Which languages are best for buissness?

I have a Seal of Biliteracy on my high school diploma that says I'm fluent in English and Spanish. I live in California, so it's really useful, and it makes finding jobs a little easier. Just know what languages besides English are most common in your area would be my advice.

well, I remember reading a post by another user that basically said, whatever you do, don't learn Mandarin. The thinking goes that if you study Mandarin, then you will eventually have to do business in China, and dealing with the Chinese is absolute hell.

OP here, I aso live in California. According to my Hispanic friends 'Mexican' Spanish and 'Spanish' Spanish are practically two different dialects. Is that true?

I don't know if I would say completely different, you could still communicate between the two. However they do have lots of differences. There is a specific type of conjugation that speakers in Mexico don't use, but countries like Spain, Argentina, etc use. I would say that since you and I live in California, if you go to a school or some kind of Spanish language class, you're almost guaranteed to learn the Mexican dialect because of the location. If you plan on staying in California, I don't think you would ever have any problems communicating with someone in Spanish. I'd say 97% of Spanish speaking people in California speak the Mexican dialect, especially in the Central Valley, where I live.

Depends on industry. English is generally good enough, but depending on your interests the next most useful are probably Mandarin and Spanish

>learning the language only to be able to speak to people

You learn the language so you know what's going on when people are talking in general and to be able to listen to the news in that areas language, rather than waiting for a translation

Esperanto

ha.. ha... hah.

I work in TV, I want to do arts programming through.
Should I learn French? being the biggest cinephiles per capita.
Or German, because... STRONK GERMAN ECONOMY.

Any Deutschophones or Francophones here wanna point me in the direction of good learning resources? I was learning German for a while and followed Deutsch fur Euch which was simple enough.

Really want to get a grasp of conversational stuff first.

... You learn the language to build rapport.

It takes hundreds/thousands of hours (depends on language) to get a level high enough that rapport becomes a thing. Until then, you're a retard who is butchering their language

Incredibly inefficient use of your time

Which is why people invest in translators. Learning so that you don't have to wait for translators is honestly quite stupid.

I promise you don't have to be terrific at the language to build rapport. You just have to show that you're trying. I speak a few languages and as long as you can get by conversationally, people will love you for it.

Native German here.
Unfortunately I can't help you with the language and I don't know your reasons for wanting to learn German, but whatever you do, DO NOT WORK IN GERMANY!
Work here is more stressful (Arbeit macht frei), you get lower salary and MUCH higher taxes on your income. The culture Germanophiles imagine is almost nonexistent. Instead of Bratwurst and traditional values you get Kebab and people who try too hard to copy American ""culture"". Basically Paris syndrome.

If you just want to do business with Germans, you don't really need to know the language because virtually everyone who's worth talking to speaks English.

>Russian
Is Russian actually useful? I thought soviet economy went down the toilet after the Cold War, and thus Russian is useless nowadays business wise

The real question is: who speaks the least English out there, to make learning their language worthwhile in order to do business with them?

I'm basically weighing up a move to either
>London
>Paris
>Berlin
To get closer to the TV industry in Europe.
I'd say LA or New York, but I don't think I'd fit into those industries.

Berlin seems to have cheaper living-expenses than both, and I visited it 12 months ago and loved it, that's the main reason I'm leaning towards German.
Although honestly, it seems like longterm the better prospects in those industries are Paris and London: but the cost threshold makes it more difficult to survive at first.

Berlin might have cheaper rent, but you get paid less salary and have much higher taxes/social security payments. So it's basically a zero-sum.
I'd definitely go for the better prospects, especially for TV. The German TV industry sucks compared to British. I don't know about Paris, but in my opinion London is much more suitable for this sector than Berlin.

Thanks user. Important information there.
Good to actually get a view from the inside.

Another german here
German TV is a joke internationally
UK at least has the BBC

If you founded a mathematics and engineering company, mathematics would be the best language to learn.

Mainlanders are horrible people.

Noted
Never gonna learn Chinese
I never wanted to, I met lots of Chinese students during an exchange year and I don't really wanna talk to those people, but I was gonna force myself to it had it been useful, but after reading that nah no way I'm gonna learn either German or Russian
I'm unsure on which of the two tho, what do you guys think? I'm European and in the art business

this

on the flip side russian is a whole different ball game, people who really offer quality work will respect you even more if you know how to learn english, think of it as a +600 reputation points card

i dont know about german though, but i imagine its more of a human thing if you know the language of the business partner there is a higher chance of setting up an agreement for the same deal

the question on the other hand is, what is your line of work. Depending on the industry, look up who are the big cheeses and learn that language