<p>I'm currently a sophomore student in Turkey majoring in Business Information Management at the Bilkent University.
I want to work preferably for a MNC after I graduate, or enter the Ministry of Foreign Affairs(Department of State)</p>
<p>Of course, like most people majoring in Business, I definately want to work for a top tier company like McKinsey in the future(But I doubt I will, but hey lets give it a shot :) )</p>
<p>My school offers various languages</p>
<p>I'm stuck between Russian and Japanese, I heard from from a few of my friends that Japanese is easier to learn for people whose first language is Turkish, because it comes from a similar language family.</p>
<p>I'm thinking of taking basic Japanese this fall, and spring and then go to Japan for the summer and advance my skills there.</p>
<p>Do you think learning Japanese on a basic level will benefit me in the future? Or should I choose another language. My native language is Turkish, and my second language is English, I'm near native fluent in English.</p>
<p>OP, whether you completely forgot about it or disregarded them because you aren’t highly favoring them, I suggest you learn either Chinese or Arabic.</p>
<p>As for whether Japanese is “easier to learn” versus Turkish, I’m not sure whether you’re talking about pronunciation or grammatical structure; if it’s grammatical structure, then I would say to go for Chinese instead of Japanese because if I’m correct, the grammatical structure is the same (however, the pronunciation is just plain old difficult).</p>
<p>Learning a language is cool and all but if you want to work for an MNC or gov’t, it won’t really help. They can just get someone who’s already fluent in the language to do it. Hope you understand.</p>
<p>I decided to learn my 3rd language a month ago after an extensive research…</p>
<p>The really good languages for business are: </p>
<p>1- Japanese. (The 2nd biggest economy in the world: 68 of global fortune 500 are Japanese)
The homogeneous Japanese workplace is soon gonna include more “outsiders” from all nationalities. The change to a more heterogeneous workplace is probably slow but still Japanese language will be very beneficial when working for a big corporation that deal with Japanese firms! </p>
<p>2- German. (Being the biggest economy in Europe, and located next to your country)
German would be easier than Japanese especially now that you know English and you 're about to start learning your 3rd language. </p>
<p>3- Chinese. (You probably know why) </p>
<p>Russian is A BIG NO NO. “I think” it’s probably useless. The Russian economy is really bad. From what I heard from my Russian friends that in Russia everything is bad business-wise, most of them told me not to even think of learning the language</p>
<p>Also, learning a language does not necessarily have to be in the form of a college class. So if you feel attracted to a language do not let the fact that there are no classes offered on your campus deter you from learning THAT language.</p>
<p>^Hah…your friends are wrong. Russian owns Chinese simply because there are more countries that speak Russian than countries that speak Chinese. For instance,people speak Chinese only in China and in the U.S. Yet, there are a lot of countries in Asia, Europe,including U.S. that have russian speakers. Your argument may be based on the size of Chinese population, but even then if you combine all the russian speakers, you will find out that they outnumber Chinese speakers. (I’m talking about the use of a language, but not about the population each country has)</p>
<p>liteInTheAttic, “I heard from my Russian friends that in Russia everything is bad business-wise…” Yet, there are more millionaires and billionaires in Russia than in either China or Japan.</p>
<p>Basically, my point is that it is always better to learn one of the universal languages than a particular language attached to a certain country, such as Japanese or German; and by universal I mean English, Russian, Spanish, and Chinese (though it is on the top only because of the population–not because of peoples’ interest).</p>
<p>I came to U.S. from the former Soviet Union, and I have been to Russia, and I know Russian myself. So, the things that I told you are accurate. Though, do not listen too much to russians who came here because they sh** all over their native country, and actually make the U.S. economy worse by bringing the corruption, and other economic diseases with them.</p>
<p>In addition to what sp1212 said, in the big cities employers won’t really care whether you have a minor in a certain language or whether you took some classes, for they have a lot of bilingual and multilingual applicants who already know those languages that you mentioned. </p>
<p>BTW, by choosing Japanese over the Russian language, you basically miss the opportunity to flirt with hot Russian girls ;)</p>
<p>I would like to give some advices to those who want to learn Chinese.
It is a HARD language, even though for ppl who have similar culture to China (like Japanese or Korean). Chinese language does not have too many different kinds of grammars, but it does involve multiple tones which make the pronunciation hard. Nowadays, Chinese netizens are “creating” Chinese words that textbooks would never teach. So my suggestion is GET INTO THE CHINESE STUDENTS GROUP AND TALK TO THEM. If you have money and time, STAY IN CHINA for a year.
In English language, if you had an accent, people could still understand you. But in Chinese language, accent would make Chinese people much more difficult to understand. So if you are interested in being fluent in Chinese, pay attention to the pronunciation; if you want to learn Chinese for business use, then study hard because you are facing the competition from a large group of Chinese international students. However, if you don’t have much interests or you just want to learn a bit, I would recommend you to learn another language, because it TAKES time to be able to communicate with Chinese people naturally.
GOOD LUCK!!!</p>
<p>I made my decision and I’m gonna go for Russian due to the reason that I’ve heard from many people that its an amazing language with an incredible sense of humor. Cant wait to read tolstoy in russian, I hope that I’ll reach that level within 3-4 years :D</p>
<p>Oh and there are many Turkish companies doing business in Russia, the trade levels are increasing every year, last month both parties lifted the visa requirements.</p>
<ul>
<li>Can’t wait to go Moscow next summer to advance my Russian skills, maybe I’ll score a few girls as well while im at it :D</li>
</ul>
<p>I’m happy for you Currently, the tourism is very developed between Russia and Turkey. Actually, Turkey is the most popular place, for Russians, in terms of vocational and trade purposes. So, you are making a right decision.
Удачи!!! (Good luck)</p>
Currently, the tourism is very developed between Russia and Turkey. Actually, Turkey is the most popular place, for Russians, in terms of vocational and trade purposes. So, you are making a right decision.