It’s probably time to learn Chinese
The canary in the coal mine here is that you have to keep practicing language or you lose it.<p>All of that effort is admirable and intellectually interesting but if you have no one to regularly speak with when you leave China, it&#x27;s not a good use of time and effort. Unless one never wants to return to their home country, or marries a native.<p>He&#x27;s right about French. It&#x27;s probably my favorite language, I lived and worked in France for some time. You will generally not be encouraged and will definitely not be welcomed as one of them, ever. It&#x27;s a very pervasive attitude. I vowed to learn no more of their language. Which is not a problem, I&#x27;d have to really go out of my way to find someone I wanted to speak with anyway.<p>Outside of special cases, the only language that I&#x27;ve identified as a no brainer for an American or Brit is Spanish. Both of us have very good reasons, and plenty of people to regularly speak with. They&#x27;re also very open and welcoming people, at least Latin Americans. Over the next 30 years there will be a rising power from Latin America as well, most likely Mexico. A nation that will soon overtake its mother country&#x27;s GDP, and is predicted by some, including George Friedman, to be challenging the US for North American leadership by the year 2100. Mexico in particular is China&#x27;s anti-matter. If anything happens to detail their progress, Mexico benefits tremendously. They&#x27;ve always competed to supply the US market.<p>Ultimately none of that matters, you still need daily interaction with a language to maintain it. It&#x27;s key and for many of us, that would be difficult with Mandarin. I&#x27;m with him though on the value and interest otherwise, but long-term, thinking decades or even just years out, an inpractical choice for most native English speakers.