<p>@pikaso: No, I'm going to be a freshman this fall.</p>
<p>Can anyone give some examples of jobs involving international affairs? Thanks.</p>
<p>Well, you can. French comes in as the second most widespread language when it comes to international affairs. Spanish comes in third. So I guess you'll benefit greatly from either one. I want to be a U.N. lawyer and I'd like be fluent in four of the official languages (Russian, French, Spanish, and English, of course), so I'm teaching myself French and Russian to make up for my excessive practicality.</p>
<p>i have a friend that went to Spain for a year-long internship she got from UCLA!!
so.... what exacliy you mean that you cant go international?</p>
<p>I didn't say you couldn't go international. You definitely can. It's just that French is more widely recognized.</p>
<p>I've been told that French is on the decline... that, for example, in Africa and Vietnam mostly the old people speak it now. How true is this?</p>
<p>ok thanks lots!</p>
<p>hey you have 304 posts & i have 34!! haha :P</p>
<p>i don't know about french.... but I heard that Chinese is getting important internaitonally because there is too many Chinese...
There was a case on the news that England parents purposedly hire chinese maids to teach their kids to speak chinese even before they learn english!</p>
<p>I was thinking it would be great to learn Chinese too!</p>
<p>Learn Spanish, with the vast influx of Hispanics coming in a hagira to los estados unidos, a knowledge in Spanish is essential.</p>
<p>I want to learn Mandarin, but it's not offered at my school and I already have a teacher for that.</p>
<p>Righteous_Vigilante :
how do you teach yourself Russian? I heard it's a very hard languange you learn...</p>
<p>I am already taking Spanish...I'm in my sixth year so you might see my bias...</p>
<p>Still, I would go with Mandarin because I heard Cantonese sounds very ..."rough".</p>
<p>Mandarin is the "official" chinese pronounciation... and there is much more dialects out there such as Cantonese, Taiwanese... etc, etc... </p>
<p>and shaddix : how do you determine a "rough" language?? lol~ :P</p>
<p>if u wanna be more practical...take spanish
if ure gonna visit france or do anything involving french then take that</p>
<p>i've heard that french is a lot easier than spanish, which is probably true</p>
<p>I am being shallow now, but I heard Cantonese just doesn't sound as smooth as Mandarin...as in it is choppy :p</p>
<p>I think French and Spanish are probably similar when it comes to difficulty level..if you want to use the language in the U.S., Spanish is invaluable. But for a lot of the rest of the world, French is more widespread..my friend actually was filling out a passport for Egypt the other day and it was in French..</p>
<p>I heard Cantonese was more rough too and also that it sounds better when sung</p>
<p>The thing is, I don't know exactly what type of career I will have as an adult. I might try for something very international and work in Europe, or I might not...</p>
<p>If you do choose to work in Europe, IMO French would be more useful.</p>
<p>Plus, it's pretty :)</p>
<p>What if I don't?</p>