<p>arabic? just wondering/...</p>
<p>
[quote]
They don't speak German in Switzerland, they speak French, Italian, and Swiss German(a bit similar to German, but different).
[/quote]
Everyone who speaks Swiss German can speak and understand real German as well. Not vice versa though (-> Swiss people are smarter than Germans)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Although I do know from German friends that they (the germans) like to make fun of the austrian and swiss german accent.
[/quote]
And Swiss and Austrians like to make fun of their (the germans') obesity :p</p>
<p>
[quote]
So can someone who wants to work in IB earn big bucks in Switzerland? and what language's the best for living there..
[/quote]
German (-> Zurich) or French (-> Geneva)
Even though there are IBankers in Switzerland, it's not really "famous" for IB...more for wealth management and other forms of banking.</p>
<p>Everybody in Dubai/Abu Dhabi/Qatar/Kuwait that is involved in finance will speak English fluently. You don't need to know Arabic, nor would it be a good choice cause it is one of the most difficult languages to perfect.</p>
<p>Johnnyhoward3, I have lived in Dubai for a while and pick any of their newspapers and look for jobs and you will see "Candidate with good skills in Arabic preferred/required". most of them (local people) know English but a lot of them don't too. it is highly recommended that you learn Arabic if you plan to work in the middle east</p>
<p>Excuse johnnyhoward. He's a HS senior who doesn't know anything about banking.</p>
<p>I like French. And French has been the language of educated classes for the last 300 years.</p>
<p>That's how I see it. Your posh English-Public (meaning private)-School-And-Oxbridge-Educated-London-I-Banker probably took years of French and Latin, and would be much delightfully surprised, if not quite flattered, if you can manage a few bon mots en francais. Your Paris colleague would also be pleased.</p>
<p>Wow, some of you kids live in a fantasy world.</p>
<p>sf606508...wow...your whole rationale of the topic is, simply put: retarded.</p>
<p>megamam, what is your second language then? Spanish, whose instruction in the US has been distinctly skewed by the hick provincialism that characterises the Spanish of of the former colonies? (Just so you know, the real Spaniards, the ones who live in a place called Spain, look down upon the Spanish spoken in Mexico and South America). German? How many schools in the entire Western Hemisphere actually teach German well, and gets the student to appreciate the dignity of Teutonic culture? (with the exception of Argentina)</p>
<p>I actually speak Chinese on a daily basis. Let me tell you it is a wasted effort. It is far easier for a Chinese to learn a Western language than vice versa. Part of China's "catching up" has been instructing its citizens in English, German, French, all European languages.</p>
<p>sf606508, you have a long and storied history of idiotic posts in this forum. You're an incoming freshman at *Wesleyan<a href="is%20that%20the%20one%20in%20Ohio%20or%20Connecticut?%20I%20can%20never%20remember">/I</a>. Cram the elitist garbage and shut up. You may actually learn something if you just listen.</p>
<p>Not in this thread, mind you.</p>
<p>yeah, that's actually part of the problem i sort of have with Wes. There are about 20 schools in the country named that. it has next to no instant name recognition, unlike Bowdoin or Club Midd. No, why the hell would i even go to school in Ohio, right in the middle of the rustbelt? </p>
<p>It's the one in Connecticut. Although the whole concept of a business-friendly second language is pure rubbish. Many times have I watched in sheer fascination as some unfortunate bloke wrapped up in the latest lingo fad tortures himself with Spanish or Chinese.</p>
<p>and about elitism: go read Tom Brown's Schooldays by Hughes (one of the two books Teddy Roosevelt believed every boy must read), or if you want a N. American example, Fifth Business by Robertson Davies. there is a lot more nuance to it than you think, stuff that couldn't be summed up by populist republican (in the French sense of the word) claptrap</p>
<p>THis forum is completely full of idiots who seem to know little or nothing about IBanking. Firstly you have to know English, that is key. Languages such as Arabic, German, Portuguese, Mandarin, Russian whatever would be useful if you are located overseas and for business. And for those that keep on bashing German: Germany is the second largest exporter of goods in the world. Switzerland is an economic hub with a multitude of hedge funds, private equity firms, investment banks located in the country. Swiss Companies include the likes of Glencore, Credit Suisse, Rothschild, Sarasin, Nestle, Novartis, Swatch, ABB, Kühne + Nagel and the list goes on with most of them located in the German speaking part. You may not be working for a German company but you will most likely have interaction with them.</p>
<p>I'm beginning to think sf606505 is not a real Wesleyan frosh, but someone intent on embarassing the school by making troll-ish posts. Wesleyan (the one in Connecticut), btw, has one of the most easily recognizable brands of any small college in the U.S. It's almost impossible to use the word "quirky" or "politically active" in the context of college selection without thinking of Wesleyan first, followed by Vassar, Oberlin then, Swarthmore, then perhaps Columbia, Brown, or Berkeley or a host of others before one thinks of any other college with the word Wesleyan included in its name.</p>
