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Languages and top ten lists?

I found this link on the net http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm Its a list of top tens. Most influential languages, most popular languages by population, most popular languages by number of countries of use, most popular secondary language, etc. It doesnt have two lists Im looking for. The top ten fastest growing languages The top ten most practical languages to learn. Mandarin Chinese beats out English in population by nearly 5:2... you may think its the next best language to learn to reach the most people. But its spoken in only five countries in central and southern Asia... unless you plan on living there, no real practicality. Im interested in a consolidated list of languages that will explicitly tell me... if you were just dumped off at some random place on earth... in order to have the most likely chance of communicating... with the most people... what languages should you learn? What primary and secondary languages are most most likely to meet?

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1. "if you were just dumped off at some random place on earth... in order to have the most likely chance of communicating... with the most people... what languages should you learn?" Honestly, English. Which is sad, but true. "What primary and secondary languages are most most likely to meet?" A lot of English-as-secondary-language, I would imagine. And since the place is random, I'm not sure about primary... Possibly French, as it's in both Europe and Africa - unlike Mandarin and Hindi, which have billions of speakers, but are contained to their own countries. That being said, Spanish might actually be quite useful as well, as that covers most of North and South America (Spanish might be understood by Portuguese-speakers in Brazil), and is present (or at least understood) by many Europeans. I know the Italians can understand Spanish, and I'm sure the Portuguese would be decent with it.
2. I tried looking up the top 10 fastest growing languages but the only lead that I got from that was a site that explained that Spanish is the second fastest growing language: http://ezinearticles.com/?Spanish-Language:-Worlds--2nd-Fastest-Growing-Language---Are-You-Studyng-It?&id=241726 . As for the top 10 most practical languages to learn? Here is another link that says the countries where all of the named languages are spoken at. http://www.vistawide.com/languages/top_30_languages.htm . Hopefully this helps you out. I need a cup of coffee now! >.<
3. i would say Spanish or English Spanish is pretty close to European languages and most people all over the word know English by some reason they even teach English in small country's schools.
4. english, french, spanish
5. IF you were dumped off at any place on Earth, the first language to help you out is ENGLISH. The second language in EUROPE shall be Italian or Spanish for the East side countries (long time ago it was French, then Italian), German or French for the Middle side countries, I would say. In USA, probably Spanish or Chinese are the best as a second language. So, what should we choose as the best second language to be known? You do the ending research! P.S. I would say it's depending on the Americans' decision. Thus the second language may be Spanish ?!