Var Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4209 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, French
| Message 1 of 4 20 May 2013 at 12:31am | IP Logged |
I'm not sure how often "Mathematics", "Economics", and "Linguistics" are
mentioned in
the same sentence, but somehow all of these pique my interest. I hear that language and
math are both very left-brained things, so perhaps that's part of the explanation.. but
I digress.
I'm a soon-to-be college freshman and I was wondering if I should start trying to
tackle another language (currently I'm studying French at the B1.5 level). I already
posted another thread about my situation (http://how-to-learn-any-
language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=35976&PN=1) , but I feel a more specific
question is needed to make sure I make the right decision.
Basically, I am interested in studying a new language, but I want to make sure it will
be applicable to my majors in some way. For example, if I learned American Sign
Language, it might be fun and interesting but it would have little to no relevance to
my majors, so I wouldn't consider studying it.
My question is fairly simple: Which language(s) would be most useful for someone
pursuing a Mathematics and Economics degree? I can't be more specific than this because
I don't know if I'll get into consulting, research, econometrics, business, or any
other similar field. My gut tells me that German would be the best because of Austrian
economics as well as Germany's influence on the global market, but I would really
appreciate the opinion of someone with experience with these things.
If it's impossible to make a recommendation without a more specific career, I guess my
question becomes "Which language opens up the most doors in the math/econ world?"
(I realize math and econ are different entities in of themselves, so if necessary, you
can focus on the econ part and ignore the math).
Thank you very much for your time and help.
Edited by Var on 20 May 2013 at 12:34am
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newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6381 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map
| Message 2 of 4 20 May 2013 at 2:16am | IP Logged |
There is little to no advantage to knowing a second language for economics (or math). If I were you, I would just pick the language that you find most interesting.
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Var Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4209 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, French
| Message 3 of 4 20 May 2013 at 5:05am | IP Logged |
Thanks newyorkeric. I'm perhaps a little disappointed by this, but the truth is the
truth.
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baskerville Trilingual Triglot Newbie Singapore scribeorigins.com Joined 4248 days ago 39 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: German*, Japanese Studies: Hungarian
| Message 4 of 4 07 June 2013 at 4:39pm | IP Logged |
I have to agree with newyorkeric. I have an economics degree and English was all I needed
:) But my Japanese language skill did help open up a lot of opportunities for me. It
helped me land a job even before I finished university -- way before other people in my
class. Then I had several Japanese-related jobs after that so having a certain degree of
proficiency in a foreign language will give you a big edge over other applicants.
I read somewhere that German is the language of business in Europe so maybe German will
be most useful to you?
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