Which Languages Useful for Engineering ?

[abdurresitcan]

I want would be Mechatronik Engineer so which languages useful ? Everybody say German,Chinese....

[Benta]

English, German should be enough to start with.

[Mechatrommer]

English for anything engineering. Arab for the Holy Book. if you have limited time, concentrate on those 2, if you have more time, Chinese because its going to be economy giant, if have more time, German so you can read some undocumented hack. but if you have to choose only one, then English.

[Jeroen3]

Chinese is only required when you're going for consumer electronics or outsourcing over there.

[Burczyk]

English is the most useful in my opinion.

[CatalinaWOW]

Agree with others on the top three.  If you are one of those who picks up languages easily there is good material in several others.  Russian, French and Japanese to name a few.

[schmitt trigger]

English is the Internet's lingua franca. You'll get the vast majority of your information with it.

There is quite some technical info in German also. I made an effort learning to read (only read) German, and I can tell you it has paid off.

Chinese............... My opinion is that it will become more and more important in the future. But of course learning the symbols is an order of magnitude more difficult than western characters.

[coppice]

English and Mandarin are the important languages to know going forwards. Japanese might be useful, but less so than a couple of decades ago. Any German with a decent education understands English, so speaking German is only a substantial benefit if you want to live there. Many other languages might be really valuable for you specially to know, but are hard to predict. For example, I suffered through French, German and Latin lessons at school, but the first foreign language I ever had a use for was Cantonese.

[Benta]

The OP wants to go into Mechatronics, meaning automotive. The number of text books and manuals available only in German is vast in this field, which is why I listed German as mandatory. English is a given, more or less.

[tkamiya]

I'd say English and Japanese, and that's what I speak.

I usually stick with English but when manuals for Japanese components translated into English often doesn't make sense.  In such cases, I look for the original manual in Japanese.  Because our written language is similar, I can make enough sense out of Chinese as well.

That said, most innovative stuff comes out of English speaking countries and Japan.  Often times, Chinese products are derivative of something existing.

[Benta]

You're all still missing the "mechatronics" part. Just sayin'. Chinese won't bring anything there.

[coppice]

As I've said before, most if not all young, formally higher educated Chinese people can understand English, all you need is to be able to understand Chinglish in the most unfortunate cases. If you can read Alibaba product descriptions, you are good to go.

Only a small percentage of people in China with a university level education understand English well enough to hold a simple conversation. Many of them feel pretty bad about this, as they all studied English from kindergarten to their last year at university. They are a lot better at answering an e-mail, because they can take their time with written communication. Also, a lot more of their education focussed on written, rather than verbal, English.

Life in Shenzhen or Shanghai can be very limiting if you can neither read Chinese or speak Mandarin. You can survive, but you can survive in most places if you have some money.

[0xdeadbeef]

Any German with a decent education understands English, so speaking German is only a substantial benefit if you want to live there.

True. One foreign language is mandatory in Germany and that's usually English (even though mine was Latin ). Still, it's really surprising how many English speaking people live here (Rhine-Main area) who expect to get a meaningful answer if they ask an elderly saleslady in a bakery if a certain slice contains yeast. It's even more surprising that they usually actually get a proper answer...

[Benta]

You're all still missing the "mechatronics" part. Just sayin'. Chinese won't bring anything there.

Mechatronics = machinery + electronics.

Wrong.

Mechatronics = mechanics + electrics/electronics.

In Europe, this is 80% automotive, but yes, it also involves industrial machinery.
But when talking about mechanics and machinery, the largest technical literature available in the world is in German and English. I'm sure there's a lot of Mandarin literature about how to copy this, but that's a different story.

The main automotive subcontractors (Bosch, Conti, Siemens etc.) sit in Germany.

[bob225]

English, Chinese, German, As a native English speaker Scottish, Welsh, and Irish translations come in handy - A few phrases of Indian help too

In a local school 26 or so languages are spoken but that is SouthEast England for you

[coppice]

Only a small percentage of people in China with a university level education understand English well enough to hold a simple conversation.

Have seen some people with that level of proficiency, but never thought that could be the majority.

In my undergrad school we had a professor from Austria who is a safety (IEC61508 kind of stuff) expert, and he delivers one lecture every year on software freedom day, and he also delivers seminars annually on designing functionally safe systems.

Being man in charge of our open source society, I prepare for the SFD event every time for two years in a row, and I attended one of his seminars.

