If You’re Ever Stuck Between Two Languages, Pick the Less “Useful” One

If you’re ever stuck between two languages, pick the less “useful” one: it’s the one you really want to learn.

Broadly speaking, the “usefulness” — utility? — of a language in the economic sense is actually, in my experience, a function of how good you — personally, individually — are at the language, not how many people speak it.

By any external measure, English is more “useful” than French or Dutch or even Japanese, but so…should, say, TORIYAMA Akira “improve his English” at the expense of his Japanese so he can sell more Dragon Ball books overseas? Should he trade in his auteur-level Japanese for broken English? Maybe he could get a little English-based side job, you know — something to fall back on. You see how the linear logic breaks down?

In fact, a lot of people, and let’s not name any names here, but a lot…of people…could stand to improve their native language shooting percentage ¹ before going all foreign — and, if Johnson O’Connor is to be believed ², would reap immense economic benefits from doing so. The cool thing about learning Japanese via Heisig is it basically gently forces that on us a bit; it requires us (to? ³) raise our game. I totally still collect new kanji (the Pokemon effect) and I definitely have the occasional kanji where I’m learning a new English word. I had a friend, a native English speaker…I guess I still have him; we’re still friends…( ) who was going through Heisig and didn’t know the word “consummate” (or that it has two significantly different, common meanings, one as a verb and the other as an adjective) and, yeah, needed to learn some new English. So, he get a twofer there.

Speaking of which — I might as well confess my own ignorance here if I’m going to be calling out friends — I still don’t know what the word “exfoliate” really, actually means. I hear chicks say it a lot; they seem to be into it.
OK, I’m done being cute and pretending to be humble and personable. Screw that; I’m the bestest in the world and my dad could beat up your dad…Back on topic!

The other issue is that you’re likely to need to go through a phase of being irrationally attached to a language, a “dip”, a phase where your commitment to the language no longer makes sense because you’re getting much less than you’re giving. You’re giving time, you’re giving energy, you’re giving money and you’re not seeing a return. The only language that’s likely to carry you through this phase is a language you love irrationally. Think of it as mid-flight turbulence or that phase of a haircut where your head looks worse than when you entered the barbershop.

Once you get through this phase, things make sense again.

So, as I see it, becoming so good at Ancient Egyptian that you could do a Daniel Jackson (Stargate) and roll your eyes at mainstream textbooks ⁴ is far more powerful, economically speaking, than broken Spanish or Arabic or Mandarin or any of the big popular langs. It’s the whole sharp knife/blunt knife thing…