff I could probably talk for hours on that subject. I’ll add it to the list haha.
I feel your pain. That's true for probably every single hobby activity I have ever done. ADHD is a real pain in the ass in that sense. I think the only way is to build habits and find a way to really enjoy the activity. But even then our brains will crave novelty. So I don't know if it's even possible.
I can't focus on a single language at a time. So, at the moment, I just try to prioritize German and Romanian, but I still learn a little of other languages on the side.
Ideally, it would be 80% of the time studying German and Romanian. It's closer to 50-60% actually, but that's okay, anyway.
Increase your dosage when studying or use a stronger stimulant. I had a vyvnase prescription but used methamphetamine when I first started studying Japanese and it helped significantly.
I learned python and chemical engineering for money, mandarin for my personal interests. There's a good synergy since engineering has a lot of mandarin speakers, but it's not enough to justify it - like you said 6000h might be required to get to the technical vocabulary of my native speaker peers
Pretty much mirrors my experience completely :)
I'm learning Swedish, I teach German, my mother language is Italian, I understand Spanish, I can speak Esperanto and I don't need English at all.
That’s quite the collection of languages you have there!
You wife not getting a job base on her account can be considered an criminal offence.
Not worth the effort to fight >.< Plus do you really want to work at a place like that :/
The problem with learning a foreign language as an English speaker is that translation and intercultural interaction jobs are likely going to go to native speakers of that language because they are more motivated than English speakers to invest those 6000 hours.
Translation today is just for texts that are still too difficult for AI and need to be at a higher level, like published.
Latin is most useful for teaching grammar concepts. Once you study Latin, you can tackle most languages fairly easily.
Aside from the necessity of forced migration to an area that does not speak your language, the only real motivator I have seen is love, and even that fails more often than it succeeds. The best variant is each partner speaks their native language and then the kids are automatically bilingual, or more. As to economics, the answer is pidgin, i.e., you learn just enough to get by. Most immigrants live in communities where their native language is spoken and only their kids learn the local language, a result of schooling.
All true
I wish people understood that stuff about forgetting English in places like China. It's true in Japan too for instance. Any large country not dependent on English for day to day purposes, especially with a mother tongue distant from English, this happens with. Their level gets decent (often low to mid intermediate), but usually not great, which makes it easier to forget. Then they enter the workforce and get busy with day to day, and it rusts away as they don't use it. Typically their receptive abilities stay a little better. My experience anyway.
Related, I find it interesting to think that machine translation and LLM stuff you were talking about might help preserve local languages a little. People will feel less pressure to reach high levels in auxiliary (to them) languages like English, and may communicate more often in their native tongues. Maybe, anyway.
I’m pretty sure LLMs and similar software will actually help preserve languages as people will always take the easy route and companies will always want to cater for that. So we’re probably at the peak of English learning right now.
Great video. I'd argue, if you're young and haven't built a career or any skillsets yet, learn that first, then later on in life learn the language you want. Language learning, to the point of taking in culture, is fucking hard. Hours upon hours of shadowing, drilling, grammar, vocab, listening. It never ends. And, if you think you don't need to focus on grammar, well then good luck with any conversation beyond ordering breakfast or making a reservation.
Thanks! It’s definitely a big risk career wise if you focus on it too early on without building an actual career especially in today’s modern economy.
You don’t need to focus on grammar because you would learn it intuitively through comprehensible input
Language difficulty depends on the language. An Italian speaker won't have to do bruteforce shadowing when learning Spanish, nor will it be as hard as learning Mandarin, so it won't require countless hours. And as for hardship, there are people who dont find the process of language acquisition disagreeable at all, but rather an enjoyable challenge, so it's not always this braincrackingly hard thing.
Now that gave me some food for thought! Which is surprising because I absolutely agree with the main argument. Most people would be better off investing their time in other skills. And if it has to be language related skill, you'd be better off improving your communication skills in your native tongue. The majority of people are also quite bad at writing and expressing their thoughts in general, which could be improved with 100 hours of focused training, if that. And even if you're native, AI will usually improve your writing (I'm saying this as a technical writer).
What I would like to challenge instead is your point about culture. While Chinese and English are indeed almost 100% different (if you discount grammatical parallels), the differences between the cultures are actually very relative. Most differences are quite superficial and are easily understood by analogy. The difference between an Australian family today and one from 150 years ago would be greater than between a modern Chinese family and an Australian family. More to the point, the difference between two related families in Australia might be greater than the difference between an average family in China and one in Australia.