My experience is that most students don't talk, or speak with very bad accent, but they do understand what the professor was saying.

I have worked with hundreds of university graduates in China, both in multinationals and local companies. English standards in multinationals are typically at the level you describe - most people are reluctant to speak, but people generally understand a presentation fairly well if you have good slides to give them some written cues. In local companies, if you only speak English you'd better ensure someone can translate for even the simplest activities. If you are lucky you'll meet someone with true native standard English, but not often.

[schmitt trigger]

Reading thru the posts, it is obvious that English is THE king of languages. And it will be, for the foreseeable future.

One of the reasons for that, may be that the English grammar is relatively straightforward.

Before I started studying German, I was under the impression that German was only an oddly-pronounced English. How wrong I was!! German, has several challenges which English does not have.
Starting with the noun and article genders. Myself being a native Spanish speaker, could correlate to that, but there are other aspects like cases and declinations which I had to struggle with.

Deutsche Sprache, Schwere Sprache. But as I previously stated, very worthwhile to learn.

[Macbeth]

English is obviously the most important across the whole world and most important.

Chinese really means Mandarin, rather than Cantonese or traditional, and I think knowing that could very well open up whole new markets to the west - look at Dave's 3 cent micro-controller for example. There are lots of China or Taiwanese only parts with datasheets to match.

As for German - I instantly rule that out because they all use decimal points and commas incorrectly, drive on the wrong side of the road, and even worse use U instead of V for Volt     

[coppice]

Reading thru the posts, it is obvious that English is THE king of languages. And it will be, for the foreseeable future.

One of the reasons for that, may be that the English grammar is relatively straightforward.

English grammar isn't simple. Just look at the huge range of tenses it offers. English vocabulary is also massively diverse. I think the full OED is now up to 16 thick volumes. There are three components which have made English the dominant language in the world today:

• The British Empire spread it around the world, and it stuck to a reasonable extent in most places.
• The current dominance of the US has driven it forwards
• English speakers are really flexible with their language. There is no active effort to fossilize either its vocabulary or its grammar. Many people around the world drop fragments of English into their own language all the time.

Each of those three elements has been crucial in getting English where it is.

[coppice]

Chinese really means Mandarin, rather than Cantonese or traditional, and I think knowing that could very well open up whole new markets to the west - look at Dave's 3 cent micro-controller for example. There are lots of China or Taiwanese only parts with datasheets to match.

For written Chinese traditional Chinese is still pretty important for engineering documents, because of its use in Taiwan. Documents which the Taiwanese send to China will be translated to simplified Chinese, but lots of other documents remain only in traditional Chinese.

[schmitt trigger]

I did not say simple, but straightforward. A very key difference.

My mother tongue is not English, and yet I was able to learn it very quickly simply by listening to music and movies.

Mit Deutsch? Nein.

[mvs]

As for German - I instantly rule that out because they all use decimal points and commas incorrectly, drive on the wrong side of the road, and even worse use U instead of V for Volt     

PS: Actually, we do not mix symbols used in formulas ( U - voltage, I - current, R - resistance, C - capacitance, L - inductance) with corresponding units (V - Volt, A - Amper, Ω - Ohm, F - Farad, H - Henry).

[cdev]

C, C++  .... and many others...

[tpowell1830]

Chinese really means Mandarin, rather than Cantonese or traditional, and I think knowing that could very well open up whole new markets to the west - look at Dave's 3 cent micro-controller for example. There are lots of China or Taiwanese only parts with datasheets to match.

For written Chinese traditional Chinese is still pretty important for engineering documents, because of its use in Taiwan. Documents which the Taiwanese send to China will be translated to simplified Chinese, but lots of other documents remain only in traditional Chinese.

there is always google translate:

对于书面的中国传统汉语，由于其在台湾的使用，对于工程文件仍然非常重要。台湾人寄给中国的文件将被翻译成简体中文，但许多其他文件只保留在繁体中文中。

@BlueSkull, what does this say in simplified characters?

[Mechatrommer]

You're all still missing the "mechatronics" part. Just sayin'. Chinese won't bring anything there.

Mechatronics = machinery + electronics.

Wrong.
Mechatronics = mechanics + electrics/electronics.

