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Conversational Spanish might be easy to pick up, but to be fluent it's not much easier than French. French can be hard because it's hard to read without knowing how to say the words. Spanish is easy as hell to read.
1) Mandarin Chinese to talk to the most people
2) Spanish to live in the most countries with beautiful women (Latin American, Spain, Italy)
3) Malay if you want to live in the most interesting geography and culture (base language for Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and southern Thailand)
2) Spanish to live in the most countries with beautiful women (Latin American, Spain, Italy)
Anders15, there isn’t a Goethe Institute where you live
http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/lp/enindex.htm
you can find musical CDs, movies and books at Alliance Française Chapitre Rochambeau
Présidence :M. Peter SICKINGER
3224 Monument Ave.
RICHMOND, VA - 23221
Tél. 804-355-1327
listen to some songs and conversations to test whether it’s a big turn-off or turn-on. :lol:
[copy and paste url addresses below]
Japanese songs
youtube.com/watch?v=aSZeL0IxzBE&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=sYeNNOPYElA&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=Ri6uCCGh6RQ&feature=related
Korean songs
youtube.com/watch?v=5lrgDrrTtpc
youtube.com/watch?v=GGKNPfQZjFI&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=HHfPAVJCXek
Hindi
youtube.com/watch?v=W2hnLYuCzgQ
youtube.com/watch?v=xeNoUggxxdM
If you want something that's marketable as a fallback, consider Japanese, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Cantonese or Korean. French is quite versatile, and keeps coming in handy. Might think about Bahasa Indonesia, which is supposed to be pretty easy, Portuguese or Italian. Languages aren't that useful professionally unless you achieve full fluency, so I'd say consider three years of whichever one you pick.
First of all, congratulations to the original poster for starting a thread like this. I love talking about languages. I'd say Chinese is pretty marketable considering that China is rising in influence. Japanese is a good choice too for marketability. I'd also say that Russian should be a consideration because Russia is starting to improve once again and its global reach is pretty extensive. French can come in handy as well of course.
As a lover of languages, I'd have a hard time making a choice if I were in the same situation. It is very tough to pick just one. After I finish Spanish I may consider French perhaps But it will be a tough choice.
Sciences (things like Chemical engineering, for example, or biotech) are where you want to go for the sake of the money you can make at the end of it.
As for languages, the hot business language right now is Mandarin Chinese and the culture and history of the Chinese speaking world and the diaspora therein is fascinating. Also, the advantage that Chinese has over Japanese and Korean is that structurally, Chinese is the most like English. Furthermore, the Japanese economy is stagnant and is likely to be for the near future.
Korea is really a comer in the IT world and they are ahead of us in some respects, but the Koreans are also rather xenophobic and, outside of teaching english, I don't think you will have much of a chance of ever landing a job there. I have lived in that country and really like it, but it is what it is. I don't think your child will have a very good time there.
The advantage to learning Korean, though, is twofold: one, you can learn the alphabet in less than a week. Plus if you ever want to study Japanese (and I would recommend to anyone who is studying Korean to double Japanese or Chinese with it) it is structurally almost identical to Japanese. However, you will have to memorize over 2,000 characters to write Japanese (not that big a deal for someone who is really disciplined, but unlike in Chinese, the same character can be read in a variety of ways depending on the context in many cases).
Both Japanese and Korean are very regular languages without the nightmare of exceptions you get with English. Japan is also much more foreigner friendly than Korea or China (Shnaghai may be the exception, but I have never been there) even if there is still some xenophobia there. But it is not nearly as pronounced as it is in China or Korea. Taiwan and Hong Kong are more forgiving in that way than the Chinese mainland. However, the main language of Hong Kong is Cantonese dialect of Chinese, but most people speak english. Taiwan has its own dialect as well. Mandarin, however, is the business and bureaucratic dialect of the Chinese speaking world.
