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Best of the future business languages?

  Tags: Business | Career | Usefulness
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work Post Reply
39 messages over 5 pages: 1 24 5  Next >>
jimbo
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6313 days ago

469 posts - 642 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French
Studies: Japanese, Latin

 
 Message 17 of 39
17 September 2011 at 3:21pm | IP Logged 
nway wrote:
Try doing business in China without knowing Chinese.


It depends on what you are trying to do.

Buying?
Selling?
Setting up a production facility?
Setting up research center?
etc.


7 persons have voted this message useful



rivere123
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4849 days ago

129 posts - 182 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 18 of 39
01 October 2011 at 10:05pm | IP Logged 
While a lot of this depends on circumstance, Mandarin will be and is, to an extent, an indispensable asset if you are an important player in everything from oil to new technology.

Spanish will be useful (to an extent), but Brazilian will probably follow Chinese, to a much lesser extent.

You don't really need to know Arabic of any sort to work in the oil industry, even if you were in the center of Dubai.

Hindi has a lot of potential. German, for now, isn't a bad language to learn.

1 person has voted this message useful



versuss
Pentaglot
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5393 days ago

20 posts - 25 votes
Speaks: Taiwanese, Cantonese, Mandarin*, English, Malay
Studies: French, Japanese, Esperanto

 
 Message 19 of 39
24 June 2012 at 7:11pm | IP Logged 
If it's about near future (which means the future when all of us in this forum will still
likely be alive) It's still English.
With English you can do business in the entire world.

2 persons have voted this message useful



vonPeterhof
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4791 days ago

715 posts - 1527 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German
Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish

 
 Message 20 of 39
24 June 2012 at 10:57pm | IP Logged 
nway wrote:
As someone already pointed out, English is more useful as a business language in South Asia than Hindi — not least of which because South India is experiencing greater economic success than the more agrarian North India. Indeed, Gujarat is India's most economically prosperous state, so if anything, it might even be Gujarati rather than Hindi (but I wouldn't count on either).
Technically Gujarat is in neither North nor South India, and from what I heard Gujaratis actually don't mind speaking Hindi as much as Tamils do. English is still the preferred language of business though.

nway wrote:
...a severely declining population (not because of low fertility rates, but because of high mortality rates).
They both contribute. The meme here in Russia is that we have a European fertility rate and an African mortality rate.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Medulin
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Croatia
Joined 4687 days ago

1199 posts - 2192 votes 
Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali

 
 Message 21 of 39
25 June 2012 at 4:01pm | IP Logged 
In Europe, German is becoming the most important continental European language. The German economy is booming, and Angela Merkel is de facto a president of European Union. What she says, is listened to, respected, and eventually obeyed. The UK is boycotting the EU and EURO projects and it's pretty obvious. People all over Europe are learning German now, especially in Spain. Knowing English in Europe is expected, but it's not enough if you want to get a job in Germany.

Edited by Medulin on 25 June 2012 at 4:03pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5028 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 22 of 39
26 June 2012 at 11:50am | IP Logged 
German is a really good choice now but should Euro get out of the crisis during the
years to come, Spain, Portugal, perhaps Italy will be in need of many professionals
because theirs will already have made careers in Germany, Great Britain or Skandinavia
and won't feel like leaving it all behind. Germany can give jobs to many immigrants now
but in future, the market could be quite saturated and your number one question, when
pondering future in Germany, might be "what job must I become good at"?

If you don't consider having a job in the country but more an international business,
than I would find logical to choose the language following your area of business. If
the Germans are those you wish to deal with, learn German. If the french have got what
you need, learn French and so on. It is great to deal with people in their language but
if it is impossible, you are much more likely to use English than German. Most young or
middle age people are far better in English than in their third language (no matter
which one it is).

But European Union as a whole is not so significant these days. And there are so many
people learning and knowing European languages. So, if you have the courage to learn
another one, such as Mandarin or Arabic, it might be a really wise decision, in my
opinion.
2 persons have voted this message useful



eggcluck
Senior Member
China
Joined 4720 days ago

168 posts - 278 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 23 of 39
26 June 2012 at 12:22pm | IP Logged 
nway wrote:


Try doing business in China without knowing Chinese.


..Actually I have met many that do just that....



Edited by eggcluck on 26 June 2012 at 12:24pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



decamillisjacob
Newbie
Canada
Joined 4751 days ago

38 posts - 63 votes 

 
 Message 24 of 39
28 June 2012 at 3:53am | IP Logged 
Don't forget French. It might have lost its status to English a few decades back, but the Francophone world isn't short in either business or technology---and we still do everything in French and expect that everyone works with us in French too. A lot of former colonies still use French as a language of education as well. It definitely is not where English is at, but it is still not useless either!


4 persons have voted this message useful



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