What language would help me the most in my business career?

Question

I am looking at studying a language because I think it is important to be bilingual. What language would help me the most in the business world now and in the future?

Answer 1

Depends where you are/where you plan to work:

in the U.S. - Spanish
Canada - French
Western Europe - French and Arabic
Eastern Europe - Russian and German
Middle East - Arabic
Asia - Mandarin and Japanese

Answer 2

Unless you know that you specifically want to go to a particular country or region, you probably want to stick with a UN language, since these are the languages most commonly used for international relations and are the most common lingua franca (a person's second language used to communicate). Those languages are English, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian, and Arabic. From there it might depend on what you want to do or if there's a particular industry you want to work in (in which case one language might be more useful than others). I'm an international accountant working on the US-Mex border, so my fluency in Spanish is useful. When I studied abroad in Mexico one of my professors gave the class a translated article from the Wall Street Journal that said spanish was the language of international business. I don't remember any main arguments of the article, but I imagine the same arguments could more or less be made about other languages. Keep in mind that most educated people in the world, likely the ones you'd be dealing with in business, speak at least a working level of English.

Personally, I'd recommend Spanish, then French as a close second, but those are what I speak and the order I learned them, so I'm biased.

Answer 3

Depending on the area you will be working.

Probably Spanish would be the best choice, covering whole South America (Portugese in Brasil is very similar), Mexico and everything between.

Of course, Chinese or Japanese could bring you further, but it's an enormous effort.

The quickest to learn probably would be German, but except in Germany-Switzerland-Austria it will not help you much.

Answer 4

In the US the best second language is Spanish. Look at the population mix.

Answer 5

Seems like spanish these days. Although considering the fact that asian nations are a large producer of our daily products then Chinese or Japanese would be good also.

Answer 6

English, Arabic, and French. these are three of the main languages empolyees are looking for

Answer 7

spanish. where i live that's the most spoken language (apart from english)

Answer 8

chinese, it's a booming economy, french is good cause it's all over, and german if you go into importing (but all germans are almost fluent in english), spanish is good too.

Answer 9

English and Mandarin.

Answer 10

spanish