<p>I am an entering freshman at Duke University. I hope to eventually go to a good business school. I was planning on taking Spanish simply because that is the ‘normal’ language to take, and I took 3 years of it in high school but I have been rethinking this - what language would make me most marketable for a career in business? I’ve heard Chinese and German are very good, and that Spanish is good, but easier to find people who speak it.</p>
<p>Mandarin Chinese will be very useful. Japanese may also be useful.</p>
<p>Burt chinese is so hard! I don’t think you can really pick up the language with just 4 yrs of casual study…</p>
<p>True enough, any Asian language is extremely difficult for Westerners to pick up. But look at it this way. If something is easy to do, then a lot of people will be able to do it, and so you won’t derive much competitive advantage from doing it. On the other hand, if something is hard to do, and you do it, then you will have a valuable skill that is hard for others to replicate. </p>
<p>It is also true that you can’t really pick up a language through 4 years of casual study. The best way to learn a language is to just go live in the country where that language is spoken. Which is why study-abroad/student exchange programs are so useful. If you really want to learn Mandarin, go study in Taiwan or mainland China for a while. If you go to mainland China, you should probably go to Beijing, where Mandarin is most prevalent (you should avoid Southern China where regional dialects often prevail).</p>
<p>I agree that studying abroad in mainland China or Taiwan would be the best way to pick up Chinese, but I would say that Beijing isn’t the best of cities to develop a good Chinese accent. Beijing locals have a very distinct accent that’s different than the way many people speak mandarin. </p>
<p>I’d recommend Shanghai because people there speak with the more common and “clearer” accent, plus Shanghai is simply more fun than Beijing.</p>
<p>Also, I think that Chinese is a very difficult language to read and write, obviously because there are so many characters that you have to memorize. However, learning to speaking Chinese is considerably easier. There are many people who can speak Chinese quite well but have a lot of trouble reading and writing it.</p>
<p>Yeah, except for the tremendously strong problem that a lot of people in Shanghai will prefer to speak Shanghainese which is completely different from and mutually unintelligible with Mandarin. Plenty of people in Shanghai are conversant in, but are not completely fluent in Mandarin, and some people in Shanghai (particularly older people) can understand Mandarin, but are not able to respond back to you in Mandarin with anything more than basic phrases. </p>
<p>The point of going to China to learn Mandarin is to completely immerse yourself in a pure Mandarin-speaking environment. You will not get that in Shanghai or most Southern Chinese cities. Instead, you will find yourself immersed in the dialect of that city. That’s not going to help you learn Mandarin.</p>
<p>German. Germany has like the third biggest economy.
<a href=“http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html[/url]”>http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html</a></p>
<p>so is taking 3 languages in college pretty hard? i pretty much speak japanese fluently and would only take it to keep myself from forgetting all of the kanji, and ive taken 4 years of french already… hm… i might have to rethink this…as much as id like to learn chinese…it doesnt sound plausible.</p>
<p>I would say Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese), French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish are all very useful and marketable.</p>
<p>Actually as I think about it. All you need to know is English. Mostly all of Europe take it as a second language. Its also manitory in China and Japan I think.</p>
<p>You’re right that learning English is manditory in many countries, but the problem is that most people who took English in school can’t really speak it. They may have some proficiency in reading and writing it, but since they rarely practice speaking English, you’ll find that it’s still hard to find fluent English speakers in Asia and in Europe.</p>
<p>Plus the fact that business is really about networking and relationships, and the fact is, it’s far easier to build relationships with people when you can speak their native language.</p>
<p>Tpeck, altough what you say is factual, it isn’t correct. I know, it is a paradox, but it is true. Think about it. Roughly 70% of American high school students take a foreign language in high school. how many Americans can actually converse in that foreign language? Not more than 10%. How often did I hear people say; “oh yes, I took that language in high school, but I forgot all of it”. The fact is, taking a language in high school will not make one conversational in that language. Same goes with all the Europeans and Asians who take English in High School. Secondly, even if English is indeed the international language, it is not a popular one. Most Europeans are too proud of their own language to converse in English unless they absolutely had to. So yes, you can definitely get along just fine just speaking English in foreign lands. But if you want to be an effective player in the globam market…it really helps to speak foreign languages. In order to get on their good side, it would be best to speak to them in their native tongue. As they say “when in Rome…”!</p>
