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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 2 35  Next >>
Medulin
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Croatia
Joined 4428 days ago

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

 
 Message 25 of 39
28 June 2012 at 5:58pm | IP Logged 
We may put French in the Spanish/Portuguese category. At least in my field (psychology and psychotherapy) all literature is in English and in German. In Europe, French is predominant only in France, in Belgium, Dutch is more important these days, so is German in Switzerland.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Duke100782
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Philippines
https://talktagalog.Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4248 days ago

172 posts - 240 votes 
Speaks: English*, Tagalog*
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin

 
 Message 26 of 39
02 September 2012 at 4:36am | IP Logged 
eggcluck wrote:
nway wrote:


Try doing business in China without knowing Chinese.


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



Being based in China, I would say that doing business in China if you can't speak Chinese is only possible if
you have a full time interpreter. Studying Mandarin is certainly a language one should consider, especially if
you consider how few Chinese can speak carry a conversation in English, or any other foreign language for
that matter. This would be a contrast to Hindi, the language of the other rapidly developing country with a
population over one billion, wherein almost all educated Indians would be able to speaking English fluently.
4 persons have voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6199 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 27 of 39
02 September 2012 at 4:44pm | IP Logged 
Duke100782 wrote:
eggcluck wrote:
nway wrote:


Try doing business in China without knowing Chinese.


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



Being based in China, I would say that doing business in China if you can't speak Chinese is only possible if
you have a full time interpreter. Studying Mandarin is certainly a language one should consider, especially if
you consider how few Chinese can speak carry a conversation in English, or any other foreign language for
that matter. This would be a contrast to Hindi, the language of the other rapidly developing country with a
population over one billion, wherein almost all educated Indians would be able to speaking English fluently.


I know people who do business in China without speaking any Chinese. There are some Chinese people that speak English. What matters is the language(s) of the people you're doing business with; the language demographics of a region as a whole are interesting, but surprisingly irrelevant at times.

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Duke100782
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Philippines
https://talktagalog.Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4248 days ago

172 posts - 240 votes 
Speaks: English*, Tagalog*
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin

 
 Message 28 of 39
03 September 2012 at 6:38am | IP Logged 
Yes, I agree with you absolutely. I was just making a generalization, of course. Also, I meant to underscore
the stark difference between India and China in terms of the mobility of expatriate businessmen because of
language.

Edited by Duke100782 on 03 September 2012 at 6:44am

1 person has voted this message useful



JJ-JUNIOR
Triglot
Newbie
Brazil
nideck.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5387 days ago

13 posts - 14 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Spanish
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 29 of 39
03 December 2012 at 3:21am | IP Logged 
I tend to agree very much with the article on the andaman.org.

I know that a lot of people say that Mandarin is the language of the future.
Why? How come?

I don't know a single person that speaks mandarin professionally as a second language.
It won't happen. What language are we using now to communicate? English.
There are people from all over the world in this forum.

I don't think it's very hard to acknowledge that English IS the language of the present
and the future. There are various reasons for this, but, yes, one of the main reason IS
cultural domain, the whole world watched Hollywood movies, every one has a grasp of the
American way of life.

For me, the most important languages are:
1.English
2.Spanish
3.French
4.German
5.Italian

Now, the whole thing depends on what use will you make of the languages you know.
If you speak Arabic,go to Saudi Arabia and manages to make a lot of money it's all
on you and, in this particular case, speaking Arabic helped you a lot.
You see, it's very personal and it really depends on where you live, what are your
aspirations, etc.

Here in Brazil the most important language is English and then Spanish... just as I
mentioned on the list above. Speaking German or even French here is almost useless if
you don't work for a big corporation that values that particular language.

Edited by JJ-JUNIOR on 03 December 2012 at 3:22am

1 person has voted this message useful



aodhanc
Diglot
Groupie
Iceland
Joined 6020 days ago

92 posts - 130 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 30 of 39
03 December 2012 at 9:49pm | IP Logged 
Italian at number 5 language in the world??

I don't think so, it's just one medium-sized country.
3 persons have voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4890 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 31 of 39
03 December 2012 at 10:03pm | IP Logged 
aodhanc wrote:
Italian at number 5 language in the world??

I don't think so, it's just one medium-sized country.

Did you read the part where he wrote: "For me, the most important languages
are:"

He also went on to write that Arabic might be more important to someone working in
Saudi Arabia.

And that's the point of the entire thread. What's important for one person isn't
necessarily for another. It's just another in a long list of questions that can't
objectively be answered.

R.
==

Edited by hrhenry on 03 December 2012 at 10:03pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



BenMilim
Triglot
Newbie
Germany
benmilim.blogspot.co
Joined 4464 days ago

25 posts - 30 votes
Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishC1, GermanC2
Studies: Spanish, Russian, Modern Hebrew, French

 
 Message 32 of 39
09 February 2013 at 1:58pm | IP Logged 
What do you all think about Hebrew? I'm fully aware that it's only spoken in one country and that Israel isn't
necessarily the best place right now for future businesses... but there's no doubt how the Middle East is still in some
turmoil and thus a lot of attention is given to Israel and its surrounding countries. Perhaps that's enough of a reason
to learn Hebrew? Arabic is certainly beneficial as well, probably more important than Hebrew in fact, but I believe
there's not much you can achieve with Arabic in Israel. Or am I just imagining all this because I'm studying Hebrew?


1 person has voted this message useful



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