If you take Chinese, if you really want to enhance your chances at employment, you might think about doubling it with Spanish. If you take Korean and don't want to pair it with Chinese or Japanese, it is essential you double it with Spanish. The reason is that even with the number of Koreans in places such as L.A. and Washington state, the frequency with which you will need it will be pretty far and few in between while Spanish has much more utility not just locally, but also in terms of international business.
The business cultures of Korea and the Chinese speaking world are very, very rugged and even rowdy. Even the Japanese complain about the difficulty of negotiating with them and a friend of my family who was a sales exec with a major IT company responded, "don't even get me started," when I asked him how it was dealing with the Koreans in business transactions.
The best case scenario would be graduating in a science and being able to parlay it with a job in Germany, but I'm not sure if the Germans hire many foreigners in the sciences and you will probably need a Phd. Someone else will have to fill you in on that, though.
as alluded to in several other posts, a language does more than just facilitate conversation. It is the vehicle in which a civilization describes the world as they, as a culture, understand it. Aside from the American dialect of the English language, I also speak Spanish, were I to learn a third language, it would be German, because I have many fond memories from Frankfort. Between English and Spanish I have been able to communicate effectively on several continents.
Sciences (things like Chemical engineering, for example, or biotech) are where you want to go for the sake of the money you can make at the end of it.
As for languages, the hot business language right now is Mandarin Chinese and the culture and history of the Chinese speaking world and the diaspora therein is fascinating. Also, the advantage that Chinese has over Japanese and Korean is that structurally, Chinese is the most like English. Furthermore, the Japanese economy is stagnant and is likely to be for the near future.
Korea is really a comer in the IT world and they are ahead of us in some respects, but the Koreans are also rather xenophobic and, outside of teaching english, I don't think you will have much of a chance of ever landing a job there. I have lived in that country and really like it, but it is what it is. I don't think your child will have a very good time there.
The advantage to learning Korean, though, is twofold: one, you can learn the alphabet in less than a week. Plus if you ever want to study Japanese (and I would recommend to anyone who is studying Korean to double Japanese or Chinese with it) it is structurally almost identical to Japanese. However, you will have to memorize over 2,000 characters to write Japanese (not that big a deal for someone who is really disciplined, but unlike in Chinese, the same character can be read in a variety of ways depending on the context in many cases).
Both Japanese and Korean are very regular languages without the nightmare of exceptions you get with English. Japan is also much more foreigner friendly than Korea or China (Shnaghai may be the exception, but I have never been there) even if there is still some xenophobia there. But it is not nearly as pronounced as it is in China or Korea. Taiwan and Hong Kong are more forgiving in that way than the Chinese mainland. However, the main language of Hong Kong is Cantonese dialect of Chinese, but most people speak english. Taiwan has its own dialect as well. Mandarin, however, is the business and bureaucratic dialect of the Chinese speaking world.
If you take Chinese, if you really want to enhance your chances at employment, you might think about doubling it with Spanish. If you take Korean and don't want to pair it with Chinese or Japanese, it is essential you double it with Spanish. The reason is that even with the number of Koreans in places such as L.A. and Washington state, the frequency with which you will need it will be pretty far and few in between while Spanish has much more utility not just locally, but also in terms of international business.
The business cultures of Korea and the Chinese speaking world are very, very rugged and even rowdy. Even the Japanese complain about the difficulty of negotiating with them and a friend of my family who was a sales exec with a major IT company responded, "don't even get me started," when I asked him how it was dealing with the Koreans in business transactions.
The best case scenario would be graduating in a science and being able to parlay it with a job in Germany, but I'm not sure if the Germans hire many foreigners in the sciences and you will probably need a Phd. Someone else will have to fill you in on that, though.
hello. i wanted to do an extra post, but am a computer nerd still, and somehow am linked up with the above. no joke.
kudos to all the well-informed posters here.
i think, however, the op should try kauderwelsch, it's fun and globally popular.
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I love this topic
But it will be a tough choice.
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