So I’ve seen a comment about learning Spanish making you get a little grip on Portugeese and Italian, my own language helps understand our neighbors.
I wonder, how to abuse that system for the most efficient pick of 3 or 4 languages to rule them all? Let the bar be just reading, text as simple as social media posts.
Again, not people (or we can just put this link, but languages treated as autonomous entities by science.
Based on other responses, I’d say English, Chinese and Spanish cover a lot of territorry. Are there any suggestions for African and Indian languages? In general I think it’s logical to look for languages of nations with big cultural influence on other countries.