Best Foreign Language to Learn for I-banking/Consulting?

The title says it all. Currently, I'm thinking about learning french, and I already know a good amount of hindi (can't read or write yet, but am very conversational in it since I'm Indian), and am conversational in spanish looking to get better at it. So before I get too into learning french, would you say it's a good language to learn, and if not, what should I take instead, and why? And I might consider working at an i-bank or consulting firm in another country, so which language will offer me most opportunities of this sort?

 

If you're talking about a language that'll make recruiting easier for banking, Japanese and Mandarin are tops.

If you know Japanese, you will get interviews with tokyo and probably the offer just bc of a lack of qualified people from the US applying.

Mandarin isn't as much of a shoo-in, but I saw people with 3.2's at Penn getting interviews with literally every bank in HK bc of their reading and writing ability.

Consulting isn't anything as clear-cut, but the Asia offices are easier to get a job from, but speaking the language is a prerequisite I believe(though not sure about this one)

 

Don't waste your time learning languages because you think an office will get a hard-on and give you an offer. Languages only matter if the office you are applying to regularly deals with clients in that language. Period. In NY, you will almost always do business in English. Period. You know Swahili? Awesome! Are you going to be working in the Horn of Africa? No? Then no one fucking cares.

Decide which offices you are interested in working at, and learn the languages necessary to communicate with clients accordingly.

 
parachute_3:
im fluent in mandarin and im also learning german. does that mean its useless unless i apply for office in Germany?

No one said it will be useless. If you're fluent in it, it will come to use. See it as an advantage and something to set you aside.

 

Best languages to learn are those where fewer people are willing to use English as the language of business.

But then again, the question is too broad. It depends where you want to work.

Of course, if you work in Europe, learning something other than English will help, but even in Europe, you can get away with English at the CEO/CFO level in any EU country. And as a banker you're interacting with clients mostly at the executive level anyhow. Of course if you're a mgmt consultant it's a different story where you'll be dealing with more middle managers, ops staff, site workers, etc. where the local language is basically necessary. The one place that won't use as much English even at the exec level is Russia (so obviously that would be useful if you want to work there).

In the middle east, Arabic certainly helps, although you can get away with just English in most instances.

In Central and South America, Spanish (or Portuguese for Brazil) -- not sure if you can really get away with just English anymore though. Times may have changed there.

In Asia, English is the common business language in every country except for China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea. Learning to speak Tagalog, Bahasa, Malay, Thai, Hindi, etc. may get you some brownie points, but it's not essential. However, if you're banking with the Japanese, you need Japanese. With China and Taiwan, being fluent in Mandarin is practically a must now (the Chinese are becoming just as ethnocentric about their language/culture as the Americans are about theirs).

As for how hard it is to learn Mandarin -- learning to speak is actually a lot easier than you think (that's what many westerners who've learned it seemed to mention). The language is quite simple grammatically -- you don't conjugate verbs as they're all kept in the infinitive (i.e. "I be, you be, we be, they be" instead of "I am, you are"). There are no tenses ("I go now, I go later, I go before" instead of "I go, I will go, I went"). Pronouns aren't as rigidly distinguished. There are no adverbs. And the sentence structure is quite simple. The hardest part is getting the four tones -- but after that, it's actually not hard. You can pick up the spoken language a lot quicker than you realize.

That's why Chinese speakers who aren't fluent in English tend to have the most trouble with verbs (not conjugating), tenses (forgetting to use past tenses), adverbs (not using them at all), pronouns (confusing "he" with "she", "I" with "me", etc.) and sentence construction in English.

Where Mandarin gets deathly hard is learning to read and write. It's just sheer memorization. You need to know around 1,000 characters to be able to read street signs, menus, etc. You need to know at least 2,000 characters to be able to read newspapers comfortably. And you'll need probably 2,500-3,000+ to be able to read legal documents and more arcane stuff. I've read about a study a while back that it takes Chinese kids on average 2 extra years to become functionally literate in their own language compared to European/American kids.

Alex Chu www.mbaapply.com
 

I've been studying Mandarin seriously for about 2 years and by now I can pretty much wing my way through most situations (ordering food, chit chatting, picking up women). BUT I'm very very far from having the ability to carry an intelligent business conversation.

