How many languages can you speak? Are you proficient in one, two, four or ten languages? Yes, there are people who can speak ten languages fluently. They are gifted and have a way with a mastery of languages in a manner that few would. Researchers have variously reported that knowledge of local languages can give a foreign resident much impetus and advantages that work for better social bonding.

Do you know why multicultural people are the most happy, cause it's good to mix things up!

It is always obvious that the knowledge of a second or third language can have tangible benefits on one's career prospects. In some cases, it can even influence a person's chances of getting hired. The US is, notably, built on factors like immigration. For these reasons, a considerable portion of the country's population is known to speak English only as a second language. It would be interesting to discover which are the most popular languages spoken in the US today.

Let us find out:

English

English is generally considered as the national language in the US. It is obvious that this is the most widely spoken language, not only in America, but the whole world. English always occupies the top position in the sectors of business, the academia and tourism. Moreover, it has become an essential tool of creating significant business connections everywhere in the world. If you want to benefit to the maximum with your stay in the US, it is essential to have an extensive mastery of the English language.

Spanish

After English, there is a big demand for the use of Spanish language as a subsidiary means of communication. The main reason is that the US shares a border with both Central and Latin America. It does not, therefore, come as surprise that this is the case. The most interesting thing is: There are now more speakers of the Spanish language in America than there are in Spain itself. A report by the New York Post newspaper indicated that there are over 41 million people who are native speakers of the Spanish language, and who live in the US. The report indicated that another 11.6 million people are bilingual speakers of this language.

A US Census Office report suggests that, soon, there will be about 138 million speakers of the Spanish language in the United States. This makes America to be the world's largest nation with a Spanish speaking population. About one-third of the nation's population is, therefore, Spanish-speaking, this being their mother-tongue.

The US states of California and Florida have the largest population of Spanish-speaking people. You will, however, find many Spanish-speaking peoples scattered all over the United States. For this reason, if you stay in the country, even for a short while, it is important to have a little knowledge of the language; just to keep you going.

Chinese

Almost three million people in America speak one type of the Chinese dialect. This includes Cantonese, Mandarin and other languages native to China. There is no doubt that China is rapidly becoming a world trading superpower. The country is increasingly having more and more connections with many peoples of the world. When you visit some of the more famous US cities, including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, one of the most prominent features there is the availability of a large colony of Chinese -speaking peoples who are residents. Interestingly, this situation is replicated in many other countries, away from the USA. As China's superpower status gets boosted daily, the Chinese language is equally gaining ground and spreading like bush-fire. Of course, the USA is mere microcosm of this.

Tagalog

Tagalog is a language whose history and tradition can be traced away to the Philippines. Tagalog is spoken by a little more than 1.5 million people in the USA. The number of people who speak Tagalog in the US has actually tripled in the last thirty years. Surprisingly, this figure has even surpassed the growth rate of such leading languages as French and Vietnamese.

Vietnamese

Despite the phenomenal rise of other languages in the US, the Vietnamese language has also had a significant increase in recent years. By last 2018, there were about 4.5 million people speaking Vietnamese in the entire US.

French

From the year 1980, there was a 28% increase in the number of people who speak French in America. Moreover, Canada boasts of hosting the largest colony of people speaking French. The largest colony of these people today reside in the Canadian province of Quebec and other nearby cities. The North-Eastern states have the largest single settlement of this population. One possible reason for this is the influence of the French-Canadian population that lurks somewhere in the immediate neighborhood.

If anyone ever asked: What is the largest company in the world in 2020? What would be your answer? Coca Cola? Facebook, or perhaps, Bill Gates' Microsoft? Well, on this matter, your guess is as good as mine.

Google is today one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. Do you know anyone who knows something about the digital world and, yet, does not use Google? Almost everyone uses Google as their favourite search engine. Indeed, many people have Google set as their home page. This facilitates easier usage.

The company is so widely used today that the term Google has quickly become a part of the international vocabulary, familiar everywhere. From 2006, the word was even included in some widely used English dictionaries, like the Oxford English dictionary.

The history of Google starts way back in 1998 with two graduate students of Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The two men invented Google in the college precincts. Today, they control about 56% of the stockholder shares. Google was later incorporated as a privately- held company in California, USA. Soon after that, Google moved its headquarters to the famous Googleplex building in Mountain View, California. The company continued with a sterling performance in business, progressively becoming popular and very successful.

In 2015 Google announced new plans to reorganize its corporate interests and turn into a conglomerate. The new giant was known as the Alphabet Incorporated. Google became the principal subsidiary of the Alphabet conglomerate. Despite the formation of the new company, Google maintained its place as the umbrella company representing the Alphabet's general interests. Google is a true symbol of success. In the new formation, Sunday Pichai took over the role of Google CEO, replacing Larry Page. The latter assumed the mantle of the Alphabet Company as the overall conglomerate CEO.

Today, Google ranks highly in the digital space as the world's most visited website. Other Google subsidiaries feature high in the top 100 websites most visited by surfers. Among these is the phenomenal YouTube and Blogger. Between 2015 and 2017, Google became the world's most valuable brand. Nevertheless, in recent years, the company has weathered significant criticism from users regarding an array of issues, including general privacy concerns, censorship, anti-trust tax evasion, and search neutrality.

