<p>Choosing which foreign language to major in?
I am in HS and my Spanish is pretty good and my French in Beginner(2nd year)
I love Spanish, but I feel it is def the easiest to learn on my list </p>
<p>SPANISH (Neccessity nowadays... vivo en CA)
FRENCH (C'EST IMPORTANT and I am going to do Peace Corps so..)
PORTUGUESE (So beautiful, come on Brazil is beast and it is a good pair for Spanish for Latin America business)
JAPANESE (I have the most passion for this)
CHINESE (I love Taiwan and Asia)
GERMAN (might go to Germany for my Master's degree)</p>
<p>Which are best for international business in 8 years?</p>
<p>I want to speak all before I die</p>
<p>I do not Know what I want to study for my masters...and that's important
I need to choose the 3 most important languages...major/minor and certificate</p>
<p>I am stuck between Hunter Cuny's Romance Languages major where I could take Spanish/French in one major and minor in Japanese or Chinese and Temple's Program where I can do Spanish major/Portugues minor + certificate in another language</p>
<p>I will double major in International Business/Relations</p>
<p>Where do you want to practice intnl business?</p>
<p>If you want to work in Latin America, study both Spanish and Portuguese. Spanish is spoken in more countries but Brazil is the business powerhouse of the continent. Lots of emerging business opportunities in these countries.</p>
<p>French is your language if you want to do something diplomatic, but is fairly useless in business.</p>
<p>Chinese would be a great language to master, but there’s no shortage of Chinese who speak English so you would not have an edge in jobs the way you would in Latin America. It’s also hard to master many dialects.</p>
<p>Japanese and German seem the weakest choices for business in terms of emerging economies where the opportunities are.</p>
<p>Well, I think I am looking into working in an international organization or something, like that organization that is trying to help North Korea with starvation…What about the Peace Corps?</p>
<p>French would be the most useful on the list for the Peace Corps, because of all the Francophone African countries. Portuguese will do wonders for you in business (Brazil), and will also help with the Peace Corps because of the Lusophone African countries. Spanish is overdone, as I see it. German is extremely important in Europe, but is relatively useless otherwise. Chinese is overrated. People don’t realize that most Chinese people educated enough to be doing international business will already speak pretty advanced English. Japanese is a very interesting language/culture, but again, is not very useful, especially where diplomacy/peacekeeping are concerned.</p>
<p>This is coming from someone who speaks Portuguese, Farsi, German, and Spanish fluently and has taken 5 years of French (though I don’t consider myself fluent in French). I say choose Portuguese if you want to lean more toward business, French if you want to lean more toward diplomacy/peacekeeping.</p>
<p>Depends where you want to go in the future, as well as how much studying you’re willing to do. Make no mistake, you WILL be studying 20+ hours a week for the next four years if you decide to learn Japanese or Chinese.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that you can do your college studies in one language and do self-study/summer classes in another as a side project. The skill in the language is much more important than the degree in the language.</p>
<p>One comment for the above posters. Chinese is still a very valuable language to learn. For one thing, there will never be a glut of native Chinese speakers capable of producing translations into English. For another, you seriously underestimate the challenge of learning our language for THEM. It’s nearly as difficult for them to learn English as it is for us to learn Chinese. If you only plan on working with highly trained diplomats who have the time and money to spend learning English to a high level, sure, you can get by without learning their native language. If you ever plan to work with anyone else from the country, or worse, actually visit the country, you’re going to need to learn the language.</p>
<p>Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German are all relatively close cousins of English. Japanese and Chinese aren’t. I say, take the tough languages first. Especially since you say that you are most passionate about Japanese.</p>
<p>Take the language you love the most learning and speaking about. Take the language whose culture and people and countries interest you as well. It is hard to learn a language if you have very little interest with the things that are associated with it.</p>