<p>I am trilingual and speak english, polish, and spanish. I plan to major in international business/finance. I am considering studying japanese, chinese, arabic, russian and korean. I don't plan on taking a European language since I am pretty comfortable with Spanish, English, Polish (and other slavic languages).
I am concerned that studying difficult languages may be a waste because I will not learn enough of the language during college for it to become useful.
What would you recommend I study?</p>
<p>wow..i always wish i can speak those language.. did you learn in school?</p>
<p>chinese is the best choice, but surely it's extremely hard..
try to learn the simple one,,not the traditional one..
at least in a few years, you can speak and reading.. im not sure you can master the writing in a few years..</p>
<p>i hv a few friends who are studying abroad in japan and south korea..
even with alot of intensive classes of those languages for 6months, and well, they live there now,,they still can't communicate well with the native.</p>
<p>learn malay/bahasa,,it's easy as supperrr easy..lols</p>
<p>But Malay/Bahasa will be of little value compared to Mandarin.. Mandarin, even the conversational one, will be very helpful for you to communicate with about 1.something billion people in the world.</p>
<p>mandarin if you plan on working in chinatown selling fake designer bags. if you're going towards that direction, i'd recommend japanese..its definitely more used in the white-collar world. russian is another slavic language..do you really need to learn that considering..(though, it is probably used more in business than the others). you might want to consider hebrew considering all the jewish businessmen you'll likely encounter down the road..everyone loves another who took the time to learn their native tongue, may add value to your transactions. but who knows..all this might just be a bunch of bologna.</p>
<p>China is booming, my friend.</p>
<p>Based on what I've read, I'd say it would be in your best interest to learn Chinese. I'll be starting it next year as a freshman.</p>
<p>well then you can start by learning the name of the language. its called mandarin; cantonese if you're 'not proper' (from what ive heard)</p>
<p>Try learning Australian slang too....it could be really useful.</p>
<p>Biggyboy, before you begin teaching me lessons, maybe you should learn what you're talking about first.</p>
<p>Mandarin and Cantonese are not interchangeable names for the Chinese language. By no means is Cantonese used if you're "not proper"; it is a different dialect, spoken primarily in Hong Kong.</p>
<p>Mandarin Chinese is the most popular dialect spoken.</p>
<p>are you serious? cantonese is "not proper" what kind of ******** is that? Mandarin and cantonese are 2 different languages both spoken in China, Mandarin is much more popular and if you want to do business, thats the language to go with.......</p>
<p>if you're looking towards international business, i'd suggest either chinese or japanese.</p>
<p>right now;
HK is the financial hub of china, or so my relatives all say. they speak Cantonese there, but there should be enough English signs and stuff so you'd be able to get by. being fluent in Cantonese would obviously help though</p>
<p>in the future;
apparently either Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen or Guangzhou's going to be the next financial hub, and most of those cities speak mandarin.</p>
<p>i'm assuming you're .. going to be a freshman in university, correct me if i'm wrong.
in four years, i still believe that HK will be the most dominant city, but in the future it'll probably be more useful to learn mandarin.</p>
<p>what are some top schools for this major?
and, what's the difference between int'l business, int'l relations, int'l affairs, foreign affairs, etc etc? they all seem the same to me...</p>
<p>Unless you plan on working in an industry that is primarliy focused in an area where you need to know a foreign language, it is not really neccessary to go out of your way to learn it.</p>
<p>I recommend Ebonics</p>