<p>I'm debating which one to take up as a second language (I'll be taking Chinese for four years) - I am leaning towards French but am wondering how useful it will be for finance/business-related careers. Any comments appreciated.</p>
<p>Chinese AND Japanese would be overkill (they're both difficult to learn; i've tried), but I dunno how useful french would be. If i were you, I'd just stick with Chinese and forget the other two.</p>
<p>What's your ethnicity, btw? Chinese is hard, but it's even harder if you never heard it spoken until teenage years.</p>
<p>Chinese is ESSENTIAL for anyone going into business in the next 50 years. (random thought)</p>
<p>Half-Chinese. I've done a year of Japanese and quite a bit of French.. I found Japanese a lot easier than I think most people would as I had a (very limited) background in Chinese so Kanji and stuff came slightly easier to me. Thing is I've been told that loads of people now speak Chinese and English (mainly Chinese people who have learnt English) so I was considering taking up another language. My personal preference is leaning towards French, but I'm not sure if it would be a waste of time.</p>
<p>Here's a ranking someone did:</p>
<p>After weighing six factors (number of primary speakers, number of secondary speakers, number and population of countries where used, number of major fields using the language internationally, economic power of countries using the languages, and socio-literary prestige), Weber compiled the following list of the world's ten most influential languages:
(number of points given in parentheses)</p>
<p>English (37)
French (23)
Spanish (20)
Russian (16)
Arabic (14)
Chinese (13)
German (12)
Japanese (10)
Portuguese (10)
Hindi/Urdu (9) </p>
<p>Some thoughts:</p>
<p>French is pretty insignificant, IMO, unless you are going to deal with Europe (France, Belgium, Switzerland) and/or Francophone Africa. Can't say that I think a lot will happen in Finance that requires French and involves these places. A lot of places where French is native, English is ironically the lingua franca.</p>
<p>As an American, Spanish is a better second language and broadly useful, IMO. For Finance, though, not a big deal.</p>
<p>Japanese would get harder for you later, as its grammar is ultimately what makes it tough. Unless you have a burning desire to learn Japanese, do drop it as you've talked about, focus on Chinese, and learn an easier other language like Spanish.</p>
<p>If you are going to properly learn Chinese, at some point you'd better be immersed in it, if you aren't already. I'd recommend at least a year there.</p>
<p>Are you learning Chinese from scratch? If not, then japanese might not be too difficult. I'm chinese, and I spent two weeks in japan, and i realized that i was able to read a lot of the kanji because the character sets are essentially the same.</p>
<p>Okay...so...here's the deal.</p>
<p>Japanese is not easy to learn. Even if you can read kanji. Kanji is only ONE aspect of proper Japanese usage. If you truly want to use Japanese in a business environment, it means learning how to speak and write properly.</p>
<p>All the kanji in the required list won't teach you that. Japanese grammar is quite complex, and the harder later years of study often catch students off guard. Don't underestimate Japanese. </p>
<p>As for the essentialness of Chinese... I don't know. English is still the lingua franca of the world for many...many reasons.</p>
<p>I would quite like to live and work in China so Chinese will be pretty useful for me. I'm not too fussed about usefulness, or I would go for Arabic or Spanish. Japanese and French are both languages I think I would enjoy and which I already have a limited background in. Both are cultures I like for different reasons. I was just wondering if French has any use in the business/finance world, because that would probably sway my decision towards French, although I take your points about Japanese being difficult.</p>
<p>Also UCLAri, although English is still the lingua franca of the world, in many places I find most people do not seem able to speak it very well - particularly France, Japan and China. Just my experience though, perhaps in business and professional circles this is different. Whereas the Germans and Scandinavians seem to speak it very well.</p>
<p>I have taken French in HS for 2 years and continued in college. I also speak Chinese fluently and some Japanese. I choose French because it was different and a good deal of European and African countries speak it.</p>
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I find most people do not seem able to speak it very well - particularly France, Japan and China.
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<p>i found that some of the top students at top chinese universities were surprisingly fluent in english (and also much better than a typical american college student in grammar and vocabulary). they're the ones that are hoping to get recruited for top finance and banking jobs, and by 'top,' they mean foreign (e.g. american or european). but yes, most people in china can't speak english well, even if they've been learning it for years.</p>
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Also UCLAri, although English is still the lingua franca of the world, in many places I find most people do not seem able to speak it very well - particularly France, Japan and China.
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<p>Having lived in Japan, I can definitely back this up.</p>
<p>However, if you do business in Japan, it's a different story altogether.</p>
<p>I'm Chinese, speak Japanese, and have learned French.</p>
<p>If you already have basics in Chinese, Japanese should be relatively easy for you to learn because you already know a lot of Kanji (Chinese characters) used in Japanese. However, I've never recommended Chinese or Japanese to anyone who haven't had a background in them. For me, it's mental suicide and you need a looottt of work to be actually able to use it fluently. On the other hand, I think English speakers will have a much easier time learning French.</p>
<p>Go with French. The language is beautiful and will allow you to truly experience the most amazing city-Paris. The roots and cognates will also be extremely helpful in advancing other Latin/romance languages, including your English</p>
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I'm not too fussed about usefulness, or I would go for Arabic or Spanish. Japanese and French are both languages I think I would enjoy and which I already have a limited background in. Both are cultures I like for different reasons.
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<p>Well, then, it's answered: if you don't care about usefulness, your main attraction is just the enjoyment of it. In that case, take French. It's not a great boon for finance, but then Japanese isn't really either and Japanese is much more difficult (as UCLAri said) in the long-run.</p>