<p>With the way that people talk about China’s market potential in the future, I think that Chinese would probably be the most useful language to learn for the future. Tons and tons of comapnies are trying to break into China and grab a share of its huge market.</p>
<p>I think that people who can speak Chinese will be of great value because companies could send over their Chinese speaking employees to implement certain business. In a sense, you can consdierably increase your job opportunities by being able to speak Chinese.</p>
<p>While I agree that the Chinese languages (and especially Mandarin) are extremely valuable, I’d like to add a note of caution to the last post. I’m not in business and I don’t speak Mandarin, but I’ve looked into going that route and spoken to a few people who have, and I have some thoughts.</p>
<p>There are a lot of people out there who are learning Mandarin because they think doing so is a silver bullet for success in business. Don’t join them just because it’s the hot new trend. When this many aspiring businessmen are doing something, the way to come out on top is to (a) do it really, really well or (b) do something else entirely.</p>
<p>If you don’t really relish a language as hard as Mandarin, you’re well on your way to becoming a walking phrase book. Going along with what sakky said, you want businesses-level networking Mandarin–something approaching fluency, not the kind of thing that you can scrape by with in daily life. There are a lot of Americans speaking bad Mandarin out there. Becoming one of them–especially when there are plenty of other Americans who speak better Mandarin, and a decent number of Chinese who speak better English–isn’t worth the trouble.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you love the language and achieve real functionality in it, you’ll blow the hordes of “ni hao” and “xie xie” English-speakers out of the water. You’ll also be well-positioned to enter a niche market like Cantonese, Shanghainese, or one of the other Chinese languages. And finally, when the Chinese economy has its landing (as all expanding economies do), you’ll have a language that you actually enjoy while you wait for the recovery. (Your job won’t be the first on the chopping block, either.)</p>
<p>If Mandarin isn’t that kind of language for you, I wouldn’t sweat it. Find a language that you really love, that you can get really good at, and odds are someone somewhere needs your skills. You’re likely more employable as the best American speaker of Kiswahili than as the worst American speaker of Mandarin. (Hey, it’s not like they have a huge supply of Kiswahili-speaking Americans to choose from, anyway).</p>
<p>In short, I think it’s better to distinguish yourself in whatever niche you can than to take a language just because everybody else thinks it’s hot. I’m no businessman, but I’ve never known any who were terribly successful because they followed the crowd.</p>
<p>Have you guys ever been to Europe? They speak English pretty damn good… and im no talken manitory as in two years in High School. In their high schools they take english from 1st grade all the way up to college. I have a friend from China, he says the same thing. In the US, I doubt that 70% of the people take a foreign language. They always say “oh, colleges require it” which is a lie for most colleges. If people do business with the states, they usual conform to English…but I see more and more stuff being printed in Spanish which I feel is really really stupid. My friend from Bolivia even says thats not right, people coming to the US should learn the language of the land and not expect the US to conform to them. O well, getting off subject there…</p>
<p>Edit: But yeah, four years of chinese (you wont learn it) your not going to do business negotiations in Chinese right are you graduate, not even close. My bet is that it will most likley be in English.</p>
<p>hahahaha Tpeck you are such an ignorant American…It’s so funny that you want people who come to your country to learn and speak your language but when you go to another country you expect people to speak english. You’re like so many other Americans…uncultured. </p>
<p>why is it that most countries value foreign languages while the US does not (in Europe you’re practically considered ■■■■■■■■ if you don’t speak at least two languages)? The American mentality is I should always be spoken to in English and that’s that. </p>
<p>I guess the rest of the world is just more cultured…America: the land of the free,ignorant, and uncultured.</p>
<p>it’s really not that serious… i think you should learn french because there are more french speaking countries than any other</p>
<p>btw in terms of most spoken language (native + non native speakers):</p>
<p>Mandarin Chinese (1.12 billion)
English (480 million)
Spanish (320 million)
Russian (285 million)
French (265 million)
Hindi/Urdu (250 million)
Arabic (221 million)
Portuguese (188 million)
Bengali (185 million)
Japanese (133 million)
German (109 million) </p>
<p>in terms of countries where the language is spoken: english is first, followed by french, arabic, and spanish.</p>
<p>He already knows english</p>