Most interestingly, the Google Company consists of unique teams of employees, 14% of whom never stepped into college. The company has a policy that stresses the intrinsic qualities of individuals instead of mere educational backgrounds or school test scores. The capability and suitability of Google's potential employs are measured solely basing on these.

At one time, Google even hired a camel when the company sought to create some imagery for a new street view application. The intent was to document the desert, thus including it as part of the programme. In another of Google's pioneering programmes,, you can readily explore around parts of Mars as well as tour the base camp at Mount Everest.

Should you decide to bypass all the Google advertisements and go for the 'I am Feeling Lucky' button, the company stands to lose a whopping $100 a year. This device is designed to take you straight to the listed search first page, thus saving you some seconds in the process. A staggering amount, by most standards, won't you agree? However, consider the total amount of money that Google makes from advertising each year: A whopping $30 billion. This is more than the combined fortunes of all the leading satellite channels in America, including ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.

Does this kind of profit surprise you? Remember that Google hosts more than 4 million searches every minute.

Yes, every day, Google receives more than 63,000 searches in just one second. That is the average number of people who use the search engine daily. This means Google gets 3.8 million searches per minute, 228 million per hour and 5.6 billion per day.

People's subconscious impressions of us are very important, and while your mouth can deliver one message, your body and your tone can deliver the complete opposite. It is important to be clear and concise with your communication through every aspect that your audiences receives.

Your audience most likely wants to see you looking and projecting confidence. When you speak, make sure to slow down your words and to speak clearly, in phrases and vocabulary that are easily accessible and understood. Smiling is absolutely vital, and as well as making difficult tasks seem easier, it makes you quickly likeable, portrays you as more friendly, and emits an aura of confidence. It also sends a subconscious message to your brain that you can achieve what you are trying to accomplish, as proven by a test with weightlifters conducted by Charles Garfield.

Keeping in line with confidence is your stance. If you are standing in front of a classroom, for example, try to keep your arms and posture open. Augmenting your stance increases testosterone flow and lowers stress, and it also makes you appear more approachable and comfortable. Try to avoid crossing your arms which suggests you're a closed person, or fidgeting which implies you are easily distracted. Feeling relaxed is the key, but is often quite difficult as we can feel quite intimidated in professional situations.

Where you place your audience also has a large effect on the communication. If you place them in a meeting room across your desk and lower down than you are, they will perceive you as a powerful and stubborn boss. If you lower your position to their level and perhaps sit by their side, the tension is released and a more effective conversation is likely to occur. If you wish to propose a collaboration, don't intimidate your audience by dominating the room with your presence.

If you feel your audience is closing up by looking at their body language, you can try to open their posture by handing them an object, for example a glass of water or a cup of coffee, or even a business card, as they will have to unfold their arms to receive this. By changing their body position, you will be changing their attitude without them even realising it.

Eye contact is vital in communication. If somebody is avoiding your gaze, they probably don't trust you or feel intimidated by you. By being able to look somebody in the eye, you are telling them that you want to be understood and that you want to connect with them. It shows a confidence in the words you are saying and trust in the message you are preaching.

Make sure to end your communication with a positive statement. Saying a confident “thank you” will win you a lot of points, as will a strong, firm handshake. Leave your audience with the lasting impression that you would like them to think of you.

Words only account for a small percentage of our potential communication. Make sure you are clear with your message, not just with your words, but also with how you are seen.

While larger corporations drive our economy forwards, smaller companies tend to develop the local community more. When you buy from a local company, more money will stay within the local community, in fact about twice as much as buying from larger corporations. In order for local communities to survive, money has to keep circulating instead of flowing out, which is what happens when you spend your earnings at large supermarkets or chain stores.

Spending your money in a local community also has other benefits. A smaller corporation will have more of a localised demand and can adjust a product to suit the immediate proximity of the business. Larger corporations are less successful at this as they have to appeal to a mass market instead of a refined market.

By keeping things local, you lower the cost of transportation which benefits the environment. It also boosts employment and builds strong connections among the members of your community. This also has the added benefit of a more positive vibe, and happy people tend to spend more money.

If, for some reason, the price of importing international goods increases then it helps to be able to rely on your local community to provide for all of your needs. As long as there is enough money flowing around your local community, it will be able to support enough stores to cover everything; from food and clothes to entertainment and restaurants. Small businesses are more flexible to support a growing and changing environment to meet the demands of the local economy.

A few communities have even gone so far as to create their own currencies. Calgary in Canada and Bristol in the UK amongst a few others have taken a drastic leap to ensure money is being spent in their local economies and the keep the flow of cash localised. This ensures that consumers inside the community are supporting the causes that make them pleasant places to reside in.

The big counter-argument to shopping locally is the price. As we see an increase in millennial consumption of goods that come from ethical and localised backgrounds, the margin between large chain stores and smaller communities is slowly decreasing, however it is still generally cheaper to buy your food at the supermarket instead of at the corner store. The reason that most chain stores and supermarkets exist is because they could initially provide cheaper prices which obviously attracted a large consumer base. Some people argue that by shopping locally, although more money is spent, this is offset by the reduction in transportation and travel costs and the increase in local employment which benefit the community. Products made in smaller local companies tend to be of higher price, but they also tend to be of higher quality.

While it is tempting to always go for the cheapest option, it does pay as a long term lifestyle investment to keep money flowing through the businesses around you. Next time you go to the supermarket, consider if you can buy the same or a replacement product from a local store and consider the benefits for both your community and yourself.