Originally Posted by
CPRich
I'm not sure that "Chinese" is a very good description, if you're looking for a language that would serve you well in other countries. Mandarin, maybe.
Originally Posted by
Gamecock
Considering you are talking with people and not geopolitical boundries I think number of people is more useful.
Not exactly when if you're talking about useful for travel languages, numbers of countries XX language is spoken becomes pretty relevant then if looking to visit multiple countries in a given region. Mandarin is a perfect example, the world's most widely spoke language by pure numbers but it's really only useful as a travel language in mainland China and Taiwan (Singapore as well but highly unnecessary there due to English). It isn't going to get you very far as a tourist in Europe, Africa, the Americas, etc... sure there are a huge number of Chinese immigrants in countries around the world but they probably aren't going to be who a tourist is attempting to interact with on the street in Germany or Peru (etc.)