Best foreign language to learn? (for an American)

I am a physics undergraduate (plan on going to graduate school) going into my junior year at a public university in the midwest United States, and I've decided that it's a wise idea to take four semesters of a foreign langauge. (And in all honesty, I am a little ignorant when it comes to the "real world." I grew up in a town of 250 and now I'm going to college whose campus is in a town of 20,000. I've never been to a big city (such as Chicago or St. Louis) for any longer than a day. I've heard that there's foreign language all over the place in large cities, but I honestly can't say I've experienced it first hand. Where I come from (area with town of 250), it's very rare to find somebody that's actually fluent in a language other than English. And when I do, it's Spanish.)

My school offers Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese and, given my current situation, I'm wondering what would be the best one to take. I'm wanting to learn a foreign foreign language mainly to expand my horizons but also to help me in my future career, which will most likely be related to physics.

I've thought about it and here's what I think about each one. Let me know if I'm thinking along the right lines:

Spanish - I took two years of Spanish in high school and, even though I've forgotten a lot of words, I still remember how the grammatical structure works and I can communicate with a native speaker fairly well if they are willing to work with me. Spanish in America is growing at a tremendous rate, so I'm sure that I will end up *almost* fluent in it over the next 10 years or so regardless if I take any more classes in it or not.

French - No offense to the native French speakers, but I don't like French. I don't like the way it sounds. And if was to take it, the only places it would be applicable are in French Canada and France, right?

German - As much as I'd like to speak this "harsh, ugly" language and as much as hearing it invigorates me, the only place I'd use it is Germany. Not to mention that it seems to me that a lot of Germans can speak English, or am I just seeing things?

Chinese - China's economy is growing at a tremendous rate, not to mention that it has the largest population of people in the world. Trouble is, I really don't know that much about China (culture, etc.) and I hear the language is hard to learn in all areas - listening, speaking, reading and writing. Not to mention I'm not really sure if it will help me all that much as many people I've talked to say that it will be awhile (a couple of decades) before China becomes a big enough influence for their language to be applicable.

Japanese - Well, Japan is the leading country in technology right now, which is highly applicable for somebody that (will have) a degree in physics. Not to mention that I've heard that there are buttloads of Japanese companies in the United States. Between my junior and senior year in high school, I ordered some books from Amazon.com and taught myself hiragana, katakana, a few phrases and at one time I knew about 75-100 kanji. I didn't really learn anything beyond the basic grammatical structure and particles and hardly learned any vocabulary. I've forgotten most of the kanji and a lot of the hiragana I learned. I've retained the katakana (since I actually have some idea of what I'm supposed to be reading as it's usually used for foreign words, usually English, adopted into Japanese), some of the kanji and the phrases. If need be, I can easily relearn the hiragana, as it's easier to learn something if you've forgotten it. The point is this: I've already got somewhat of a head start on Japanese.


Now, I've talked to a lot of people and told them all of this, and almost every one of them recommends Japanese. The only person that didn't was my differential equations professor. She is Chinese, so of course she is going to recommend that I take Chinese.

Any thoughts?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

First of all, I thank everyone for their replies. Second of all, sorry I didn't reply sooner.

I've read through every reply and I have to say that I'm a little suprised as the replies here didn't really reflect the replies that I got from the people I know in person.

I'm suprised that there are this many suggesting that I take Spanish, since I'm slowly teaching it to myself anyway and there really aren't that many applications of the Spanish language in physics.

Right now, Chinese in physics probably isn't all that existant. While I do agree that it wouldn't be a bad idea to learn Chinese because their economy is soaring, I'm basing that decision on an oppurtunity that I may have in the future instead of basing it on what I know now.

I knew that German would have some application, but I wasn't sure if it would be more or less than Japanese. I guess it would depend on which area of physics I want to go into, which I really can't say at this point because I haven't taken all of my upper level physics classes yet and the freshman and sophmore physics aren't really detailed enough for me to make a good judgement from.

At any rate, it basically boils down to German and Japanese. Realistically speaking, I'd like to learn at least one, if not both.

Originally Posted by nabhan

Another con against Japanese is that to get a job in Japan, you have to be really good at what you do. They have tons of Japanese people to choose from who can speak good English.

Yeah, that's another thing. If I was working for a Japanese company, their expectations of me might be higher than that of an American company.

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Also, beware of Intro Japanese classes. They're usually packed with animu fags and kids that learned Japanese while growing up and are looking for an easy A. Totally going to kill any sort of fair grading scheme the professor can come up with.

Actually, Reaver, I can't see that happening that badly at my university as I really haven't met any "otakus." (Most of the people around here seem to be drunken basketweaving majors.) However, I did meet a girl that was taking Japanese last semester and she said there were only about 15 students in the intro class and none of them had any knowledge of the language before taking it.

This isn't to say that that will happen if I take Japanese, but I can't see something that you described happen to the degree that I'll automatically be at the bottom of the grading curve. (Not to mention I already have some knowledge of Japanese.)

Also, I do know a little bit of German. I bought myself two of those laminated 3 page "quick review" things of German grammer and vocabulary. Sometimes when I hear sentences in German they stick out like a sore thumb because I can almost understand them like they were my native language. I can't say the same about Japanese.

I'll have to think about this for awhile. Any additional thoughts?

There's nowhere I can't reach.