This entry is part 6 of 5 in the series The First World Problem is ChoiceIf 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 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? 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 […]
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