I'm not a regular poster here, so forgive me if there is a general for this sort of thing. But I've been on the fence between two or three possible second-languages for a while now, and I need some help.
Essentially, I am pursuing a career in finance and business, and would like to know if Chinese or German would be the best option. I'm leaning more towards Chinese due to their very powerful (and growing) economy, and simply because everybody I know that is doing well in business has Chinese connections. I would think German might also be good because of Germany's prominence in academia and their connection with European finance.
Thoughts, concerns, comments, and recommendations are all welcome.
Everyone speaks English better than you will ever speak their language, so don’t bother.
Joseph Baker
Trips confirm, came here to say this. Learn enough to be courteous several languages and see which one you enjoy learning
John Jenkins
Rush b
Samuel Wilson
Chinese. Head to China, build your Guanxi with strong heads, reap profits. Cheers.
Jason Jones
Learn both. If you are aiming for a financial career, fluency & cultural familiarity in German/Japanese/Chinese are high in demand (Esp. Japanese).
And by fluent, I mean being capable of communication/writing in the aforementioned languages beyond that of a High School level, be it Chinese, Japanese or German.
By cultural familiarity, I mean being comfortable and able to socialize with individuals from diverse backgrounds and differing cultures (Outside your race and social group), as well as having in-depth knowledge of their financial legislation, market behavior, socioeconomic conditions and typical portfolio composition in their individual countries.
Levi Hall
Perhaps this is true, but I feel like I would be an ass, if I *expected* this from others. Also, I don't doubt I could run into a situation where being bilingual could save my ass and be an "in," in some sense. Idk. I'm not completely convinced that everyone will able to be accomodate me with English, especially Chinese.
Lol thanks.
Wow, that might be difficult to learn both, although not impossible. I had considered Japanese, but I wasn't sure. Why is Japanese "in demand"? Thanks
Hunter Cook
Reason why Japanese is in demand is precisely because they don’t speak english, whereas everyone else can
Christopher Jenkins
The reason why Japanese (In conjunction with a financial background) is so highly in-demand right now is because the Japanese economy and their financial institutions/FIs have considerably high amounts of capital floating around their economy and many, many large multi-national financial corporations want that access.
Supply currently is really, really low, compared to Mandarin/German/Hindi/French-speakers. (Do expect to get poached if you have a working understanding of Japanese/Fin and working experience)
Nolan White
Why is Japanese "in demand"? anime
Parker Green
Well, this definitely took a new direction. Thanks for the advice, guys, I'll have to look into it. Hopefully I won't get too sick of the weebs I come in contact with while trying to learn Japanese. :)
Hunter Gray
im not even reading what everyone wrote here.
learn chinese. coming from a big4 consultant
Jacob Gonzalez
and DONT learn japanese. its not the 80ties anymore.
Jordan Parker
Fug. Maybe I should learn both Chinese and Japanese, although I hear they are pretty distinct. i.e. two totally separate languages...
Mason Edwards
>big 4 >80ties
your gay arent you?
Jaxson Reed
But user said they have a up-and-coming financial industry? Is this not true?
Brayden Collins
be super good in chinese instead ( 5 years of hard work).
Owen Lopez
That is why you learn Japanese through self-directed learning and from qualified native speakers (Not from non-natives or non-qualified individuals).
They share the same writing system (Hanzi/ Kanji) and well as the same writing strokes (Even for Hiragana!)
Speaking it without sounding like a twat to natives on the other hand...
[spoiler] Pacing is key [/spoiler]
Christian James
How old are you? Odds are you're too old to learn both fluently, maybe even too old to learn a single one perfectly
Jose Diaz
22. I doubt I am too old to become fluent in at least one of them, to be frank.
Kevin Davis
22 isn't too old to learn another language but it's especially difficult for English learners in the case of the two languages you listed. effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty You definitely don't want to be splitting your time learning two different languages at the same time as Chinese and Japanese are pretty much distinct (as you mentioned).
Aaron Rodriguez
It's always the same thing to say: Spanish (most spoken in SA) > french (most spoken in Middle East, Africa part of SEA) > german.
Don't learn german though unless you already know the two others because all germans/austrians/dutch in business know english better than you will ever know their language, also noone speak german outside of Europe.
You can always try chinese but you will most likely never speak it well unless you go live there (which is a pretty shitty place from my experience).
Angel Williams
You don't get it, do you? Do you know how much companies nowadays would pay for an 'inside man'/ intermediary with the Japanese under their thumb?
Esp. when there is a shortage of Fin grads/employees with strong comprehensive knowledge of Japanese and its business culture. Anyone that can give them access to all that sweet sweet liquidity that the Japanese investors/corps are holding (Be it joint ventures/investments/market access/bonds/stocks) and allows them to understand the inner workings of the Black box (Japan) would be a sure-hire.
Aiden Green
Also this, it's better to be fluent in spanish and french (which are very close to english vocabulary wise thanks to William) than to speak a bad japanese or chinese
Hunter Johnson
Chinese by a country mile
The fact is the Chinese are more proud of their culture than the Germans, they will respect you for speaking chinese. On the contrary any german worth doing business with will speak English and won't care if you speak broken german.
Also the Chinese are fucking everywhere, Germans are only in Germany.
I would learn french, Spanish and Japanese before german.