The tones, for me, were a big challenge. I thought I had a pretty good ear (was in choir for years), but Chinese made me feel completely tone deaf for about 6 months.

I had a head start on the character memorization since I had been studying Japanese for years prior as well.

I'd say if you want to learn Mandarin, better be prepared to commit to 3-4 years of serious daily study to get to a functional level. Given the nature of the language though, becoming truly FLUENT could be a lifelong process.

Now that I'm beginning to get sick of Asian languages (Korean would be waaay too big of a challenge to undertake now) I'm considering moving to something completely different such as Portuguese or French. I study languages because I think it's fun and interesting though, not because I think it will lead to some great job prospects.

 
Best Response

Mandarin seems to be the popular choice, and given the rise of East Asia and all it most certainly makes sense - however, you should keep in mind a few things if you decide to do it:

-As others have mentioned, any Asian language is going to have a much steeper learning curve than Western European languages... this is coming from someone who learned 2 Asian languages to reasonably high levels back in college and lived in Asia for a year

-You will be competing with lots of native speakers and it will be very, very difficult to match their levels without living in the country for awhile

-As others have mentioned, unless you want to work in a specific office/country, I think learning a language purely to give yourself an advantage in recruiting is not a good use of time. If you really like it and would learn it anyway, sure, go ahead, but it's not very effective to spend a ridiculous amount of time learning Mandarin just to boost your chances of getting into i-banking.

As I've written about on my site before and here on WSO, I think the Middle East is one region that is relatively overlooked vs. India/China... sure, Arabic/local languages are not always essential, but going forward I think it will be the next "hot" region to work in and so learning the appropriate languages with the goal of working there might be an interesting strategy.

 
dosk17:
Mandarin seems to be the popular choice, and given the rise of East Asia and all it most certainly makes sense - however, you should keep in mind a few things if you decide to do it:

-As others have mentioned, any Asian language is going to have a much steeper learning curve than Western European languages... this is coming from someone who learned 2 Asian languages to reasonably high levels back in college and lived in Asia for a year

-You will be competing with lots of native speakers and it will be very, very difficult to match their levels without living in the country for awhile

-As others have mentioned, unless you want to work in a specific office/country, I think learning a language purely to give yourself an advantage in recruiting is not a good use of time. If you really like it and would learn it anyway, sure, go ahead, but it's not very effective to spend a ridiculous amount of time learning Mandarin just to boost your chances of getting into i-banking.

As I've written about on my site before and here on WSO, I think the Middle East is one region that is relatively overlooked vs. India/China... sure, Arabic/local languages are not always essential, but going forward I think it will be the next "hot" region to work in and so learning the appropriate languages with the goal of working there might be an interesting strategy.

this is pretty much what i'm thinking, esp the second dot point

if the language is any use, it'll be to do work in the language. i'd expect that they'd want you to read a research report in chinese/japanese or any other language, if they consider it of any use.

remember, it's really tough to get to a level where you can converse with clients, but some candidates will

the way i look at it (this is not just for OP), some people are naturally better at languages. if this isn't you, i'd question learning a new language.

 

Banking: Chinese, French, German, Japanese

Girls: Are you actually trying to communicate with them or just impress them? French of course if you want to "sound" sexy. Portuguese and Italian if you want to communicate with the hottest women.

 

/revive thread

In regards to language and the ladies:

To impress English-speaking women, learn French or Italian.

To try and pick up hot girls in their native tongue, learn Swedish or Dutch.

"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." - J. Paul Getty
 

French: useless. French people won't do business with you if you are not French or have perfect native fluency. Small market by the way. German: maybe useful. Boring language and country though. Spanish: useful and easy to learn Japanese: useful and great if you can master it at business level, below that, still good to have. Mandarin: useless unless you can master it at business level (which will take 10+ year of study). Even if you master it, a foreigner is a foreigner in China.

 
HighlyLeveraged:
French: useless. French people won't do business with you if you are not French or have perfect native fluency. Small market by the way. German: maybe useful. Boring language and country though. Spanish: useful and easy to learn Japanese: useful and great if you can master it at business level, below that, still good to have. Mandarin: useless unless you can master it at business level (which will take 10+ year of study). Even if you master it, a foreigner is a foreigner in China.

