Hello Nancy I used to speak spanish rather well, but from lack of use I don't speak it too well anymore. Speaking other languages can certainly be beneficial when working with scientists from all over the world. For instance, I am planning on trying to learn some Japonese as I will be working with a number of Japonese scientists in the coming year. Dawn

Hello Nancy,

I studied French in high school and in college, but like Dawn, I don't speak it very well anymore due to lack of use. Many scientific meetings, even ones in foreign countries, are conducted in English. I've attended three conferences in France, and every one was conducted in English. I think the reason is that these meetings are attended by scientists from around the world, who are native speakers of many different languages - English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French, German, Swedish, and Spanish, to name a few. Many people around the world study English in school, so that seems to be a language we all can speak in common at an international conference. Many scientific journals also publish their papers in English - even ones based in Europe!

However, there are situations where speaking a foreign languages can be very useful. Having skills in a foreign languange can be helpful when traveling to conferences, especially when the meeting is in a remote location that requires you to drive or take a train from the airport. After completing their Ph.D. degrees, some young scientists do post-doctoral research in a foreign country for a year or two. If you are going to live and work in another country, in certainly helps to be able to speak and write their language!

Kris

Hi Nancy,

I am Dutch so I'm fluent in Dutch. Holland is rather small: driving from the far north to the far south takes about 4 hours and brings you into Belgium, where the north speaks Dutch (Flemish, Dutch with a heavy accent) and the south speaks French. You can also cross Belgium in 3-4 hours and end up in France.
From the far west border of Holland to the far east takes about 3 hours and brings you into Germany, where they speak German (Deutsch).
Because about nobody but the Dutch speaks Dutch, I learned 2 years of German, 3 years of French, and 6 years of English in high school. Dutch and German sound pretty close so I can understand German. French goes too fast so I can only understand simple sentences.
I did 6 years of Latin and 1 year of classical Greek. Those are not spoken anymore but extremely useful.
American is almost the same as English but you have those tiny little differences: color/colour, potatos/potatoes, traveling/travelling.
Having studied Latin for 6 years, I have a problem with the wrong use of a few words: it really is [one visum, two visa] and [one datum, two data], but visa and data are often treated as singular.
If you can learn another language, try to do it! Especially western languages: if you learn one it's easier to learn more. I tried 3 lessons in Japanese but quit that because it's so hard (but very useful).

Mandy