BunsenBurner

toledo - that is really cool!

ucsd_ucla_dad

I thought I heard that the ability to understand and speak a reasonable level of Spanish was a very desirable skill for those in the medical field in California. Since every time I go to an emergency room it's filled with people who only speak Spanish, it seems that it'd be a highly useful skill and it might even be becoming a requirement for employment in some positions in the medical field. Have you heard anything about that?

My D used her strong Spanish skills while working at a major electronics retailer since many of their customers couldn't speak English. When a couple of them came in together with one as an English translator for the other, they were often surprised to find my D understood what they were saying when they were speaking to each other in Spanish.

cnp55

I own a retail store. Many of the boxed products we stock have information -- directions, components, names, ingredients in a zillion languages. if I am looking for something fast and don't have time to find the US English panel ... which always seems to be the last one I find ... it's quite helpful to know the UK English, the French, the Spanish, the German, and the Italian equivalents of whatever. I will confess that most of my ability to read the boxes comes from my high school Latin!

Greta

I am involved in two community organizations where knowing Spanish would really help me help others, so I am trying to teach the language to my 50+ year old brain. I am sorry to say it is slow going. My limited ability in the German language (high school and college) has hardly ever been used.

toledo

That's exactly how I feel about my German. The only area where it's helped me, is that I can pronounce everyone's last name here in Toledo, with our large German population.

Shrinkrap

My Spanish is rusty now, but I used it a lot right out of medical school (especially "push!!" "don't move!", "open!" "where does it hurt?" and "what happened?",) and as recently as last week (25 years later!). A fifteen year old sibling was having to miss school to translate for her family.

happymomof1

German, French, and Latin were useful back in the day when I worked in a university library.

Spanish got me a job as the office manager for a temp agency specializing in bi-lingual staff.

All of my foreign language study helps me every single day now that I teach ESL to adults. Knowing something about how different languages work, and remembering just how traumatic it was to try to learn the languages I've studied, makes a huge difference.

Company plug here: If you have the money for it, the Berlitz method really works. I see it every day in our office. See if you can find a teacher who is familiar with this kind of direct communicative methodology if you are looking to master speaking/listening skills more than reading skills.

aibarr

I was working in diagnostic structural engineering once when my boss was trying to find a ladder on a job site to get up to the roof to get a closer look at something. There were plenty of people around that could've helped him. None of them spoke any English, though... all of them spoke Spanish.

He floundered for a bit, pantomiming climbing a ladder, pointing to the roof. They all looked at him like he was crazy. He wasn't the greatest boss in the world, and frequently implied that I was more or less useless, so I let him go on for a little bit. After a minute or so, I looked at the guy he was talking to and said, perfectly fluently, "¿Tienen Uds. una escalera que podemos usar?" (Do you have a ladder that we could use?)

The guy nodded and went off to get a ladder. My boss's jaw dropped and he turned and gave me a look like, "Where'd you learn to do that??" I said, "It says on my resume that I speak fluent Spanish." He said, "Oh..."

mafool

*****priceless.

sorghum

Well, not really "at my job" although I was buying things to use professionally.

It used to be very useful to understand Hebrew when you buy photographic equipment in NYC - when the salesman and his boss discuss in front of you what's the absolute maximum discount they can give ..

younghoss

My friend is S of (legal) German immigrants. He is natural born American, and although his parents spoke almost all English as he grew up, he learned German too.
He got a job with Deutsche Bank. In his case, yes knowing that language got him that job.
Oddly enough, after a couple yrs in Germany, he was promoted and sent to Japan! So much for knowing German!

I have also heard of high schools and colleges encouraging business mgmt kids to study Spanish. Their reasoning is that more and more of the workers they might oversee are likely to speak Spanish.

VeryHappy

At my very first job (as an editor), one of the manuscripts I was working on used some French phrase and included phonetic pronunciation. I pointed out to my boss that it wasn't quite right and he took my say-so and changed it.

And that's it.

mom2three

(login problems)
My second language has been integral to several jobs. I double-majored in math and French with a minor in computer science. NEVER thought I'd use the French, but I didn't want to lose it and I was young and had time so just kept taking the classes until I had the degree.

Fast-forward a couple of years into my career as a software engineer, and I went to talk to a head hunter. He asked what my dream job would be, and I said "Ha ha ha - technical liaison for an American company with operations in Paris - Ha ha ha!" Two weeks later he calls with a job with a company that has OEM's a packet switch from a company in Paris and needs a French-speaking software engineer to go over there and learn the system. For 6 months to a year. And I did!

Fast forward 17 years and I'm a stay-at-home mom, and my 15 year old suddenly comes home and begs me to substitute in his French class. I call the school to find out what the heck is going on in my son's French class, end up jumping through the hoops to become a sub, get certified in math and French, get the job, end up teaching French, then math, and now computer science in our magnet program.

So my advice would be, if you love the language, GO FOR IT. It can't hurt, and you never know!!!

Speaking French changed my career and my life.

mommusic

mom2three--like they say, "Whatever you know you will use."

I think it's particularly good to know French b/c of the difficult (and sometimes arcane) pronunciation issues. It's one of the languages that you look really ignorant in if you butcher the pronunciation.

I just heard a HS production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and apparently someone advised the kids to pronounce "et bien" as "eh beYON" instead of well, whatever the IPA symbol is for the correct way. Really grated on my ears!

susgeek

I work in a public library. At least once a week I wish I spoke Spanish better than I do.