What languages should engineers learn?

[ivan747]

I was installing LibreOffice and selecting what spell check languages I wanted and that got me thinking, what are the most useful languages for engineers to learn? So far I reckon English, Chinese and maybe German? I don't know why I see so many Germans around the forum but I know Germany is a good source of technology (and their industry is very developed overall).

I am completely ignoring Japanese here because I find this country to be so culturally isolated I don't think it is an attractive place to work at and I feel their English is better than the average Chinese company's.

What's your opinion?

I'm also adding an interesting poll: what language do you think should be the internaitonal language? Imagine English isn't already trying to be the de-facto language.

[MacAttak]

Can't go wrong with C

[4to20Milliamps]

Spanglish?

[cthree]

1. English
2. C

[mikes]

Klingon.

[Hydrawerk]

English and German, if you live next to Germany.

[ivan747]

I wonder if Germany is a good place for electronics engineers.

[lemmegraphdat]

Accounting?

[kfitch42]

I usually joke that I prefer domestic languages (like C and Python) to foreign ones(like English), but I guess that joke doesn't work as well on an international forum like this.

[Rick Law]

I was installing LibreOffice and selecting what spell check languages I wanted and that got me thinking, what are the most useful languages for engineers to learn? So far I reckon English, Chinese and maybe German? I don't know why I see so many Germans around the forum but I know Germany is a good source of technology (and their industry is very developed overall).

I am completely ignoring Japanese here because I find this country to be so culturally isolated I don't think it is an attractive place to work at and I feel their English is better than the average Chinese company's.

What's your opinion?

I'm also adding an interesting poll: what language do you think should be the internaitonal language? Imagine English isn't already trying to be the de-facto language.

Not too long ago (6-12 months), my daughter was making her second language choice for high school which she will be starting coming fall.  So I spend some time thinking this over.

(1) How many Fortune 100 has that as their home language?  How about Fortune 1000?

(2) How many scientific journals are written in that language?

(3) Of all the countries speaking language X's, what are their combined combined GDP?

(4) Of all the countries speaking language X's, what are their combined R&D dollars (not percentage of GDP but actual amount)?

(5) Of the answers above,   Is dX/dt positive?  Is d2x/dt (second derivative)?  Are they reaching an inflection point?

Fortune 100 one years (or two years) ago had English speaker companies being #1, I forgot who is second, but if memory serves, the 2nd to 5 are: French, Japanese, German, Chinese follows.  Dutch has a few.  The rest are low single digit.

Since German, Chinese, and Japanese are not available, she is going for French.

You may argue why just look at economic numbers.  Well, as the saying goes: "a man has got to eat," so is for a woman as well.  Without a good mean of making a living, it doesn't matter what else knowing that language can do for you.

You may want to do similar analysis again with more recent numbers.  I think China will gain at the expense of everyone else.  China is definitely on an up trajectory while French is on the way down.  Hard to say about Germany.

My choice would be Chinese, German, then Japanese.  Combining current numbers and expected trajectory, Chinese is the way to go.

Jim Rogers, the founder of Quantum fund, was quoted saying: "there is no better gift you can give your children but the ability to speak Mandarin."  (forgot exact words, this was quoted in major magazines).  He went to the extend of hiring a Chinese Nanny to ensure his kid speaks Mandarin.

So, there you go.

Rick

[ddavidebor]

English and chinese

C

[Smokey]

English. 
Just make sure you have at least one Chinese guy at the office if you do any over seas purchasing or manufacturing.

[iloveelectronics]

I'm most likely biased but I'd say English and Chinese 

[Tepe]

I usually joke that I prefer domestic languages (like C and Python) to foreign ones(like English), but I guess that joke doesn't work as well on an international forum like this.

Especially since Python is Dutch.

[peter.mitchell]

Java, because its popular and is specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible.

BAHAHA      I'd never genuinely suggest java.

Probably chinese.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Difficulty/learning time should probably also be factored into the equation - That would probably put Chinese way down the list.
As reagards career prospects, programming languages and HDLs are probably more valuable skills.

[AndyC_772]

Besides English, the only other language I would have ever found it professionally useful to read is Chinese (and, I'm afraid, I wouldn't recognise the difference between Cantonese, Mandarin or any other languages that might also come under that umbrella).

As an engineer, more often than not it's technical data sheets that give rise to a need for languages besides English. Some data sheets are only available in Chinese. German companies tend to produce data sheets which are in both German and English. Other companies tend to use English only.

If you're involved with low cost, high volume (generally consumer) products, then being able to communicate with Chinese manufacturers and designers would be a major advantage. Although they generally can use English, I've found it's easy for technical information to get lost in translation. Coupled with the time difference - China is packing up to go home at the end of the day just as Europe is getting started - it can make for very slow progress if you're working with a Chinese company and have to exchange multiple emails to ensure something is well understood.

