How Many People Can You Talk To?

The Cunning Linguist offers one good reason to learn Mandarin: It allows you to talk to over a billion people! Victoria links to a Wikipedia article on the number of speakers of different languages. Here's the top 20 in millions of people (for native language only; does not include 2nd language):

Mandarin	878
Spanish	322
English	309
Arabic	206
Hindi	181
Portuguese	178
Bengali	171
Russian	145
Japanese	122
German	95
Javanese	76
Wu	77
Telugu	70
Marathi	68
Vietnamese	67
Korean	67
Tamil	66
French	65
Italian	62
WesternPunjabi	61
Urdu	61

I've gone with the figures in the Ethnologue column in the Wikipedia article, but of course these numbers are constantly changing and a bit inaccurate. Still, they provide a way to guesstimate how well you can get around the world. Setting as a minimum standard the ability to exchange pleasantries, introduce yourself, request food, drink and shelter and make small purchases, I can (barely, in some cases) survive in English (309), French (65), Spanish (322), Italian (62), German (95) and Mandarin (878). That gives me 1,731 million people to talk to (though for more extended conversation, I'm limited to around 700 million). At the same time, even the ability to exchange pleasantries and use please and thank you makes the weary traveler to one's own country smile. So while Tim Ferriss' guide to deconstructing a language may get you started working out what you can/will seriously learn, the linked Wikipedia article can give you another way to think about the possibilities that come with learning a new language.