In Europe, this is 80% automotive...

not really interested in pointing who's right or wrong, but... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechatronics not really a fan of the term since it omits "programming" in it which is 1 of 3 main constituent of the field. but its not really automotive related field imho, its actually everywhere in this age. otoh, china is also manufacturing many cloned automotive/mechanical related parts, not just electronics parts.

[brucehoult]

Only a small percentage of people in China with a university level education understand English well enough to hold a simple conversation.

Have seen some people with that level of proficiency, but never thought that could be the majority.

I don't have experience in China, but I just spent three years in Moscow. Finding English-speaking people in the supermarket or a taxi or even a restaurant is very hit and miss ... I'd say less than one in ten.

However if you look in technical companies such as Samsung or Intel then ability to read and write understandable English is 100% and 90%+ have good spoken English too. I think it's very nearly the same in local Russian companies in a technical field too -- almost everyone in electronics or programming can read and write English.

[coppice]

Chinese really means Mandarin, rather than Cantonese or traditional, and I think knowing that could very well open up whole new markets to the west - look at Dave's 3 cent micro-controller for example. There are lots of China or Taiwanese only parts with datasheets to match.

For written Chinese traditional Chinese is still pretty important for engineering documents, because of its use in Taiwan. Documents which the Taiwanese send to China will be translated to simplified Chinese, but lots of other documents remain only in traditional Chinese.

there is always google translate:

对于书面的中国传统汉语，由于其在台湾的使用，对于工程文件仍然非常重要。台湾人寄给中国的文件将被翻译成简体中文，但许多其他文件只保留在繁体中文中。

@BlueSkull, what does this say in simplified characters?

Exactly what you expect in traditional Chinese. I don't write traditional Chinese, but I read traditional Chinese just fine.
Ancient Chinese is part of mandatory education in high school.

Edit: I thought it was traditional Chinese. My phone's default Chinese font looks weird, and it renders traditional Chinese somehow.

Well, here's the translation to English:

For written Chinese in traditional Chinese, due to the use in Taiwan, is still very important for engineering documents. Documents mailed from Taiwanese to China will be translated in Simplified Chinese, but many other files are only preserved in Traditional Chinese.

As you can see, Google did an excellent job translating English to Chinese.

Translating between Chinese and English with Google translate is rather hit and miss. It often does very well with simple direct speaking, as it did in this case. It frequently gets things completely backwards when the writing is more complex. Try using more complex tenses and you can get some weird translations. It doesn't get irony at all.

When translating between traditional and simplified Chinese, Google translate has two main issues to deal with. Technical terms in Taiwan are frequently very different from the terms used in Mainland China. Basically terms which were coined after 1949 tend to be different. Google isn't that great at making the necessary changes. Traditional to simplified is usually pretty straightforward, but simplified to traditional is more complex - a simplified character often maps to one of several traditional characters, and Google translate isn't very good at choosing the right option.

[schmitt trigger]

So that is the reason for some hilarious Chinglish manual translations? 

[Vtile]

Python
Lisp
(pick a flavour) Basic
Object Pascal

[001]

Only a small percentage of people in China with a university level education understand English well enough to hold a simple conversation.

Have seen some people with that level of proficiency, but never thought that could be the majority.

I don't have experience in China, but I just spent three years in Moscow. Finding English-speaking people in the supermarket or a taxi or even a restaurant is very hit and miss ... I'd say less than one in ten.

huh
I spend few mounth at Moscow
In Russia taxi drivers don`t speak russian too    since all of them are from midlle east countries

[Mechatrommer]

Hmm the odd of them and you knowing my language is one in a million.

[Mechatrommer]

Hmm the odd of them and you knowing my language is one in a million.

I actually once had a classmate in US who speaks fluent English and Mandarin, whose native tongue is Malay.

i was talking about non-native malay. its common here for people to know 3-5 languages including the national language, chinese and indian being most of them (malay, english, chinese (for chinese) and india (for indian)) i can speak and understand 3 languages (malay, english and my native/ethnic language) i know very little bit chinese and arab. if i want to learn a language, the first word i will learn is how to say "i dont know" or "i dont understand" it solved many confusions

[Orlando]

Well yes, english and german are the most useful languages in my experience. But as recomendation you should try looking for the Brands languages you are interested in, for example, BK Precision, Rigol, Volkswagen, Ford, GW Instek, SAP... and then you will have a better idea of what you will need to get the job you want.

