Learning a foreign language

Do any of you enjoy learning languages? This is an extremely subjective question, but what are some of the benefits that you think you personally derive from learning another language? I just passed the C1 test for German and I think I'm going to move onto a different language. Perhaps Russian or something.

Here is an interesting article from a while ago:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/03/language-study

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Language and income 34.51 KB 34.51 KB
 

I love learning languages. My last stay abroad was in South Korea, where I also learned Korean - my first non-european language. By now, I've already forgotten most of it since I don't use it regularly anymore. But when I was in Korea it helped a lot that I could read. At the end of the day, I think that it really pimps your CV.

 

I hate learning languages with a passion, but find they open up a lot of doors (particularly in Europe), and generally make life a bit more fun (better integration, work abroad, work in regional offices). Even though I'm not a fan of learning the language I opted to study two foreign languages at undergrad instead of finance/business. It made interviews more interesting and genuinely think it wouldn't have received the offer that I did without having a background in languages.

Would be interested to know what drew you to Russian? I'm fairly fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and French, but looking to learning a non-European soon (at the moment thinking about Korean and Japanese)

 

Yeah I've thought about this too. For me the choice would be either Spanish (because I know a little bit already and it's generally easy to learn) or Chinese (obviously because it's a huge emerging economy and that would make me very marketable). If I had the time I'd learn Chinese for sure.

 
dpiderit:
wow dude i'm guessing you are joking because if not then you just look really ignorant dissing all those languages and native speakers of those languages.

The polite police are here... yeah dude I'm joking (mostly).

 

Alright, I admit that this province has it issues along with us all. But remember that Montreal is one of the greatest cities in North America to travel to and you may make it out unscathed if you manage to speak enough french along the way.

 

Why don't you try Malinké or some other african dialect, the upside is that they are not "written languages" so you don't even have to learn how to write it! (Ok, the downside might be that very few people use them, especially in business..)

 

Russian isn't as hard as it seems. Once you get the alphabet down everything is fairly straightforward. Not sure of its usefulness yet though.

 

Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of africa and since their land reforms their agri production dropped to 10% and has inlfation of more then 1000% a year.....

Latin is only language you only learn reading and writing and not speaking. Only when you study FT in university for 4 years you can maybe you canb talk latin. I had it for 6 years in school. But when you learn it, it's easy to learn other latin languages like Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

 

I agree with all you folks about Chinese. But then again its not really worth spending hours trying to learn a language that'll prolly take a decade to learn.

 
Best Response

From a business perspective, learn Chinese, hands down. As far as the emerging markets, the Middle East has a lot of untapped equity, so I would next learn Arabic. Not to mention in this day and age, it may prove useful.

From a usage perspective, if you're here in the U.S. learn Spanish- it is not at all unrealistic for you to find yourself in a situation (especially here in NY) where you were the only english speaker. Imagine you're trying to close a deal with a member of the opposite sex, starting with a fancy dinner... Imagine how they would NOT be impressed if you couldn't speak Spanish versus the impact you make if you could accurately convey that your date wants their dressing on the side and is deathly allergic to black pepper... all in Spanish. I mean, you can practically hear the clothes being ripped off!

So learn Spanish fluently- make sure you can read, write, and understand solidly. Then be efficient and learn a few more languages. All the Latin languages are so similar in gramatical structure that once you have one down cold, the rest are cake. The sounds are different, but the roots and even verb endings are practically identical. Just go spend a few months living on a beach in Brazil, reading the daily paper and watching soap operas at night with the locals and there you are, fluent in Portuguese too. French, Italian too- once you have one of the Latin languages down, you can get them all.

 
amb05:
From a usage perspective, if you're here in the U.S. learn Spanish- it is not at all unrealistic for you to find yourself in a situation (especially here in NY) where you were the only english speaker. Imagine you're trying to close a deal with a member of the opposite sex, starting with a fancy dinner... Imagine how they would NOT be impressed if you couldn't speak Spanish versus the impact you make if you could accurately convey that your date wants their dressing on the side and is deathly allergic to black pepper... all in Spanish. I mean, you can practically hear the clothes being ripped off!

So learn Spanish fluently- make sure you can read, write, and understand solidly. Then be efficient and learn a few more languages. All the Latin languages are so similar in gramatical structure that once you have one down cold, the rest are cake. The sounds are different, but the roots and even verb endings are practically identical. Just go spend a few months living on a beach in Brazil, reading the daily paper and watching soap operas at night with the locals and there you are, fluent in Portuguese too. French, Italian too- once you have one of the Latin languages down, you can get them all.

If you ever find yourself in NYC in a situation in which only Spanish was spoken, you are more likely than not about to be either robbed, killed or raped.

And secondly, not all waiters/waitresses at restaurants speak Spanish. Try doing that on some Eastern European and see what happens. Further, if the employees of the restaurant only speak Spanish, then you need to seriously review the quality of the restaurant before you go, because a date will definately not be impressed when she steps out and realizes she's in the Barrio rather Las Ramblas in Barcelona. ENGLISH is essential in NYC above all else. Don't listen to this guy about Spanish. Maybe in Texas or Southern California would be where Spanish would be more useful.

He is correct, however, about Chinese and Arabic. Beware, HK is basically all Cantonese and not Mandarin, not don't get yourself fucked by learning the wrong one (if you intend to do business with people there).

 

I speak Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese (ordered by fluency with Japanese being the most fluent)

Japanese and Korean help me when watching those cheesy dramas. Mandarin and Cantonese help me when I go to theaters and watch another kung-fu movies and point out how the subtitles are wrong...

other than that, I don't find them that useful.... and highly doubt that those languages will help me during the application process.... hmm...

and recently, I've been learning Spanish in order to communicate with people at homeless shelter where I've been helping my sister (who is a social worker and directer there).

maybe I should have gone to study linguistics, not finance..

 

Actually merumerume, those languages should be a major differentiator during the interview process if you apply to the right place. I know several people who got into top banks thanks to exotic (not "western european") language skills because their employer was looking to expand into or do dela involving countries with their languages. There were better trained candidates but since these guys were "good enough" the firm chose them.

 

Chinese may be a bit difficult to learn for an adult, but the rewards are definitely worth it. It is so impressive to people in China when an American can speak their language. :D

 

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