I could not agree more. Knowing French is worthless for the reasons mentioned. Teh French don't do business with non-French people. Also, as mentioned French is only useful in France (Belgium is mostly Flemish and Switzerland English is fine).

I would say Spanish (Latin America) and Portuguese (Brazil) along with Mandarin and Japanese would be worthwhile. Indian languages are worthless since there are about 23 different ones and all business is in English.

 

most opportunities, meaning straight up the number of countries without regard for "quality"? spanish and french

best opportunities? dunno, maybe...

  1. spanish (would become familiar with a couple of other languages as well) and then french

  2. mandarin or arabic

  3. japanese/russian/portuegese

as people have pointed out, apart from a few countries, asia = business in english. so, being able to speak, say, bahasa indo, hindi, sinhala or whatever is not just not going to give you any real advantage, but won't really earn you many brownie points either (unless you are white, in which case people will be impressed for 5 minutes).

 

I've taken two years of Mandarin here in the US and did a summer study abroad program where we learned all of the second year level in 10 weeks (so I took 1 year here, went to China for the summer, took 3rd year here when I came back). I can make conversation to get by in daily life, but there is no way I could carry on a business conversation or read a newspaper and completely understand everything. Like MBAApply said, the hardest part is after a certain point, its just sheer memorization (and usage) of characters, and it gets to a point where there are very limited situations in which you would see or use these characters. So there's basically a limit to what you can practically learn in the US (or other English-speaking country) before you have to go live in that country and be constantly exposed to it in order to learn any more.

So there's that gap between what you can learn via college classes / study abroad / chatting with friends and what you practically need to work in China.

Try to see if there are other opportunities for the language you choose to learn besides just learning the language. For example our business school recently started this 3 credit course in the spring that's basically learning about leadership and business in China and the differences between how to be successful in the US vs. China. Every week we discussed a different topic (history, economy, dining, business etiquette, guanxi and saving face, etc) and then actually went to China for ten days over spring break and met some of the China/Asia leaders from companies like Trek Bicycle and Harley-Davidson and got to talk to them about challenges they've faced in the cross-cultural environment. Stuff like this will help differentiate you when you tell your story.

 

Make no mistake about it, Mandarin will not guarantee you anything anymore. The above examples are anomalies. It is so oversaturated and exaggerated by now that nobody is getting FT offers just because they passed CFA 1 and know Mandarin anymore. It will not get you any special treatment, just as hard to break in with Mandarin as without it nowadays.

 

I believe you must ask yourself what you expect to accomplish in learning a second language: 1) Spruce up your CV, or 2.) You actually intend to leverage a foreign language in your profession.

If it is option number one, then I do believe you would be wasting your time. I’ve talked to professionals all around the world, and English is the dominant (obviously) spoken language. If you plan on staying in NYC or whatever English speaking city you live in, then knowing a 2nd language is no foot into the bank's door. Although, mutual funds and country specific (Asia) trading desk usually look highly upon knowing the local language.

If it is option number two (as it is for me) then knowing a 2nd language is vital to your career. Let emphasis this, chose a language of country that you would actually move to. There is no sense in learning Vietnamese if you would not move to Vietnam. How would it look if you like the language but not the country?

I am working on learning Spanish (hopefully, then Portuguese), and looking to transition down to South America. It has been a goal of mine to work in international investments, and I can assure you knowing the local language is a must. For example, I had a conversation with a gentleman in Vietnam last week regarding a potential internship. He informed me he liked my CV, but the problem was not knowing the local language. He said yea everyone in the office is fluent in English and we deal with our clients in English, but all the research and data is in Vietnamese, thus making the internship nearly impossible. I can provide other examples, if needed, but knowing the local language helps getting things done while working in a foreign country, PERIOD.

That is just my two cents. Overall, I don’t think knowing a second language is a waste of time when effectively matched to your career goals. I do think learning a German, French, and Italian is a waste of anyone’s time.

