Bilingual in languages other than Spanish? (work, career, company, benefit)

[annika08]

I'm just curious; I know that being bilingual in Spanish is almost necessary in any career here in the U.S., but does knowing German help any in this day? What other languages is it good to have a grasp on, other than the Asian/Arabic ones? (And of those, which are most valuable?)

[harry chickpea]

Vermonters often know a bit of Quebecois or French. I imagine knowing German would help around the Amish and Mennonite communities.

[What!]

Knowing German could help you get into a German company and then get you sent to Germany. It might be cool to work in Berlin. I heard Berlin is reasonably-priced according to Euro standards and is even more amazing than London, Paris, and Rome in terms of partying and activities.

[glxyman21]

French is a good one to know

[annika08]

Originally Posted by What!

Knowing German could help you get into a German company and then get you sent to Germany. It might be cool to work in Berlin. I heard Berlin is reasonably-priced according to Euro standards and is even more amazing than London, Paris, and Rome in terms of partying and activities.

I used to be very fluent in German, so relearning it won't be a problem. Would LOVE to work in Germany! I used to know quite a bit of French, but I've lost most of that.
I would love to learn Japanese or Chinese, but that's a completely differrent ballpark. Seems difficult...

I'm looking into overseas contract security work, and there's contracts all over the world. Learning Arabic would be an obvious for that line of work, but I want to avoid the Middle East if I can.

[allforcats]

Originally Posted by annika08

I would love to learn Japanese...but that's a completely differrent ballpark. Seems difficult...

I am fairly fluent in Japanese, which I learned after I moved to Tokyo. It's not exactly difficult to learn, because the grammatical constructions are actually far less complex than those of English.

What is "difficult" -- after accumulating vocabulary and daily-use phrases (and the Japense love linguistic puns, so there are lots of them) -- what is difficult is cultural ideas which never enter the minds of Americans. Language expresses culture. So words, phrases, sentences, emphases, and choice of ideas to speak about are actually determined by what a given culture has decided is "reality". I didn't know that until I was working in Tokyo, associating almost all the time with Japanese people, and studying the language formally and from colleagues, friends, TV, etc. and discovered that what matters to Americans doesn't necessarily matter at all outside the U.S. culture, and some fundamental definitions in life are very different, and those are expressed in the everyday language.

So the Japanese language per se isn't really difficult to gather into one's brain. What is difficult is learning how to use that accumulated data, which requires real Japanese teachers. Make sense?

[Chinolala]

Mandarin Chinese

[Nemesis15]

French. Its the language of Europe.

[heydade]

mandarin chinese.

[GloryB]

I can speak conversational German, but haven't really found it to be of any great benefit...other than with my mom. I would think learning Spanish if you live in the southern states or French if you live close to the Canadian border would be a great asset. I have learned quite a bit of Spanish in the last few months. It is really easy to learn.