[gocemk]

MATLAB, C, C++ and probably some HDL.

[jpb]

The drawback with being English is, if you're not particularly good at languages, it is hard to choose which other language to learn. If you're not English then English is an obvious choice as an international language. The choice for an other international language is more problematic. I grew up in Hong Kong but never learned more than a few words of Cantonese because I was surrounded by people who spoke English whether as native speakers or as people who simply wished to practice their English. I was not a natural linguist so if I could get by with English I did. Chinese (Cantonese in this case) is a difficult language to learn. My father learned it for his work but I don't think he ever felt totally fluent and he was a much better linguist than I am.

I don't know if Mandarin is a good language to learn for Engineering. Clearly China is going to employ a lot of engineers in future and to speak both Mandarin and English will probably make you very employable, but there is also going to be a lot of Chinese engineers who will learn English and they will be better placed to take jobs in China.

For science and engineering innovation German is a good language to learn but if you already speak English, unless you want to work in Germany, most information is available in English as well as German.

If I was to produce a list with no weighting for difficulty it would be:

English
Mandarin
German

Languages like Spanish are very widely spoken but I'm not sure how many engineering jobs there are in South America or Spain and in the US, at least at present, English (or the US variant of it ) is probably sufficient.

India is up and coming but again there are many languages so English is probably the one that is used for technical jobs (I'm not very up on this).

[mikeselectricstuff]

As an engineer, more often than not it's technical data sheets that give rise to a need for languages besides English. Some data sheets are only available in Chinese. German companies tend to produce data sheets which are in both German and English. Other companies tend to use English only.

In the case of reading datasheets, machine translation is usually going to be good enough to get enough understanding to figure out any details.

[nuhamind2]

I speak Javanese daily

[MikeK]

Mathematics!

[C]

good Pictures is the best first language.

When it comes to what is written or spoken there are often differences.
What I think of as a "TUBE" ( you know the thing that gets hot an is used in radios and amplifiers), some call a "Valve". So when someone says the "the Valve was bad", are they talking about a "TUBE" or what I think of as a "Valve" (the thing you turn on and off to control something like water). Add to this there sometimes special names are used when working in a specific area. When someone/something is Translating you have to worry if they took this in to account. And if the translator does not know the subject, you can really have a lot of poor translations.

An Example:
In the 80's I was at the Rome Italy airport customs counter when the local Italian guy meeting me said in English "I see you were able to bring two P-T-BOMBS !"
Anyone want to guess how many Italians in security with the pistols and machine guns could translate "BOMB" from English to Italian. I did not have to wonder, as they were pointed and cocked. You think that's bad, it gets worse. What I was carrying was what some of you with guns would call shot gun cases, so step it up another notch. Then when opened, Inside each of the two cases were two pipes. One with electrical connections on one end, the other on both ends, so step it up another notch.

One pipe was a $25,000, 0-20,000 psi electronic pressure gauge built by "HP" to sense the pressure at the bottom of oil/gas wells factory/calibration lab sealed with a one time use gold washer. Special tools needed to open it.  The other pipe was a temperature sensor that connected to the pressure sensor. I was very very lucky, "HP" included a manual in every case and the manual had real good pictures.   

So where did the name "P-T-BOMB" come from? The original was a mechanical wind up clock that rotated a smoked copper plate mounted on a drum that had a mechanical pressure gage with needle so it could make scratches on the copper as it turned and was dropped to the bottom of oil wells on the drill pipe. So what most would call a pressure-temperature recorder was called a "P-T-Bomb" in the oil field.

I hope you never have a few minutes like that.
C

[Alana]

In today's world without basic knowledge of English you are screwed so that's my first choice and first foreign language. In today's world if you are not from English speaking country you learn [or at least study] English as a child so you may take it for granted.

Second language, and i mean human language...
In my case I'd go for Russian or German. Russian - because i may get involved with marine company that employs Russian sailors and it would be wise to be able to talk to crew members if i go fix something on a ship.
German - because from what i heard there are no new jobs for foreigners in English speaking countries in Europe and in Germany i may get a job as an electrician.
But if i were to recommend second language to some other person I'd say - do your own maths and consider that you may not get those top level jobs you are hoping for.

[bitwelder]

If you're involved with low cost, high volume (generally consumer) products, then being able to communicate with Chinese manufacturers and designers would be a major advantage.

For an engineer involved with (Chinese) manufacturing, I would actually suggest not only plain language courses in Chinese/Mandarin/Cantonese, but also related cultural training.
As writing emails in correct Mandarin but with not being aware of using a 'rude' western approach may not end up good in business.