<p>And, in case it isn't obvious, at Wesleyan, the question would not be what language would one need to become an i-banker, but rather, what languages would be in the best interests of someone whose country is presently occupied fighting two wars on foreign soil? But, maybe that's just me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Everybody in Dubai/Abu Dhabi/Qatar/Kuwait that is involved in finance will speak English fluently. You don't need to know Arabic, nor would it be a good choice cause it is one of the most difficult languages to perfect.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You may not need to know it to work there, but it is definitely a HUGE advantage to have Arabic fluency and work in the Middle East. Think automatic job offers/promotions. Heck, the US army offers an automatic 200,000 tax-free per annum to anyone fluent in Arabic willing to work with US military or military contractors in Iraq, no prior experience or college qualification needed. Sure there's a higher risk and that accounts for such a salary, but it's the same idea.</p>
<p>Too bad, johnwesley, the sort of policy you advocates (diversity) comes back to hit you on the head. I am sure as hell that amidst 3,000 (or something like that) bleeding-heart "politically active" liberals, the admit office chaps must have thought, "oh here he's not even remotely liberal, fav. hobby is skiing and talks about character and ethos in his essay, let's take him, maybe he's revive the (defunct and abeyant) Young Republicans at Wes." That's diversity for ya.</p>
<p>Your logic for questioning my frosh status (sorry I actually don't know what the word frosh means) is pure ludicrousness. I would love to offer you some proof, but on second thought, won't bother with the privacy issues.</p>
<p>And I am not too sure your sense of "name recognition" as being quirky or politically active does much for future captains of industry or Masters of the Universe. I would love to concur with you, but am looking at eventual transfers to Midd, Bowdoin, or Colby pending me actually being able to do something for the Wesleyan Young Republicans.</p>
<p>sfblabla. I 'm not even going to go about pointing out the myriad of faulty arguments that plague your posts. But in any case, yeah, I'm sure people in Spain make fun of latinamerican spanish, as do British people of american english, but that doesn't reduce the value of either one. In any case, from what I can gather from your posts your contact with the actual world, and the use of languages, is probably reduced to what you watch on tv, so I'll just ignore the rest of your remarks,</p>
<p>sf606505 - when are you going to admit that if you were white you would never have gotten into Wesleyan?</p>
<p>I doubt it, johnwesley. White conservatives as as rare a breed at Wes as Asian conservatives. Granted, most asian-americans are pretty liberal, so i stood out. But how many 2400-SAT guys does Wesleyan get to have? Most are snapped up by the likes of Amherst and Caltech (i am a general arts guy); Wesleyan gets mostly the leftovers. That and they probably thought my music thing and their (apparently very good) music department was a good match. </p>
<p>You go to Wes. you should check out the retention rate. yeah, not that good. year 2006, enough transferred out to make place for 70 transfers-in. </p>
<p>Magaman, i took 8 years of pretty rigorous, official bilingualism-level French. I can speak it a lot better than most Americans can speak Spanish. I listen to French radio (Radio-Canada) everyday. I read more Jules Verne than the vast majority of Anglophones in the world. </p>
<p>And you just indicated how ignorant you are of the Hispanic world when you analogised the Spanish (pennisulare)-New World comparison to the British-American one. Brits (as do a lot of people ) make fun of a specific sort of accent: the stereotype of Texan cowboy-redneck. They got no issues with or any condescension toward say, regular mid-Atlantic English or even New York accent. the Bronx accent, for example, is viewed much the same way Cockney (or nowadays i guess Jafaican) is viewed in Britain. </p>
<p>The Spanish (Pennisulare) - New World difference, on the other hand, isn't just peculiar instance. True Spaniards look upon the entirety of New World Spanish with disdain, perhaps less in some cases; they see it not as just a variation, but a corruption of the true language. Wonder why Hispanic mestizos have a regular habit of trying to claim that they are almost-pure or pure European, or failing that, exaggerating the proportion of their European ancestry? The whole inferiority complex is built into the culture, far before the Spanish Empire, since the time of Reconquista, when Spanish knights wold hold up their arms to show the blue vein and thus blood "uncontaminated" by the Moors.</p>
<p>and johnwesley, please, someplace like Wesleyan should have atl east taught you to refrain from vicious ad hominem attacks like post #33. one can only hope it is not that sort of blunt intolerance in vogue at Wes.</p>
<p>What the hell are you talking about!! Jeez! You just go on and on about such random things that were'nt even asked of!</p>