Best foreign language to learn? (for an American)

my 2 cents:
i still think chinese is the way to go :/
and as many people learning a second language, with english being their first,keeps on telling me that they hope to learn chinese one day because it will be the main stream language... there might not be physics in china right now, but doesn't mean it is totally non-existent. perhaps you can even be a pioneer in some ways if you know the language and go there rather than be in competition~

my second choice would actually be german, donno why

thirdly: japanese - being sort of in competition with the first 2 IMHO-, and let's face it, i do believe that most of the people want to learn the language for its anime. ^^ (not that it's bad, i am learning it myself). but from 2 examples given to me. when you goto japan, they're probably gonna try to speak english to you rather than you speak japanese to them.

Jam it back in, in the dark.