What is the best language to learn for engineering (specially materials/textile)

English. People from the countries you mention will have spent a great deal of time learning it in order to work in an international team.

I suspect, though, that you already speak English, perhaps as a native language. Either way, I commend you for choosing to learn an additional language. The world needs more people like you.

I would suggest that it really depends on which specialism you want to go into, your own interests, and what you would like to achieve in your career.

For electrical engineering with a focus on chip design and embedded systems or robotics, Japanese might be an interesting line to pursue (you’d also have an advantage in that you’ll find it far easier to learn the written form of Japanese if you already know hanzi). For mechanical engineering, Hindi or German would be useful. For aviation engineering, You might learn French and go to work for Dassault. For petrochemical engineering, you might want to learn Arabic (working in the Middle East is also a very good way to make lots of money).

The question is, then: what do you want to do?

@the100thmonkey – Thank you for your answer, I’m specifically interested in materials, textiles, fabrics, polymers – that kind of stuff, which is why I wasn’t quite sure what language to take up.

Well, you got me!

I had never even realised that textiles engineering was a discrete field, which, of course, it is.

You’re in a far better position than I, or, indeed, probably 99% of the membership of this site to answer the question – you know the field, so you’re the one who will know the leading companies. Perhaps it would be a good idea to contact the HR department of the companies you identify as ones you would like to work for and ask them what their working languages are, which countries they operate in and whether they have any language proficiency criteria for career progression. That would give you a better idea of the linguistic demands of the environments you’ll be working in.

Good luck!

Do a Google search on the subjects of interest, and see what languages the research papers are mostly written in.

@RocketGuy – I’m pretty sure that that language will be English.

The issue of what language to learn is determined not only by the academic milieu, but also by the presonal preferences and needs of the learner – @sillymichelleyoung clearly knows her stuff; the question is more about the organisations she determines to be of interest to her.

Thank you for answering @the100thmonkey ! You were very helpful. When I have time I’ll do some research of major companies and call up the HR if I have to. I might also just go to the dean of the department to see what his opinion is.

English. The best German engineers publish in English.

The point of looking for research articles is that industry often pays for it. You thus get an idea of who is innovative and has money, and what language they speak. Working at an innovative company is usually the most fulfilling.