BlueJayBJ

GL with your studies but don't feed chinadad's ego please. He reminds me of soo many expats I had the displeasure of knowing on the mainland (I found a new job in HK and am prepping it. Like I said before knowing Chinese isn;t a big deal anymore but a foreigner that speaks cantonese in HK is always a perk in the job market). I applaud your desire to get back in touch with your heritage thats always something important. Also about China becoming a super power. Look at the recent power struggle with the maoist left's Bo Xilai and the progressive's retaining power. China has a lot a lot of issues before it can become a true superpower.

chinadad

Bluejay you are a TFDB. I had to sit in on the interview - my son is under 18 and they insisted - it was for an internship. The lady did it all in Chinese and could or would not explain things in English - which really amounts to the same.

In case you do speak Chinese - I hope you do but I doubt it - Gan ni nyang! You LFP

BlueJayBJ

Citibank does not give internships to people not in university. Its a general policy for all finance companies and most companies in general due to the fact high school kids really can't do anything productive. Unless you daddy dearest paid for one of those programs for rich kids to "push paper" for a summer and put it on their college application as real work experience. Ahh yes so many of these helicopter parents from America sending their children to schools in CHina that basically suck up money and guarantee "world experience" for their kids less than stellar college chances. Your story is highly suspicious and just proves the anonymity of the internet brings out all the fools out of the woodwork. I don't understand why parents would want to send their kids abroad during their formative years.

asianeekamkee

...can't you do both?

aphalleon

Chinese without a doubt. Don't get me wrong, Spanish will be helpful, but if you want to work in Asia/ come close with asian clients in business, knowing Mandarin takes you to a whole new level

theLURK

................ o_O wokay... pretty tense in here.. but ANYWAYS. regarding the question, just pitching even if it's a bit late in because I vaguely heard some stuff

I believe out of the two, Chinese would be the right choice for you. Honestly, I think you want to familiarize with a language that, not only is beneficial for work, but also for your life in general, and knowing a native language can really take communication in your personal life and with your cultural heritage to another level. Also, I don't know what field you're planning to go into, but if it's business like I'm getting the feel from comments made by others, Chinese would play a more pivotal role. Although I'm not sure that it'll leave much of an impact on your business transactions and meetings and etc, having the impression that you are a person with Chinese roots capable of being more Chinese and not just an foreigner trying to make money will build a better image for you to the people you interact with.

Also, Spanish is one of those languages that is predominantly beneficial in social services or service factor (medical, hotels, civil law) where knowing spanish will greatly help your communication. However, when working with international professionals, the international language is still greatly English, and knowing another language that is dominant in a global area of commerce will help you better.

light10491

Spanish is more of a social services thing ... You probably won't be using that more than Chinese internationally.

Chinese will have a bigger impact for you.

I doubt we will all be rushing to learn Portuguese, Indonesian or Turkish ...

Plus you can just pick up Spanish.

daweijames

Chinese is more difficult but will help you more in the long run.
Spanish is good as many people speak it in the united states and everywhere pretty mch south of us. But China is a rising global power so Chinese will help you get a job in a growing market.

ruvermillion

Chinese hands down. China is a rising global power yes, but also look at the other chinese speaking places/asian places with high chinese populations i.e. taiwan, hong kong, macau, singapore, malaysia.

You can also understand a chunk of what Japanese words mean as well, they might have different pronunciations in Japanese but the kanji words (chinese loadwords) have the EXACT same meaning most of the time

Federico14

Obviously knowing both languages would help, but it would also be very difficult. For your situation, I think it would be more beneficial to study Chinese. Maybe you can choose which you feel would get you better grades and take that one in college. Then maybe you can study the other one outside on your own for your own benefit.

zipzip

Chinese all the way (in particular Mandarin)--don't study Cantonese it is really useless --it will go the way of the dinosaur as mainland China has taken over HK and Mandarin is the standard language of the nation.... As for Mandarin/Chinese it is not that difficult of a language to learn. Over 1 billion people speak it. Way more useful than Spanish!

seekingknowledge

With all due respect, Mandarin is a very difficult language to learn. Achieving advanced proficiency levels in speaking, reading and writing is not an easy thing to do. It takes a very dedicated student to take on such a language.

abcfailure123

Regarding technical-work (not business)... as a US born Chinese working at a high-tech (semiconductor company), here's my 2 cents:

(1) For home Taiwan/China tech-companies (I'm not talking about US companies with China/Taiwan offices), most technical work is done in Chinese. If your Mandarin is *EXCELLENT* (as in you can read a Chinese/Taiwanese/HK newspaper at the same speed as a US high school student can read a US newspaper... and pinyin doesn't count), you may be comfortable with this...but you won't earn nearly as much working as an engineer over there as you would in the US.

(2) You could get a job at a US office of one of a large multinational company (Intel, Lenovo, etc.) Depending on the exact job responsibilities, you may end up doing a lot of travel to your country of choice. The difference between this job (where you work mostly in the US, and do some occasional travel) and a job where you are totally based in Asia, is that you would collect a US salary. (Most companies pay the salary of the local geographical region.) I don't know of too many purely technical positions that fit this description (program manager?), so you'd have to to do some digging.

As for language proficiency, if you want to work abroad, you need to understand that you will be competing against locals (who grew up with the language) and 1st-gen immigrants (who know the language almost as well.)

There is a world of difference between immigrant (1st-gen) kids and ABCs in terms of Chinese proficiency. The ones who come past middle-school (6th-7th grade), and who retain their literacy, can read/write/speak well enough to be considered a native speaker. (Though their English won't be as proficient or accent-free as someone who grew up in the US.)

In contrast, among ABCs (american born Chinese) born to Chinese parents who speak Chinese to them, typically they can carry simple casual conversations. Some of them sound like native speakers (according to my immigrant friends), but as soon as they're asked a technical subject or debate topic, they're toast. The ones who seek additional study (studying abroad, take advanced Chinese in college), can become technically proficient, but most choose not to.