 

keep in mind that you're not going to be fluent in mandarin unless you spend time living in china (and studying abroad for a semester or two is NOT enough for that). im chinese-american and, while i have a huge head start over most people, even i realize that itd take years living in china in order to completely master the language, learn all the intricacies and gestures, be able to joke around with chinese businessmen, etc. and so u have to ask yourself, where in your ibanking/consulting career will that fit in. also, if you're a foreigner/white-looking noone will expect you to speak mandarin fluently. keep in mind that most foreigners doing business in china are upper management who've started out here in the US and transferred to china even though they dont know mandarin, but because theres simply a lack of people with upper management skills in china

 

Probably Chinese (Mandarin).

In equity research when I'm doing primary work, the one language I wish I knew is Chinese. Most of the people I speak to at Chinese firms barely have a grasp of the English language on the investor relations side and if I'm trying to talk to people "on the ground" it's nearly impossible.

With China being so integral to so many facets of future global growth and with the majority of the country speaking only Chinese, it's a no-brainer.

 
TheKid1:
What about Hindi (since india is part of BRIC) What about Arabic? (or is Dubai, Kuwait all hype in terms of growth?)

Born and bought up in India, I can safely say that even the most illiterate of the illiterate people can communicate in English and most middle class and above people can speak to close to fluent English. Also India has larger English speaking population than UK or USA.

 

[quote=AndyLouis]re learning mandarin, see http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/dont-move-to-china-dont-study-man… vs http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/will-studying-mandarin-get-me-a-job…]

aww, thank you. Yeah, Im not that dedicated to the language. It is a difficult one to learn, and I have tried some before.Thanks for those links

 

Honestly, why would you hire some guy who speaks another country's language like crap over someone who's from that country and can BS some English when in the US? Unless you are or will be fluent in a learned language, you can't use that for work really since there's a shitload of subtleties that not even all locals pick up on.

That said, I think learning a languages is a great thing since it translates into better speaking your own language and understanding other cultures. But i believe you should be at coming it like traveling, it should enrich who you are and your ability to connect with people.

As such, I recommend Russian or Spanish.

Countries speaking those languages comprise the largest language blocks of hot women.

 

Well, it depends on which country you are in Europe. For example, in Spain, Luxembourg, Portugal, Italy, France and Scandinavian Countries people working in the IB industry speak perfect English, but almost all work is done in the local language.

Thanks & regards
 
Rafiki2013:
speak perfect English
debatable
"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

I just wanted to point out that in some countries you'll need to speak the local language, despite IB workers in those countries are required to have a certain level of English, enough to do their job. Are u more comfortable with that, Oreos?

Thanks & regards
 
Rafiki2013:

I just wanted to point out that in some countries you'll need to speak the local language, despite IB workers in those countries are required to have a certain level of English, enough to do their job. Are u more comfortable with that, Oreos?

I really don't care, mate. I just wanted to point out that continentals aren't the dream employees some people were asserting them to be.
"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

I am currently doing a 6 month internship at a IB in Germany and in the office, we mostly speak German. As soon as someone who does not speak German is on the phone/in the office, then we speak English. I hope this answers your question.

 

I am a student in the UK, looking to work in IB in UK/USA, is it beneficial to learn a second language (in terms of will it help me in recruiting - seems to be pretty pointless thereafter)?

 
leonardo_:

I am a student in the UK, looking to work in IB in UK/USA, is it beneficial to learn a second language (in terms of will it help me in recruiting - seems to be pretty pointless thereafter)?

Yes and no. Bear in mind you will never be as good at German as a German who also speaks English (people hold higher standards to foreign language ability than English). Further, bear in mind that there are A LOT of Germans in the City. So if you want to learn something value add, a random language would be best. But any language > no language, as it's also a signalling mechanism (i.e., is shows you're a clever boy)
"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

Nouveau Richie is correct in a way. Folks that make it into IB write and speak fluent English. No doubting that. I believe that what the previous posters meant, was that the average American speak/writes English far worse than a European who speaks English as a secondary/tertiary language. Obviously an average American would never get close to landing an IB position.

Does speaking a second language really help all that much for US IB? Doesn't seem that way,

Here are some observations from my time in the US, and abroad: (Born in Mexico City to European parents, lived there until age 10, frequent visits to Mexico City, and my parents homeland of Spain/Portugal. Both parents multilingual in Spanish/Portuguese/English)

I grew up speaking three languages; Spanish, Portuguese, and English. A ranking of my command of the respective languages. English > Spanish > Portuguese Most of the children in my prep school in Mexico, spoke/wrote fluent English, in addition to fluent Spanish. When I arrived in the US, not one student (except for the ESL students) spoke a second language.

