What would be the best second foreign language to learn for Computer Science and IT?

Question

Which foreign languages would be the most beneficial to learn for future businesses and work in the programming field and why? My native language is English.

Some of the options are;

1. Spanish
2. Japanese
3. German
4. Russian

Answer 1

Being a large and growing field worldwide, Computer Science/IT gives you plenty of opportunities to connect with co-workers and, in a customer-facing environment, use your language skills on the job.

For this reason, the right language is up to you! By choosing a language you find interesting, you will be self-motivated to continue learning. Once you become conversational in a language, you can start to experiment using it in the workplace. As a native English speaker that has working level proficiency in Mandarin Chinese, I was sent to APAC as part of a software development team for a US company. I had other coworkers that spoke Spanish and Portuguese and they used their language skills in LATAM. It was not what language we spoke, but the level to which we spoke it that was important.

My only word of caution, from personal experience, is to research the level of proficiency that is expected if you are working in another country. I see you listed Japanese as one of your options. In Japan, they often expect a high-level of Japanese proficiency for most corporate jobs. I worked for a US-based investment bank that only hired strong Japanese-speakers for the Japan office, but hiring was much more flexible for the Hong Kong office. Most times you can find this out by doing your research and talking to non-native speakers working abroad. On the off chance that you get misinformation, you can always work with a translator who can support you if your current level is sufficient for the task.