There are indeed some deeper differences in terms of social aspects, but all in all, they don't comprise more than 10%. If it were an alcoholic beverage, it would still be enough to get you drunk, though ;-). I might feel this way because I grew up with two cultures and see customs and conventions as something relative to begin with. The differences might feel much bigger to someone who hasn’t had that experience, so that’s just food for thought from my side.
That said, learning languages can also have some other benefits. The first one is well-known, but you need to experience it to truly understand it. If you can master a language, especially an unrelated one, you'll really learn how to learn and apply this to other aspects of your life. You'll know that you have to put in vast amounts of time to get good at a new skill, and you'll be willing to do so because you'll understand that if you dedicate the time and experiment until you find the right method, you can succeed, while others who lack that experience will give up halfway. If you hadn't mastered Esperanto, maybe you wouldn't have taken up Chinese again.
The second argument is a little more interesting. Learning a foreign language is something of a rain check. Historically speaking, many people had to emigrate even though they hadn’t planned to. If you know a couple of major languages, you'd be in a much better position if a black swan event were to hit you. Australia might be much safer than other places, though.
You make a really interesting point with the culture critique. I grew up in the Australian outback in a monolingual town, then lived a military life and finally moved to the city in my mid 20s so I’m probably more sensitive to these differences as I didn’t experience a city life growing up. It’s also true that I’ve been surprised by not just differences but weird and interesting similarities especially here in the countryside. A fun conversation I had was with an ex-Chinese soldier and his experiences versus my own. Finally, that rain check argument is actually something I’ve seriously thought about before. Having worked in the military I’m always a little paranoid about “society suddenly collapsing”. I often joke to my wife that if America maintains its dominant position I’m fine as I speak English, if China takes over I’m Chinese and waving the red flag now :p
I do see job ads saying you need to be a native English speaker, jobs like shop assistant. They don't say you need to be fluent in English, but you must be a native. What about Scottish people who are native English speakers but have an accent, so different from the Australian accent?
That’s a really interesting point and I’d love to hear from anyone who’s actually had this experience. I guess an English native from Kenya or India might also face the same issue!
When I reveal that I learn Esperanto or try to learn Swedish, I am immediately asked or\and convinced like why do I need that useless language (especially Esperanto)? If I ask what else should I learn instead I basically get an answer about English. Fuck :D I am a translator by one of my diplomas, I am already able to use English and I do use it at work, but I want something else in this life. I already know one of so-called useful languages, so give me the fucken right to make a damned choice :D :D :D Why don't I have my right to learn a language just for pleasure, not for the sake of potential earnings?
Actually, speaking of Esperanto, it was very useful, because after that learning French and Spanish is a bit easier and smoother compared to learning those from a scratch.
As for English, one can get advantages basically living beyond English speaking country. If you live in the US or even in Australia, e.g., it instantly stops being a special skill.
Speaking of the reasons and motives to learn languages nowadays, given all kinds of rapidly developing technologies, I'd say that the necessity to learn those will not disappear. If you communicate remotely, chat GPT can be helpful, but it comes to offline communication, the ability to speak a language properly is still valued, because as far as I know interpreting machines has not been invented yet, and it would be weird and wildly inconvenient to bear smarphones and show them to each other every time you want to tell something. Modern technologies can help in doing routine stuff and thus save your time as well as learn languages overall but I don't think they can replace languages entirely. I am very optimistic about technologies in this regard, since those help a lot in learning languages.
A super long sheet again, sorry :D
Ok, I stop rambling :D
All good, my videos are essentially just long rambles so I expect nothing less from people commenting. I hope your optimistic view is true but I also know humans like to take the path of least residence and so I get the feeling that tech will solve this problem eventually to. I will always personally learn languages but economically I get the feeling they’ll be less and less important. And also you’re comment about English made me laugh as my wife literally said today “When I’m in Australia no one complements me on my English but here in China you just get endless praise for your Chinese! It’s so unfair” hahaha
@@Evildea I agree about the less economic necessity, though I still think that the necessity to learn languages in general will not totally disappear, but take rather other forms and motives.
