Most profitable foreign language?
 

We'll, I'm still at a toss-up between civil engineering and economics... but as far as languages go..

Japanese vs Spanish vs German?

Any of them = profit?

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

I'm assuming the answer is going to depends on what you finally decide to choose as your major. I think I would go with Japanese.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

Probably Chinese has most profit right now. Japanese probably not so much as they do business in English. I think Spanish might be more helpful as more access to emerging economies.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

I think that most people expect for Chinese to be the most profitable language in the coming years.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think that most people expect for Chinese to be the most profitable language in the coming years.

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

If you're going into the government French wouldn't be bad. It was the international language before English.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

Right now - Spanish
Future - Chinese
50 years ago - French
Never - Sanskrit

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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

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

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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

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

[/ QUOTE ]

chinese

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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?
 

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]
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?
 

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

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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?
 

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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?
 

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

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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?
 

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

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

[/ QUOTE ]

chinese

[/ QUOTE ]

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

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

Didn't read thread, but the answer is Mexican

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

For communicating with random people around the world, spanish obv. The coolest pronounciation and sound japanese, you also get to watch anime wo. subtitles ^^. German, lol donkaments?

As mentioned China will be the next big thing, but also Russia's industry/economy is fast growing. Russian + chinese gogo

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Right now - Spanish

[/ QUOTE ]

How do you figure this? A lot of high end mexican\spanish clients or hiring mexican workers for $30 a day?

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

Mandarin for sure!

I am learning it right now and it is damn hard, but I enjoy it.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

mandarin for sure, but if your in Hong Kong Cantonese is the way to go since its the local language there.

Japanese is pretty much dead unless you plan to work in Japan or be a tour guide for Japanese tourists in areas of the world.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
mandarin for sure, but if your in Hong Kong Cantonese is the way to go since its the local language there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fortunately, people in Hong Kong CAN speak Mandarin, but people in the rest of China, well, they can't, or at least they pretend so.

Mandarin = quality Chinese.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

Chinese(Mandarin)>Spanish>Arabic>Russian& gt;everything else.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Didn't read thread, but the answer is Mexican

[/ QUOTE ]

Is this some sort of joke? Hope it is because you are either:

A) A [censored] idiot.
B) An unethical person (to not call you racist).
C) A [censored] idiot.

You pick.


---
My opinion: Spanish
No way influenced by the fact that I'm Puerto Rican and apparantly speak "Mexican."

<^>-.-<^> [censored]

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

well i majored in chinese so i sure hope it will be profitable at some point...

of course you have to bring more than just language skills to the table. i haven't really looked at the job market as i am going to grad school, but i don't think anyone is going to be throwing money at you solely on account of your having taken 3 or 4 years of chinese in college(if anyone knows where they are, please let me know).

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

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

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

i know others have already pointed this out, but this notion is completely ass backwards.

they use traditional characters in hk and taiwan, but other than the appearance of the characters being different, the written language is essentially the same(or at least that is my understanding; i haven't ever actually read anything from hk though)

cantonese is basically incomprehensible to a mandarin speaker. this is true for every regional dialect. italian and spanish are closer to one another than mandarin and cantonese(or shanghainese, or shanxi dialect, etc etc)

i could not imagine trying to learn cantonese. it has to be one of the most difficult languages to learn.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Never - Sanskrit

[/ QUOTE ]

Droz: What's Your major?
Sanskrit Major: Sanskrit
Droz: Sanskrit. You're majoring in a 5000 year old dead language?

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
We'll, I'm still at a toss-up between civil engineering and economics... but as far as languages go..

Japanese vs Spanish vs German?

Any of them = profit?

[/ QUOTE ]


It depends on which area you are talking about. Obviously in Asia Japanese is the most profitable with Chinese becoming more important every day. If you are talking about South America unless you deal with Brazilians everybody speaks Spanish. For Europe I would say the most profitable is German because the most people speak it and Germany is the most industrious country along with Britain in Europe. The easiest to transition to from English and most profitable out of them I would say is German.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Didn't read thread, but the answer is Mexican

[/ QUOTE ]

Is this some sort of joke? Hope it is because you are either:

A) A [censored] idiot.
B) An unethical person (to not call you racist).
C) A [censored] idiot.

