When I was in college I felt the same about learning a foreign language. I did not want to learn Spanish and felt that French would help me further once I graduated. I must say I feel a bit like it was a mistake. The job that I am at now doesn’t really have a large French clientele so, I sit there while people who know Spanish move up the ladder. Everyone keeps saying do yourself a favor and learn Spanish, well, I say if you can and have the ambition I would learn both. Being able to speak both would greatly help you. But if you can only commit yourself to one language I would suggest Spanish. I regret not learning it.

Even if you don’t want to, learn Spanish. It is a great advantage at a job site to be bilingual English/Spanish and sometimes you get paid more for that. Spanish is very commonly spoken in the US and will continue to be even more so. Plus, it’s fairly easy to learn and practice.

Otherwise, the Asian languages may be very difficult to learn because of the lettering and characters. I would say go with Spanish regardless.

French is the second most widely spoken language in the world, right behind English, but it isn’t used much (or at all) in the United States. Our neighbors to the North speak French, but most Canadian provinces are also english speaking.

The most useful second language to learn in the U.S. is certainly Spanish, but if you plan on traveling outside North America French is your best bet.

This may sound odd, but I would actually suggest either Latin or Greek if you can study those. Not because they are widely used, but because they will come in very handy where college vocabulary is concerned, especially in the sciences. Plus, if you plan on attending grad school, you will have to take the GRE exam, which has a language portion where, if you can at least have an idea as to the latin or greek roots of words, you are at a huge advantage in figuring out what they mean.

Do yourself a favor — learn Spanish. Mandarin is very tough.

I suggest you consider Mandarin. This is a good language for future job prospects.