Well, interesting. I think maybe that's because one can barely impress with English spoken abroad. But Chinese despite the tremendous amount of speakers is still rarely used beyond China. I also suppose that Chinese know about the difficulty for foreigners to learn their language, so if they happen to hear good Chinese from a white person, they sincerely admire it. But it's solely my assumption, since I never been to China, so correct me safely, if I'm wrong :D
Maybe it depends on a language, but I don't think I can impress somebody with my English in the US, Canada or Australia, for example. Yes, some people are impressed by a person, who learned English living in a non-English speaking country, but they often get used to this and start taking it for granted :D I said this in the previous comment what is based on my experience
Your assessment is pretty on point. The need for those experienced at acquiring languages or mastering specific random languages will also never completely disappear just as we still have leather workers now and people who make horse shoes.
@@EvildeaI suspect that English will still be a global lingua franca even when AI translation becomes flawless, because it's already influenced the world so much that it's inertia wont go away anytime soon when AI becomes a super reliable translator. In fact, it may be the case it will still be learned by many in the world, at least whose native language is IndoEuropean, due to the relative grammatical ease of English compared to other languages. And just how Latin stuck for centuries and millennia, so too may English stick among the intelligentsia of the world. And I say all this as a non native Eng speaker
@@AbsurdScandal Latin lasted for centuries because technology took for longer to progress. The lifetime of French as a Lingua Franca was a lot shorter. I have my suspicions about how long English as a required Lingua France will last but I’ll never know for sure because it will definitely out last my lifetime but how many lifetimes after that is the question. A great example is Russian was a Lingua Franca of the Soviet world and now it has been supplemented for the most part in one generation. I think technology is going to have insane ramifications that most of us can’t even imagine at this point. One great example is the Chinese government in the last year actually started pulling back on English as a “required language of study” in many areas of life. There is even debates happening right now about whether is should be required at all anymore.
6000 hours is 8 hours a day for 2 years!!! That is crazy.
Yeap. You can get to a high level with 2000 but it’s a long ass grind to get to native level fluency!
@@Evildea but once reach a good level then it is not even grind , it is fun
True that
When 1st study Japanese, I was doing a bit of Japanese homework on the train on the way home and this one guy once yell at me angrily saying that I shouldn't be learning Japanese in Australia.
Uff that’s so annoying, sorry to hear that, and it so mirrors my own experience. lol might have been the same guy!
@@Evildea this guy was like 60 Gray hair and strong centre to eastern European accent.
Haha actually sounds very similar but ours was more middle aged
@@Evildea like father like son.
Actually, what you said is true for any language, including your native language. When I realized that no one pays me for speaking my native language, I stopped using it as much as possible and now replaced it with Prolog. Unfortunately, no one around me understands logic, but that’s not my problem unless they pay me to use javascript
As a C++ man myself I hate JavaScript and will fight it tooth and nail :p
Totally agree. The main reason to learn a language is if you plan on interacting A LOT (in person or otherwise) with people who speak that language and don't speak English well (or any other languages that you speak). Another reason is to be able to read texts in that language. But if you learn a language just to earn money, you will likely be unsuccessful in that endeavor, unless you already have a solid plan. Especially if your native language is English, there are probably tons of native speakers of your target language who also speak English well, so there's lots of competition.
I originally started language learning in high school just for the fun of it. I never had any goal in mind; I just always found it to be interesting and fun. But now I do it for practical reasons: I regularly communicate with Chinese people who don't speak English well, and I regularly read books in Chinese. The books are translated into English, but I prefer to read them in their original language.
Yeap, 100% on point
I never thought about it from an economic standpoint
I did end up having to use one of the languages i learned (beside English) at one of my jobs
But what I am currently learning is almost a dead language (Syriac Aramaic), so no direct economic use, just personal interest
May I ask why that language caught your interest? Most people who go for the classics choose Latin, Greek and sometimes Egyptian. Is it for religious reasons? Very curious :D
I do tentatively aim to immigrate to a Latin American country eventually, but that was never a factor in my desire to learn the language. I just love it.
Probably you’re love of it now makes you want to move their :D
@Evildea That and economic realities of the US dollar vs Latin American currencies. But that was never why I decided to learn the language. :)
My prior reason to learn language is to reduce my stuttering level and getting a confidiance.
