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Best languages for new Journalists? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| mjhowie1992 Diglot Newbie AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4975 days ago 24 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 11 22 January 2012 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am going to study Journalism and International Relations this year, and plan to study
two languages as well. I am in Australia. I initially chose German and French, but I thought it might be better to have one European and one Asian language, so I am thinking of doing German and Japanese. Any thoughts? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s0fist Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4841 days ago 260 posts - 445 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French | Message 2 of 11 22 January 2012 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Unless you plan to report from aboard a 747 stuck incessantly travelling between a German and Japanese speaking locales, why would you want to split yourself up in this manner.
For the job prospects, I'd at least narrow down where you want to be on the globe and then pick the languages. As far as linguistic wanderlust, you can always pursue your interests on your own. Keeping your linguistic options open might be wise, but you will have to specialize anyway, as my naivete tells me one would be hard pressed to keep up a full-time journalistic career spanning continents. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4846 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 3 of 11 22 January 2012 at 7:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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What languages are important in Australia? Which ones are offered at your university? Which countries always make the news?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5524 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 4 of 11 22 January 2012 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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According to Bloomberg, these are the most important languages for business, in order. Take this list with a grain of salt.
Mandarin French Arabic Spanish Russian Portuguese Japanese German Italian Korean Turkish 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4754 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 5 of 11 23 January 2012 at 3:47am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd say send a quick email to the newspapers for Australia and ask them which languages they encounter most, it cant do any harm. Then simply see if you like those languages. Although do expect to wait a week or two, as I have found in the past, they generally take quite a while to get back you you.
With regards to international relations - I would assume a large amount of languages would come into play in that role. Are languages offered as part of the modules on this course? As you could also use that as a guideline for your choice. Furthermore, with Australia being positioned rather near China, Japan etc I would say an Asian language would be a great choice and even if you eventually choose not to go into journalism, those languages would no doubt come in handy. But if all else fails, do as sOfist said and simply find where you want to be on the globe and choose your languages from that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mjhowie1992 Diglot Newbie AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4975 days ago 24 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 11 23 January 2012 at 3:53am | IP Logged | ||
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I have a lot to consider. I'm leaning heavily towards Japanese with German now. I think
the two will be good for me so I have grounding in both Europe and Asia. I'm a bit worried about Japanese though because I will have to start in 2nd year Japanese because I've already studied Japanese at High School. It's been a whole year since I've studied Japanese, so I'll have to brush up a lot! Thanks everyone for your help, and wish me luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4697 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 7 of 11 23 January 2012 at 4:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Ask first where is the news happening?
Middle East: Arabic, Persian, the Central Asian languages. Latin America: (Spanish Portuguese) Any variety of possibilities in Asia, depending on what section you want to go. French. If you want to choose another IE language from Europe, I say French. A lot of people speak it still as second or third language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5880 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 8 of 11 23 January 2012 at 10:54am | IP Logged | ||
German and Japanese are two difficult languages (I know!) and it would be very difficult to master both and study for journalism at the same time! European journalism will be more competitive than Japan in any case. Here in Germany (and probably in France, too) journalists come into the field knowing German, French, English, Spanish, possibly Russian. Watching French and German television I see bilingual journalists all the time who are Italian/French, British/German, French/Spanish, etc. Judging from what they do it seems to me that the best thing is to pick one language and become really good at it. Japan is probably your biggest news-making neighbour(?), but the biggest languages in journalism have to be Arabic and Chinese, since the journalists who are native to these languages probably don't write English as well as the speak it. That might be a profitable niche! Edited by Sunja on 23 January 2012 at 11:03am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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