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Best of the future business languages? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| Mandira Triglot Newbie Norway Joined 4873 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 39 25 July 2011 at 3:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Absolutely. Arabic is defined as a macrolanguage (like Chinese).
The usefulness of Cantonese is limited in my opinion since most of its speakers also speak Mandarin and/or English. Of course if you are likely to be doing much business in its core area it may provide a closer relationship to your partners to speak the local vernacular as well as a way robbing them of their "secret language". For the special case of the nordic countries, I have been thinking that if one were to learn a dialect of Chinese in addition to Mandarin, Shanghainese would be very beneficial since many nordic enterprises have co-located their Chinese operations in the Nordic Industrial Park in Ningbo, near Shanghai. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5339 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 10 of 39 25 July 2011 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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What about Turkish language? The economy of Turkey seems to be doing pretty well lately...perhaps the ability to speak Turkish might prove useful?
Personally, I also feel that Cantonese or Shanghainese could be useful business languages, especially given the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, the cultural confidence in this region will correspondingly increase too...resulting in a more 'enthusiastic' push for the need to speak/understand local languages, such as Cantonese and Shanghainese... Regarding Russian language, from my understanding, there were many international companies 'bullish' about the Russian market 3 - 4 years ago and were all eager to jump into the market, but many (banks, IT companies) were also quick to close their branches and exit the Russian market...I think it's not such an easy market as many think. I was told by a friend working in the private equity business that, Russia is a complicated market, rampant corruption, rules/laws can change randomly at any time, to the detriment of business. Hence, more and more international companies bypass the Russian market altogether to focus more on other emerging markets. Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 25 July 2011 at 5:33pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| topaztrex Triglot Newbie Indonesia Joined 6168 days ago 20 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Indonesian*, English | Message 11 of 39 13 August 2011 at 11:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I made an Excel file that counts the languages spoken in the top ten financial centers
in the world, which are defined by 4 different agencies on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_centre Below is the result, sorted with number of counts. Languages Count 1 English : 23 2 Mandarin : 10 3 Japanese : 4 3 Cantonese : 4 3 French : 4 4 German : 3 5 Dutch : 2 5 Korean : 2 I defined Singapore as speaking English and Mandarin; although speaking Mandarin is not necessary, it is a huge employment boost compared to Singapore's other official languages: Tamil and Malay. Also, I defined Hong Kong as speaking Cantonese, Mandarin, and English, since the knowledge of these three languages is extremely important in doing business in HK. My other definitions are self-explanatory: Zurich-German, NYC- English, London-English, etc. My other top language picks are, in no particular order: Spanish Portuguese Arabic Russian Hindi Malay-Indonesian However, of course, extending the list might also depend on how far you would go in your "business" pursuit. For example, you obviously need Persian if you do business in Iran, Romanian in Romania, etc. Moreover, bear in mind that using a language in a professional setting requires a really high level of proficiency, and that would mean having the abilities to: write and give presentations, negotiate, discuss about deals, write essays/comments about recent economical/political situation, understand conference talks, etc. Edited by topaztrex on 13 August 2011 at 11:44am 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6228 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 12 of 39 13 August 2011 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This is a great article which, although a little bit dated, dissects out which factors make a language "influential".
I personally like the graphic which shows the influence of languages through the centuries. The Top 10 Influential Languages Enjoy & Thanks George Weber! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| VityaCo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7080 days ago 79 posts - 86 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 13 of 39 17 September 2011 at 6:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Dear, aquablue!
For those who live in the Americas it is Spanish, no questions! For Europe it is the Germanic family. And for the rest of the world English/French will suffice. That simple. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5414 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 14 of 39 17 September 2011 at 7:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Try doing business in the US without knowing English.
Try doing business in China without knowing Chinese.
Perhaps too simple. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| VityaCo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7080 days ago 79 posts - 86 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 15 of 39 17 September 2011 at 7:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I thought that 'aquablue' speaks English natively. So the next he needs is Spanish. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5414 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 16 of 39 17 September 2011 at 7:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, when you say, "For those who live in the Americas", you're presumably referring to everyone who lives in the Americas, and not just aquablue... Anyway, the reference to China (and other predominantly monolingual non-Anglophone/Hispanophone/Francophone/"Germanophone" countries) still applies. Edited by nway on 17 September 2011 at 7:32am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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