I am stuttering in my native language but when l talk in my target language , I do not stutter. it is very weird but it is like this. Not stuttering give me a confidiance probably in the future l gonna delete my native language and gonna speak only in my targets languages.😅
Bro that is the most random example and kind of cool as. I’ve actually got a mate who has turrets and he swears all the time but loves hanging out with me because we speak Esperanto together and then when he swears in Esperanto it just sounds like English fruit names to passerbyers haha
This sucks. My social worker said the same thing. I wanted to be a Portuguese, German, Russian, Danish or Norwegian interpreter and found there is zero work where I live for it. The only options are call centers and the FBI which they would most certainly prefer I know almost any other language. The only language I did learn growing up is ASL and everyone but my dad learned it because my mother is a speech pathologist. There is plenty of work and not likely to be replaced by AI anytime soon. I’m glad I have that option however I left teaching special education because the effort was not worth the pay. I thought interpreting made big bucks and it does if you are a simultaneous interpreter for the UN or a large corporation but again is the possibility of 152k-182k a year worth all that time, effort and traveling? Not to me. Thanks for the video. It really validated everything happening in my life recently.
Sorry to hear that man. My ultimate dream was the be an actor and make Esperanto movies but there’s literally no market for that. It’s a punch in the face but have a good think on how you could use the languages in other ways to fulfill your inner desires.
@@Evildea not no market for it, just not a big market, certainly not one big enough to make a living off of.
2:15 worked as an interpreter for more than a year, been paid peanuts, it was rewarding only as a noble thing to do, helping people in need, the ill and the oppressed.
Languages don't give any considerable money in most cases, though there are still ways to work for food with them.
Yeap, you can live but rarely flourish off them alone. What language was it for?
I learn languages for the pleasure of "finding things out". That's the reward in itself. I've worked in China already three times and all I used was english, so there's no need for me to learn chinese. But the kind of connection you get from people when you speak their language cannot be bought. So, I'll continue to repeat my sentences and watch hours of peppa pig until I get this language.
100% totally! Bring on the Peppa Pig haha
If you live in Wales then definitely learn Welsh for job prospects. Elsewise whatever reason floats your boat - as long as - it is Your reason and not cause you met some cutie-pie and want to speak her native language. Married and want to learn, sure. But the reason must be strong enough to keep you going for thousands of hours. IMO, learn whatever you want and never tell anyone what or why, your reasons are your own and they only need to make sense to you.
I learned Japanese in school (forgot it all now) then married a Chinese women. Clearly I was shit at Japanese as I choose from the wrong country :p
Great video. I am so sick of hearing that school children should learn Japanese, for example, for economic reasons. But when you leave school there is no way your Japanese will be good enough to be able to use it for business, for example.
Yeap, I’ve had to rectify this type of advise a few times in real life when I’ve heard it.
@@Evildea It is 3am here. I have a terrible toothache and can't sleep. Your video made me forget my toothache for a few minutes. I hear it so often that Esperanto is useless whereas learning Spanish, Chinese, Indonesian, etc is very useful for business, but of course most people will never use those languages for business, whereas if they learn Esperanto, they might not use it for business either, but they can use it to make friends with people from many different cultures and get to fluency which is so satisfying unlike if they try a national language and never reach conversational level.
I was actually wondering what you were still doing awake haha. Yeap, a very common annoying argument I hear quite often. But I’ll make sure to keep educating people as I go!
Me, living in Europe, working in three languages, two of them were obligatory to get a job with NO additional payment for knowing said languages: how cute.
Just learn the language, or if you really are so money driven learn finances or plumbing, or welding or become electrician - these will definitely pay you much more. Languages are useful, but not necessarily economical.
Yeap… I was in the military for a long time and I’d literally get a bonus token payment for each recognised language I could prove fluency in (None of the languages interested me). Additionally, the token payment was akin to a McDonald’s meal a month. Cry.
@@Evildea exactly.
Here, you day that for you learning a language is about diving into a different culture. I remember you mentioning in another video that you learned (or started learning) Esperanto because you wanted to learn a second language and it was an easy option to get started with (I'm paraphrasing). Esperanto does have the mystical Esperantujo, but I'm not that sure about its culture. Perhaps you can make or have a video about that.
I’ll add it to the list. It definitely has a culture but it’s hard to define in a simple comment :)
Checked my phone screen time for this year and it was like 80 days. Almost 2k hours. Imagine if I spent that learning my target language instead of watching videos on how to learn the language
I feel that haha
Well I do agree with most of this but I see some counter examples that seem worth mentioning (see, my english is not that good idk how to write that word). I live in switerzland and there is a huge advantage of speaking another of the main languages for jobs that require interaction with clients and are located in the cities on the language border. It is a small field, yes, but it is almost mandatory in that situation.
