<p>i hear foreign language is becoming very important as more companies want to do business overseas. could someone create a rank the usefulness of different foreign languages, especially in the future i.e. 10-20 years from now? (esp. mandarin, spanish, french, etc.)</p>
<p>on a side note, how useful would cantonese be? very limiting, maybe hong kong? or do they do business in mandarin in hong kong now?</p>
<p>I would say the most useful would be Japanese, German, and Chinese. Germany is gaining on Japan as the world's second largest economy so it would be imperative to know German in the future. Other areas you might want to communicate via their language: France, India, Mexico, Russia.</p>
<p>Languages are very important. It is impossible to rank them in terms of importance, but I would say that in Europe, the main languages are French, German, Russian and Spanish. In Asia, the main languages are Chinese (Mandarin). Indian (Hindi) and Japanese.</p>
<p>Also look into Korean.</p>
<p>hmm... im trying to decide which foreign language to do. im considering mandarin because i may want to do business in china/hong kong in the future. however, i want to leave open the possibility to work in the UN or some international body, and french a bigger secondary language than chinese. but then again doing either means throwing away the four years of spanish that i did in high school (which has been relatively useful in southern california so far).</p>
<p>How much Spanish can you really know. I have been taking spanish since third grade and can only speak like on a third grade level, seriously. I plan on learning a second language in college through the use of studying abroad. I hear that if you have a little background in the language you can become fluent in a couple months.</p>