[CatalinaWOW]

The answers to this seem to ignore the fact that there are several reasons for using a language.  What is important varies with purpose.

Day to day life.  Includes buying things from wherever.  Here the answer is 1. The native tongue(s) where you are living.  2.  English   There is no 3 at the moment though Chinese is elbowing its way in since if you want to buy anything that is the place to go.

Background technical information.  Latin has dropped off this list for engineers and the order of the top three is subject to debate but 1.  English  2.  German  3.  French  4.  Russian  5.  Japanese.  Again, Chinese either should be on this list or will be soon.  Detail matters here too.  For example if you want computer architecture, logic, programming theory and so on English dominates.  If you want closed form math, approximation methods and other things like that Russian rules. 

Current hacks and technical activity.  My list here is biased by my own language limitations.  I won't try to order them but I have found good stuff in English, German, French and Russian (in that order).  There seems to be good stuff in Chinese, but Google translate just isn't good enough to get those kinds of web information out for me.

[westfw]

Only a small percentage of people in China with a university level education understand English well enough to hold a simple conversation. Many of them feel pretty bad about this, as they all studied English from kindergarten to their last year at university.

That sounds painfully similar to foreign language education in the US.  University-bound students are nearly required to have studied "a foreign language" in school (usually starting in Middle School (age 13?), after which you can sort-of survive "life" as long as native speakers of that language are willing to speak slowly and listen with a forgiving ear.  But trying to follow full-speed conversation, or understand the plot of a novel is a bit beyond us :-(  Developing actual fluency requires PRACTICE, which is ... difficult.(OTOH, a lot of the technical details of English grammar and tenses and so on end up being learned in the foreign language classes, since actual English classes tend to focus on vocabulary, comprehension and interpretation.)

[djacobow]

Binary language of moisture vapurators / binary load lifters.

[beanflying]

Used to be Fortran, Pascal on a HP3000 mainframe and a Hex keypad for the 6800 micros were my other Languages ..... I am so old than IBM AT's were cutting edge 

In spite of being an EE I worked more in a process environment with Pumps and controls. At the time German was the one language I wished I knew more of apart from 'Australian'. German was in much higher use than any other European language as a second one to English in technical papers and manuals. Prior to what is now a simple task via electronic translators (flawed as they are) breaking down technical German words into 'manageable' chunks was useful and if I still couldn't sort them out break out the German-English dictionary or these days google translate.

If you are just getting going on your career I would go with English First not for personal reasons but it tends to be the second language taught the most widely around the world making it perhaps the most universal. These days it is a toss up between German and Mandarin/Chinese (simplified) depending on your specialty and the countries you will be working with most for another.

Just realized the O.P is Turkish so English and German for you and I am sure you have some knowledge of both to build on. One place I want to go back to and spend another few months 

At my age electronic translations and laughing at the results that gets will have to do me

[beanflying]

Mandarin/Chinese (simplified)

Depending on where you live, Traditional Chinese education may be more accessible due to the prevalence population of decedents of Cantonese immigrants immigrated more than 100 years ago.
And anyway the difference is not that big. I work in teams with members from Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. And we don't have problems communicating in both written and spoken Chinese.

I would agree in Australia for example we did have until recently a much higher percentage of Cantonese speakers but it is now about evenly split due to recent arrivals. If I was younger and still had a 'real' job I would be doing some Mandarin studies would make a lot of sense.

In Turkey however German is very commonly used as a second language and they have some very strong business and social ties to Germany still. So for the OP it makes sense to go down that path.

[rstofer]

I spent some time living and working in Singapore.  English is their first language although it is spoken with a decidedly British accent.  I takes a few words spoken before I get in synch.  Best job of my life!

When I was stationed in Germany back in '66-'67, I noticed that most of the young people (say around 20) spoke pretty good English.  The older shopkeepers usually had at least one young person around with whom I could converse.  The fact that I took 4 years of German in high school didn't prepare me for the speed at which Germans can speak their native language.  I could read the signs and menus and that's what was important!

What did German do for me?  I'm convinced that I was shipped to Germany vs Vietnam based on those years of study.  It was a wonderful tour of duty and I really enjoyed the food and drink.

[coppice]

I spent some time living and working in Singapore.  English is their first language although it is spoken with a decidedly British accent.

Are you sure that was Singapore? Singapore and Malaysia have their own very distinctive accent when speaking English, and its nothing like British English.