Mi malkonsentas kun via propono enslavigi homoj kiuj decidas ne lerni Eon ;). Ni ensklavigu nur tiujn kiuj malkuraĝigas lerni Eon
There will always be exceptions and this definitely sounds like one :) Ni starigu Esperanto-asocion por la ensklavigado de la mondo! :P
being bilingual in spanish in the u.s puts you at an advantage depending on where you live (california, texas, and florida for sure). not a significant one, but it's there
There’s benefits to every language :)
Yeah but I think that still applies to the point "because you live in an area with a high level of speakers of that language." It mostly provides an expanded social network and connection with a community which is extremely valuable, but isn't going to directly put dollars in your pocket or improve your economic standing. It can help you survive if shit gets hard though.
just to clarify - i can only speak for the u.s but bilingual positions do typically get paid more hourly, a difference between $3-$5, and working in the nonprofit sector it's a desirable skill anywhere even outside of states where latino immigrants constitute a significant part of the population. i'm learning because i want to live in latam and adore the different cultures or course, but there is still some financial incentive. again, not significant, but it is there
Guys, just do what makes you happy. You can always choose something as your main source of making money, but as your side hobby, do what really makes you happy! Also, you don't have to choose between languages. Think of it as learning a musical instrument: you learn to play guitar, and after some years, you decide to learn bass. You can always grow and learn more, and trust me, if you love your hobby, it will most definitely come in handy! So go for it! Learn that instrument, that painting technique, learn sewing, baking, and that language you're curious about.
Good advice :)
Interesting, been learning how to code first with JavaScript and React and I had quit around mid 2023. Started again by learning Kotlin for Android development. Also, Ive been learning Italian for the past couple of months. It is a lot of fun learning new things but lately feels as if I'm wasting my time. The IT market is really tuff, I may try out freelancing. Heard you were a programmer and wanted to share. Excellent video!
Yeap, I’m a game developer and work almost exclusively with C++. It’s a tough market because it pays well but even if you’re slightly above average you’ll find a job :)
I figure I'll never make money from the languages I'm learning because I'm too shy to talk to natives. I mostly just find joy in reading and understanding what I've read. For me, language learning is just a hobby.
I've reached a stage where I could envisage starting to make money with languages since last year, but that's when ChatGPT became a thing. ChatGPT and his family made my language skills obsolete instantly.
There's some money that could be made teaching and creating teaching materials, but the same could be said of teaching math, chemistry or coding. Speaking 5 plus languages could have some high value (usually coupled with other skills) until a few years ago. ChatGPT killed translation. Even if it makes mistakes, most people don't care about that at all. Getting the message across is more than enough for most. To compete with tools like ChatGPT you'd have to have 10k hours of imput and study hours under your belt. If you are very good, but not excellent your translations skills are obsolete. Teaching still has a lifespan because people like to learn with other people and some can only learn that way, but teaching languages pays the bills at best.
Hobbies don’t need to make money so that’s perfectly fine!
I love languages. I do it for the purpose of being able to understand the culture and individuals of a certain country. In fact, English isn't even my native language. I would want to do something with languages in the future, for example, interpretation. However, I am aware of the fact you got to be near native and preferable C1 in the languages, which is very difficult to achieve considering the fact I am still in High School.
I will eventually go to the Netherlands to study (in two years). Do you think it is a good idea to be an interpreter nowadays, with these technological developments?
If it’s your dream and you’re 100% committed to it and you understand how hard it realistically is going to be then go for it. But opportunities will become less and less in the future and you need to be 100% aware of that. Despite that, there will always be jobs for the best of the best but they will become fewer and further in between. So approach it with a realistic mindset and be prepared to swap career paths.
Please consider making a video about how you make obscene amounts of money programming. Also which languages are you programming in?
90% C++, a little C# with a scatter of other shell languages. Sure I’ll add it to the list of video topics haha
One reason that it so hard to find work in a language is because people in HR a stupid.
HR in general has no idea about the jobs they’re recruiting for.
Languages
Over time
Using technology (fairly simple technology Subtitles, Audio, Dictionaries) if it is easily available and accessible. Usually not. (funnily enough)
It's worthwhile
"shadowing" is the solution for your wife. Afterwords, she sounds like Mr. Trump himself. Or Mrs. Thatcher ? Well, make a good choice, this is vital.
I agree but also if tech scares off language learning, those of us who really like languages are going to be a rare breed..
Yeap, just as those who do leather working now are a rare breed when it used to be common place.
There's a certain country I can think of that has two official languages gating all political power for the last few decades that has effectively usurped all power from a majority english population to a minority upper class.
