<p>I'm in my first year of college-thinking about starting Chinese. I'm Japanese and so Japanese is my first language (I'm taking graduate courses in it at the moment) </p>
<p>The reason I want to start Chinese is because its a business language and I feel it is beneficial. Then again, some people have told me that most people speak English anyways and so it may not be as useful as it seems. </p>
<p>Any opinions on this? I know its silly to take up a language for such reasons, but I'm wondering since I could take other courses instead if I choose not to start a new language.</p>
<p>depends, it's true chinese is a business language but only in china, outside of china all the chinese people speak english anyways, so yea</p>
<p>if you want to go to china to do business then yes, if not then probably no</p>
<p>I started taking Chinese my Sophomore year, (Econ and IR double major). I am planning to spend this summer in Beijing, and would certainly be looking to travel, if not live there after I graduate. </p>
<p>Due to the difficulty of the language, I would not recommend taking it if you do not plan on living/traveling there after you graduate.</p>
<p>I'm also a Chinese major and I agree with the above poster, do not get into Chinese unless you are prepared to make a multi-year committment and live in China for a while. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time. It takes around 2-3 years to reach the point where you can actually converse with people, and much longer to converse well. You will have a significant advantage though because of your prior knowledge of characters from Japanese. That alone will decrease your workload by like 50%. </p>
<p>As for the whole 'Chinese is the language of the future' thing, its true, but only to an extent. If you want to do business in China, it will help you...a lot. If that isn't your goal, having Chinese on your resume will still impress people, but you could get similar benefits learning a much easier (and more versatile) language. Also, in my experience, most of the people who take up Chinese for business reasons quit after a year or two. You really have to fall in love with the language to withstand the torture that is the first couple years of learning grammatical patterns and reading childrens books. </p>
<p>So by all means, go for it if it's what you want to do. But don't make the decision lightly.</p>
<p>I would say that your current language combination (native Japanese fluent English) would be of equal or more benefit than learning "Chinese", by which I take it you mean Mandarin.</p>
<p>It also depends greatly on where you want to work. If you lived in China, Singapore, or Japan English would probably be of greater utility, though have three languages certainly would give you a leg up.</p>
<p>And as samonite16 wisely stated, in order for Chinese to be of any use in the business world you would truly have to master it, hardly a small undertaking. If you take it for merely business reasons you will have many a night thinking, "why on Earth am I taking this anyway?"</p>