<p>"whereas German I think is only spoken in.. Germany"
germany, austria, switzerland, and lichtenstein</p>
<p>eww, 2 bad choices, the germans are horrible people and the french smell. but the germans kicked the crap out of the french automatically making it the manlier language. But french will get you more sex... tough choice - but honestly neither will give you an advantage in the business world because all serious business work is done in english. take whatever interests you more. </p>
<p>maybe you should consider a really sexy AND manly language - like italian ;-)</p>
<p>If you learn German, is it easier to learn Russian. I want to work for the FBI or CIA, and I read that they prefer Russian and Arabic speakers, and other similiar languages. Also, how hard is German to speak compared to French. I cant pronounce Frence, and struggled with speaking Spanish. The grammar part of spanish I was fine with, I just am not a good talker.</p>
<p>German isn't that hard to pronounce. There are some words whose length can trip you up. But the pronunciation is much easier than French.</p>
<p>From what I know, German is a phonetic language and French is not. French has a lot of words that don't sound like they're spelled. But German has too many dialects :(. What is up with that?</p>
<p>German is definitely the language for business (European, at least). Why do you think so many colleges offer "Business German?" :)</p>
<p>German isn't really as harsh-sounding as people think, IMO. It's also useful/necessary in a wide variety of other fields- art history, classics, history, and philosophy are examples. It's also one of the easier languages to learn. German and English have lots of words in common (cognates).</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you are planning for any profession or career that might involve the European context, German is an excellent language to learn. In Europe, more people speak German as their native language (approximately 100 million) than do English, French, Italian, or Spanish. In Eastern Europe, German ranks even before English as the major second language. Germany plays a central role in the European Union, and is a major economic and political power. </p>
<p>Knowing German will greatly enhance your career opportunities in international business, foreign service, publishing and journalism, commerce and industry, teaching and scholarship, engineering, and international aspects of most other fields. </p>
<p>Consider this: "Almost one thousand American companies do business with Germany, and over one thousand companies based in German-speaking countries have subsidiaries in the U.S. In all of these firms there is a need for workers with an understanding of both languages and of the differences between the two cultures. Knowledge of German not only helps one get a job, but often is a significant factor in advancement within a company. In a number of high-tech companies [...] German is the language named as the foreign language they would most like job applicants to know." </p>
<p>Knowing German will give you access to a rich body of knowledge in many disciplines. Not only is German is the language of many great thinkers, artists, and scientists (think of Einstein, Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, Kafka, not to mention all those great Expressionist artists and classical composers!); it also plays a central role in many contemporary economic, political, and cultural developments. Whether you are studying philosophy or mathematics, music or art history, theology or engineering, political science or literature, advanced study in these fields will be greatly enhanced by a knowledge of German.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There are not that many dialects. The only ones that are really hard to understand are some of the Swiss German ones and the Black Forest ones.</p>
<p>Germany is the economic leader of the European Union.</p>
<p>Germany is the U.S.'s second largest trading partner (after Canada).</p>
<p>Germans are richer.</p>
<p>German is easier...both English and German are Germanic Languages...meaning they come from the same place....whereas French, Spanish, Italian, etc. are Romance Languages. In German, there are tons of English cognates...water=wasser, I could name tons. There aren't as many similarities between French and English.</p>
<p>And finally....less people take German. It's more unique for college apps.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Germany is the U.S.'s second largest trading partner (after Canada).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, it's not. It's the fifth imports partner, and not in the top 5 exports partners.</p>
<p>all4thesport, while english and german are both germanic languages, there are about eight billion words with french origins. Infact, almost the entire military vocabulary is french (as france was the leading military power when modern warfare terminology came into existance). If you look at most word etymologies, you'll usually find french in there.</p>
<p>Yeah, and the Germanic languages are realted to the Romance languages through or good friend Indo-European, which developed into both categories, amongst others, including Slavic languages.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ielanguages.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.ielanguages.com/</a></p>
<p>Read about them here, see which you like best. Read her opionion of them, too, they might help. Both are great, and people tend to be more attracted to one culture or the other.</p>
<p>Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish would be ideal, but for business, between German and French, choose German. Firstly, French is a dying language, so it's only going to be around for a few more decades. It's easier to learn, but not too beneficial outside of France, Quebec, and a few other places. German isn't too difficult to learn, although tougher than French, but it's a really beneficial language to learn if you plan to do business in Europe.</p>
<p>^ r u ****ing kidding me? france is a dying language? u must be on drugs. </p>
<p>french speaking countries:
<a href="http://www.wall-maps.com/Classroom/Foreign-Language-Maps/EDI628-political-over.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.wall-maps.com/Classroom/Foreign-Language-Maps/EDI628-political-over.jpg</a></p>
<p>compared to german speaking countries:
<a href="http://german.languages4everyone.com/pics/01_01/11_eu_map.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://german.languages4everyone.com/pics/01_01/11_eu_map.jpg</a></p>
<p>i think more countries speak french than german buddy.</p>
<p>the map is missing liechtenstein...although that might be becuase of the viewing size of the map, since its stuck between austria and switzerland</p>
<p>ripcurl, if you had bothered to read the original question, Tpeck asked which language was the best to learn from the business standpoint. Unless you're privy to some information, last time I checked, there wasn't much business going on in Africa. Also, of all those countries, where is French a primary language? French has had colonies in those areas in the past (thus, it may be an official language), but since France is no longer a major influence there (and in most of the world), why would the language be passed on from generation-to-generation? Business-wise, the Swiss speak German, and that's the world's banking capital. The map also failed to mention Belgium, the Netherlands (does the European Union ring a bell?), Denmark, the Czech Republic, and the numerous other countries where German is commonly spoken. French was once the language needed to conduct business in the Old World, but with the influence of English, Chinese, and so forth, French is nothing more than a dying Romantic language.</p>
<p>German: 96 Million speakers
French: 65 Million speakers</p>
<p>German wins by the number of speakers. Yeah French is spoken in a handful of African countries. WHO CARES? Like anyone is going to travel there to do business.</p>
<p>I've also been looking into Russian. Russia seems like an excellent country, but I'm not sure if they are good for business..</p>
<p>It may be good for the black market. And, surprisingly, German and Russian have many similarities, because one of my friends, who is learning both of these, was telling me about their relationship. And once you learn Russian, you can pick up easily on Kazakh, Georgian, and all of those other languages, if they interest you.</p>
<p>OK, number of speakers thing:</p>
<p>Russian will make you sound angry no matter what you say. It's a harder language to learn than French or German, from English at least, and you have to learn the cyrillic alphabet too...</p>
<p>I think German has 4 cases and Russian has 6 cases... I think..</p>
<p>Ya paneemayo (I understand)
Vi Paneemayachi (You understand)
*Spelling is wrong, don't know what it is in English letters.</p>
<p>and like 4 more differend endings depending on the sentence, it's crazy.</p>
<p>Russian sounds kinda cool, and fairly pretty, from what I've heard of it. But maybe that's just me a minority of people who have heard it.</p>