What is the most valuable second language to have in your career search?
A map of the Czech Republic. Image: AntonGrachev/Shutterstock

Which second language is most valuable to your career?

1 Dec 2017

In the wake of globalisation, you may be thinking of taking up a second language to boost your career prospects. Here are some of the most useful ones to learn.

Though it may come to a surprise to many, being bilingual wasn’t always perceived to be a bonus.

If anything, bilingualism has historically been subject to specious myths, which caused people to believe that young bilingual children would get confused by having a second language and would fail to gain mastery in either.

Recent research now refutes these myths and, if anything, extols the virtues of bilingualism, with learning a second language from a young age bringing with it more proficiency in cognitive tasks, better mental health and protection against cognitive decline.

If you weren’t born bilingual, that doesn’t mean you can’t take up a second language – and doing so, for that matter, might just bring with it a number of exciting career opportunities.

Forex Bonuses has produced this handy infographic, which indicates the most useful second language to have, opening up a number of new avenues for you in your career.

By ‘second language’, Forex Bonuses is working on the assumption that readers speak English as their first language.

It looked at the listings on Top Language Jobs and Multilingual Vacancies and took an average of all jobs requiring English plus a second language. The percentages shown indicate how many opportunities each second language offers in comparison to the average.

The 1-10 ranking was compiled with four factors in mind: average annual salary, jobs compared to bilingual average, countries where the language is an official or co-official language, and the estimated number of speakers of said language.

According to the results, German is the most useful language to acquire, with 265pc above the average number of opportunities available to those with the language. German is an official language in 11 countries, and has an estimated 129m speakers.

This is followed by French, which has 190pc above the average number of opportunities, with an estimated 229m speakers. French is the official language of 41 countries.

If you’d like to see which other languages made the top 10 spots, or even if your second language ranks highly, check out the infographic below.

What is the most valuable second language to have in your career search?

Infographic: Forex Bonuses

A map of the Czech Republic. Image: AntonGrachev/Shutterstock.com

Eva Short
By Eva Short

Eva Short was a journalist at Silicon Republic, specialising in the areas of tech, data privacy, business, cybersecurity, AI, automation and future of work, among others.

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