<p>I'm a native chinese speaker but I've been in US for 9 years now. Since I'm going into international business, I want to add another language to my arsenal. Unfortunately my high school spanish teacher for 3 years didn't teach me jack. I'm thinking of something like German or French. Which language do you think will be most useful in the future?</p>
<p>I think French is probably more useful than German, though German is more unique, which could be a plus.</p>
<p>I read on Wiki that Germany is the largest economic power in Europe. However, French is supposed to be the international language…</p>
<p>French is spoken in lots of North African countries… “.de” is the second most popular webaddress-ending-thing (behind “.com”) and Germany is more economically powerful… I’d say German personally.</p>
<p>French is the second most common language for business and diplomacy
Germany (though I hate to this as a Francophile) is a more important country </p>
<p>SO if you want to work directly in/with Germans/Austrians (or to generalize a bit, Central and Eastern Europe), Germany is better
However for international business in general, French is far more important (especially in Africa, the Middle East (most popular second language after English, though it’s roughly tied with Russian and Chinese), Asia (especially IndoChina), and W. Europe (French is the most common second language in the UK, and is the 2nd most common second language (behind English) in W. Europe).</p>
<p>Obviously I believe French is more useful, but it really depends on the situation. I think that if you aren’t positive of what kind of business you want to do, then French is a better bet because it is used more than German (in most, but not all sectors).</p>
<p>Also, almost all German business people can speak English, the same cannot be said of the French/North Africans/IndoChinese.</p>
<p>you could just learn both and have your problem solved. It wouldn’t be that hard if you think about it. </p>
<p>but if you really want to go into international business i recommend learning something more along the lines of Japanese or Korean; we have more business classes for those two languages (plus Mandarin, which I think you alread speak) than any other now. Moreover, it just dependes on where you wanna go in life. There are more Francophonies than there are places where German is spoken, and with a little knowledge of Arabic, you would be able to travel through the whole Northern Africa (despite the dialectical differences, standard Arabic is understood in all educated fields) and Indochina thanks to your ability to already speak Chinese which is the third most taught language (after English and French). So you basically have more opportunities with French than you do with German. You could also go up to Canada where French is one of the two official languages (the other being English). OR you could choose to learn none because most ppl who go into business have to learn Englsih. :)</p>
<p>My father worked for P&G and they do a ton of stuff in Germany. It’s a really important company econimically, has a bigger GDP (or maybe it was GNP?) than France, etc. But a ton of German business people speak English. Not that many French ones do.
Also, a lot more people speak French than speak German.</p>
<p>I think either language would be really useful. There might be a slight advantage for one than for the other. If I were learning the language solely for job reasons, I would just randomly pick one. If I wanted to use the language for travel and the like as well, I would pick French.</p>