Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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c'mon someone should make the distinction between Mandarin and Cantonese.

which of the two will be more useful in the future?

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They are written differently, but spoken similarly. If you learn one, you can "get by" speaking with someone using another, at least that's how I understand it. If you know "Chinese" you are generally OK speaking with people in Cantonese, Mandarin and Taiwanese - they are all close enough. You may not be able to pick up every word but enough to make do.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

Chinese people will learn english faster than you'll learn chinese

French ftw! + it owns girls

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

i know mandarin and can't understand a lick of cantonese. that being said, mandarin will be 100x more useful than cantonese.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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They are written differently, but spoken similarly. If you learn one, you can "get by" speaking with someone using another, at least that's how I understand it. If you know "Chinese" you are generally OK speaking with people in Cantonese, Mandarin and Taiwanese - they are all close enough. You may not be able to pick up every word but enough to make do.

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Nope. You can only partially communicate with everyone in Mandarin, but not the other two. Yes you can pick up tidbits of stuff but not enough to understand the whole context.

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has anyone who started learning a language in college ever learned it to an extent which they could speak and understand it well enough to make it profitable in their life? if so, plz tell me the story.

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My aunt's Caucasian husband learned Chinese in college and taught Mandarin Chinese in the military school in San Jose. Somehow he ended up with a house in Pebble Beach by the time he retired. He also speaks and writes better than me whose first language is Chinese [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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c'mon someone should make the distinction between Mandarin and Cantonese.

which of the two will be more useful in the future?

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Two different dialects. Mandarin is more useful, since it's the official language or whatnot. Many people who speak Cantonese or Taiwanese or Shanghainese (etc) usually know Mandarin as well.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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i know cantonese and can't understand much mandarin. that being said, mandarin will be 100x more useful than cantonese.

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Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

Mandarin will be the most profitable. Just remember that is will also be much, much harder to learn than Spanish.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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i know mandarin and can't understand a lick of cantonese. that being said, mandarin will be 100x more useful than cantonese.

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QFT

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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has anyone who started learning a language in college ever learned it to an extent which they could speak and understand it well enough to make it profitable in their life? if so, plz tell me the story.

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I had like 6 years of spanish between high school and college, and when I graduated college I still couldn't hold a conversation in spanish. These days I can barely even remember basic words and I've only been out of college a couple of years. I have many friends who had the exact experience as me.

Most of my college professors said it's very hard to learn to fluently speak another language without actually traveling to some place where you are forced to speak the language everyday.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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c'mon someone should make the distinction between Mandarin and Cantonese.

which of the two will be more useful in the future?

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chinese

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according to business experts, mandarin. most chinese speak mandarin btw.