Ersby wrote:I've often wondered what's the least number of languages that would give you the most people to talk to. My guess is that English, Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish and Arabic would cover an awful lot of the globe.
That's easy:
English, Mandarin, Spanish.
If you can speak these 3, you can speak to about 90% of people. So, I'd LOVE to learn Mandarin. Spanish is relatively easy if you have any skills in a latin language.
Probably followed closely by Hindi.
French isn't really that useful, except in learning Spanish.
Btw, if you learn Japanese, Korean will be a much smaller step to learn.