You pick.


---
My opinion: Spanish
No way influenced by the fact that I'm Puerto Rican and apparantly speak "Mexican."

<^>-.-<^> [censored]

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL it's the internets chill out bro

FYI I'm taking some Mexican classes next quarter in school so hopefully I can post some quality posts in Mexican soon [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

I've been studying Spanish for 2 months in spain and it's pretty easy, there is nothing hard about it to understand, and it's very straightforward...not to mention tonnes of words are the same or simmilar.

So i think if it's close then learn spanish simply cause it's easier. I heard that when the US army teaches someone a language it takes 6 months to get someone fluent in spanish, and 2 years in things like korean, cantonese etc.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Didn't read thread, but the answer is Mexican

[/ QUOTE ]

Is this some sort of joke? Hope it is because you are either:

A) A [censored] idiot.
B) An unethical person (to not call you racist).
C) A [censored] idiot.

You pick.


---
My opinion: Spanish
No way influenced by the fact that I'm Puerto Rican and apparantly speak "Mexican."

<^>-.-<^> [censored]

[/ QUOTE ]

Well congratulations, you just made me think all Puerto Ricans are really stupid.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

I would say don't rule out Arabic - Dubai is one of the largest growing places in the world, [censored] loads of trade going over there, especially with the war - do not underestimate it.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I would say don't rule out Arabic - Dubai is one of the largest growing places in the world, [censored] loads of trade going over there, especially with the war - do not underestimate it.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is actually the best answer. There are tons of Chinese Americans who can already speak both English and Chinese, plus, many Chinese businessmen know English, so the market for Chinese is somewhat restricted. However, if you want a decent paying job with the government in the intelligence services (NSA, FBI, CIA, etc.), Arabic is definitely the way to go.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

MrMon,

If you want to spend 3 years on a language, then yes.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Never - Sanskrit

[/ QUOTE ]

Droz: What's Your major?
Sanskrit Major: Sanskrit
Droz: Sanskrit. You're majoring in a 5000 year old dead language?

[/ QUOTE ]
I probably know more Sanskrit words than chinese. I may know more Pali words than Sankskrit and that's an even more obscure language. This is what interest in Buddhist Scriptures will do to you.

Re: Most profitable foreign language?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I would say don't rule out Arabic - Dubai is one of the largest growing places in the world, [censored] loads of trade going over there, especially with the war - do not underestimate it.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is actually the best answer. There are tons of Chinese Americans who can already speak both English and Chinese, plus, many Chinese businessmen know English, so the market for Chinese is somewhat restricted. However, if you want a decent paying job with the government in the intelligence services (NSA, FBI, CIA, etc.), Arabic is definitely the way to go.

[/ QUOTE ]

i have to disagree. i think you are pretty much restricted to intelligence/gov type work with arabic. and i would be willing to bet that a much larger proportion of arabic speakers are more proficient in english than native chinese speakers.

in fact, i would say that is one of the things westerners learning chinese or even japanese/korean have going for them: even though a ton of people in these countries study english, only a very small proportion reach the level of proficiency that jobs in mnc require.

i don't really know what constitutes a ton, but there certainly aren't enough chinese americans who can speak chinese well enough to meet the demand. sure they have a huge advantage, but we aren't just talking about getting an a in your college class; most american born chinese have to go aways uphill before they 'master' the language.

this is to say nothing of the future potential for growth. trade/interaction with china looks to continue to grow rapidly. the arabic speaking part of the world? depends on what type of 'interaction' we are talking about.

but these are just my thoughts. reading through the thread, it doesn't appear as though anyone has done an exhaustive survey and can speak authoritatively as to what is the best language to learn.