Broadly I agree that we learn languages for emotional reasons but there are cases where career trajectory is arbitrarily very limited. And of course if you are coming from a very poor country learning the language of another country may be your best bet for economic mobility. I really pity people who have to learn a language they have no interest in outside economics because that is so not enough to sustain interest. On the other hand if you at least have social motivations its doable even if the culture is not a big draw.
There’s always edge cases like this and in those few cases you’ll know it if you’re living it. This was more directed towards the majority of us not living those edge cases :)
Canada?
Obviously you use your new language skills to shock people on the street who speak that language and make viral TikTok and RUclips content based on it. It's a solid living. If you learn Latin, you use it to pester random Italians who are just trying to go about their day to "see if they can understand it," or see if you can embarrass priests at the Vatican for some variety.
Seriously, though, for a lot of multinational corporations, including the one I work for, your career is severely limited if you don't speak English because you will not be permitted to take any role involving any kind of international calls, which are routine, since headquarters has their fingers in everything, unless you and speak, understand, read and write English pretty fluently. I deal with people all over the world every day who are forced to engage with English if they possess the slightest scrap of ambition, even if they never set foot outside their home country.
English is probably the one true exception to the rule but at the same time still is useless for the vast majority of people. Up to the individual though to figure out where they want to take their career. Additionally, you still need some other skill set as English just adds to that. I had a good laugh at your first paragraph and I know EXACTLY who you are talking about haha.
@Evildea granted, but English is an *essential* asset to many people who invested in those other skills in order to remotely achieve the potential earnings and career advancement that their other hard-won skills could provide. Even if you could somehow function with, say, a degree in biochemistry without English by limiting the kind of role you take, many companies want to hire someone who could be versatile or advance and won't even look at you. Sure, there are many jobs, such as street urchin, that don't technically require proficiency in English, and yes, people without advanced skills are the the majority of the population and don't really need English in any area without a significant tourism industry, but we're still taking about millions of people who represent the most educated and influential people in many societies. If that's "you," then "you" need English.
To say nothing about tourism, where English is the single most important language to know to work in tourism and the single most useful language to know no matter where you want to go.
@@Evildea That's true but also if you live in a non-English speaking country, it seems like not knowing the local language limits you in the same way
well Ive been learning Japanese to understand anime without subtitles and to learn to use anki which will help me to memorize and learn any ability I want lol
A totally valid reason and if I had a few more decades I’d do Japanese for exactly the same reason haha.
I've been going back and forth thinking for 2025 should I get my russian to c1 or spanish to b2. Spanish is more useful here and I often use it a bit for work but I'm just not really interested in the culture. But I'm very interested n Russian culture though it's almost useless here. However, I did meet a woman from Russia here and she lit up when I spoke Russian and actually spoke it well and knew Russian culture.
Similas al Esperanto kaj tiu plendajho, ke la lingvo senutilas. Nu, utiligu ghin mdr
Ah yes, I’ve often played with the idea of learning Spanish because then I could do some cool trips to South America but at the same time don’t have that much of an interest lol. Spanish just seems like weird Esperanto to me :p
5:19 How would I become the cream of the crop in a “useless” language like Arabic?
If I had that answer I wouldn’t be a second rate RUclipsr lol. In all honesty, you’d just need to invest more time than the competition and HOPE that you stumble across the right opportunity.
I should have been started to learn russian instead of japanese if I'd care about money
Japanese is a perfect example there’s almost no reason to learn it besides love of the culture haha.
Great video. Learning French feels completely useless. Besides being able the make friends and understand foreign stuff.
A very common feeling
Saluton, mi venas en Norvegio
Saluton!
Mi sekvas vin char mi parolas esperanton. @@Evildea
I have like 7k hours in Rainbow Six siege and I suck ass. So, not really. I'm good at languages. And I have been using English for work for the past 16 years. So, not applicable to be honest.
You’re one of the few exceptions to this rule. Sucks that you’re still shit at Rainbow Six. Maybe it’s just not for you haha
@@Evildea Well, in all honestly. Pretty much everybody sucks at R6 siege. Because it's a game to only cause you mental distress. Damn, I need to play some more.
@@alssla3581 I like how mental distress equals must play more haha
@@Evildea You're getting it. haha
Anyways, I guess that the view that it won't make you money only applies to native English speakers. I have been working remotely in the IT world for 16 years, and I know that without English it would be far less profitable for me.
so better learn programming languages
If your end goal is money… then yeap… that way you can get a job at Duolingo programming angry bird mascots :p