What are the top ten most lucrative foreign languages for a US
Computer Science student to learn?

Potential Criteria:

1. high tech international business opportunity

2. emerging technology economies

3. most international trade in technology

Hi tanukitzu,

Good day and thanks for your question.

[1] English, one would imagine is the most lucrative language. The
very fact that most of the transactions are done in English subscribes
this view.

Other languages which are likely to be lucrative are:

[2] Chinese. There are a huge number of software professionals from
China and operating in China. Chinese gadgets are among the finest in
the world, and the economy is looking up.

[3] Japanese. Japan is the hub for hardware. Japanese technology is so
advanced that even USA has no answer.

[4] German. The German IT market is opening up. With companies like
SAP cutting their way into the market, learning German is imperative
if you want to have dealings with Europe

[5] Korean. Korea, like Japan has got amazing technology. It probably
has to do with the fact that Korea is so close to Japan

[6] French. Yet another language for the European market. French is
the most widely spoken non-English language in Europe, and knowing
French can certainly help in dealing with clients.

[7] Portugese. The South American IT industry is centrlized in Brazil,
the main language spoken being Portugese.

[8] Spanish is another language which is useful in dealing with
European and South American clients.

[9] Swedish. Sweden is one of the premier European countries in the
technology sector.

[10] Russian. If you plan to have dealings with Russia, you have to
know Russian. Russian scientists are the best scientists in the world.

Malay and Arabic are other useful languages but of not great
importance.

In a comment blow, hailstorm mentioned that many companies are
outsourcing IT to India lately. This is true. However, here in India,
English is known by all the people dealing with the IT and technology
sector. So, learning Hindi, Telugu, Gujarati or any other Indian
language is not necessary.

I hope this answers your question. If you have any clarifications,
then please don't hesitate to ask.

Thank you for using this service and have a nice day

Warm Regards,
aditya2k

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Request for Answer Clarification by tanukitzu-ga on 19 Nov 2002 12:08 PST

I posted a request for clarification in the form of a comment.

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Clarification of Answer by aditya2k-ga on 20 Nov 2002 07:32 PST

Q) But is English the national language of India?  
A) No. Hindi is the national language of India

Q) Will IT in India always be run by English speakers?  
A) Yes. IT in India has, is and will be run by people who know English

Q) A link explaining the genuine nature of English vs Hindi in India
would be helpful.
A) Here are a couple of links :
(i) http://www.rediff.com/news/oct/22akd.htm
(ii)http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/dec/03us.htm
However, I can endorse the fact that English is the language of the
computer professional in India. I am Indian, and even though I'm a
student, I deal a lot with the InfoTech industry people. There are no
IT people who don't know English.

 
Q. I don't understand why Russian and Swedish are important.  Is their
IT industry recognized as an emerging market?  Sweden has a high GDP
per capita, but is their international role in IT significant?
A. If you noticed, I've put these languages as #9 and #10. The
question asked for 10 languages, and these are the next best. Russia
is technologically advanced (especially in the military sector). Most
Russians don't know English and have to converse in Russian. Sweden's
IT sector is emerging and I expect it to be right up there in 5 years
or so.

If you have any more clarifications, please don't hesitate to ask

Regards,
aditya2k

Extraordinarily insightful.

Combined personal experience and research for a rich and thorough answer.

4 launguages I believe are most useful are the following. The first
one because it is vey prevelant in general, the last 3 because they
are useful in the tech sector.

Spanish
Japanese
Korean
Chinese

Other good languages for technology careers are German (especially for
the automobile industry) and Indian (many IT companies are outsourcing
work to India lately)

aditya2k's answer seems valid.  It is supported by some other
information I found.

http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/issuebrf/sib98319.htm

figure 2 on the above link shows a breakdown of global high tech
market in 1998.

US and Japan control over half (seems reasonable since their GNP's
represent over half of the global GNP).  The remaining countries (in
order):

Germany
China
UK
France
Korea

each control less than 10%.

China, however, seems to be the most important emerging economy for IT
specifically.  So I understand why aditya2k stresses it.

Brazil also is recognized as a major emerging market, but it remains
to be seen if their government/economic policy will permit an
evolution into high tech markets.  A link would be helpful.

Spanish because some census predictions show Hispanic population in
the US reaching 50% by 2050, and because of NAFTA trade deregulation.

A link showing Mexico's position in Global IT would be helpful.

Aditya2k's insight on the Indian languages was very useful.  
http://www.domainisland.com/di/html/100languages.htm
According to the above, there are many Indian languages and over 600
million native speakers.  But common experience demonstrates the
educated class of India all speak British English.

But is English the national language of India?  Will IT in India
always be run by English speakers?  A link explaining the genuine
nature of English vs Hindi in India would be helpful.

I don't understand why Russian and Swedish are important.  Is their IT
industry recognized as an emerging market?  Sweden has a high GDP per
capita, but is their international role in IT significant?