A helpful gauge for anyone learning a second language: If you start dreaming in said language, you're fluent.

Just my $0.02

"Come at me, bro"- José de Palafox y Melci
 
lasampdoria:
I believe that what the previous posters meant, was that the average American speak/writes English far worse than a European who speaks English as a secondary/tertiary language.
Maybe if they were better at communicating, we wouldn't have to be psychic to interpret the meaning of their statements.

Even if that is what they meant, it would still be misinformed. Yes, people who grow up in households with parents who are native speakers of different languages will be much more likely to be multi-lingual. Honestly, that could potentially produce a dual native language speaker. That is great.

To think that the average person in France (or Italy or wherever) born to French (or whatever) parents who went to French schools will be more proficient in English (or any other language) than native speakers is just laughable.

 

Some thoughts and an interesting anecdote. Note that I am an American that is a huge language advocate.

I wholeheartedly agree with Oreos' comment regarding the lack of need for American's to learn a language other than English combined with the obviously question of "which language?" I think the root of the problem really comes down to how languages are taught in the educational system. I know that in Germany, kids start learning a 2nd language at a VERY young age and even pick up a 3rd language around the age that Americans are offered a choice to start a 2nd. By embedding language learning into the core curriculum in Germany, they effectively give all Germans a huge head start on the path to becoming multilingual.

Beyond education, there is the often overlooked point of exposure. As English in the primary language for a lot of media these days as well as the core second language in many parts of South America and Europe, non-native English speakers get a ton of exposure to English. I've gone to the movies in Argentina -- the movie was in English with Spanish subtitles. Turn on the radio or go to a club in South America / Europe, half of the music is English-language music. I once met a Swedish kid on one of my travels who spoke great English. I asked him how he learned and he said: "TV" Apparently a lot of their channels are in English so they pretty much have to learn a basic level of English to watch TV. How many Americans get this degree of regular exposure to a second language? Sure, Spanish is everywhere in the states, but it usually comes in small font after the English. There simply is no exposure.

Outside of the major cities in Europe / South American, English is either not spoken or not spoken very well. Right now I'm spending the month of June in a rural town in Italy, population 5,000. No one speaks English. A few people know how to say "Hello and Goodnight," but that's it. The neighboring city, population 30,000, also has few English speakers. From an American's perspective, we often paint Europeans with a single brush based on our interactions with people in the major cities or in jobs that interact with English speakers. This creates a huge bias. There are a massive number of people Europe that live outside major cities that are monolingual.

During my time here, I had the pleasure of speaking with a couple of Italians that know enough English to get by (mostly the younger generations speak better English). I asked them why and the answer is the same: There are no jobs in this country. The only way to make any money is to go to the major cities or to a country where English is spoken. For them, English is the gateway language that opens up the world to them. As Oreos pointed out above, Americans grow up knowing this "gateway language" and therefore lack a major incentive to become bilingual. Sure, we could learn Spanish and go work in faster growing economies, but I could write an entire post about why this wouldn't make sense for anyone that was doing it for reasons beyond intellectual curiosity (faster growing does not equal higher paying).

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

Not to try and hijack the thread, but how late is too late to really become fluent in a language? I speak Spanish on an intermediate level, but nowhere near professional fluency, especially when dealing with complexities that exist in transactions and financial data/statistics.

I'm wondering how much more time I have or if the window has passed. And no, I'm not in a position to just drop everything and move to Chile for a few years.

 
peinvestor2012:

Not to try and hijack the thread, but how late is too late to really become fluent in a language? I speak Spanish on an intermediate level, but nowhere near professional fluency, especially when dealing with complexities that exist in transactions and financial data/statistics.

I'm wondering how much more time I have or if the window has passed. And no, I'm not in a position to just drop everything and move to Chile for a few years.

Not at all. The only possible issue is that as you age, you'll need more time to comprehend thoroughly. I am currently in the process of learning Pashto, and dedication is key.

"Come at me, bro"- José de Palafox y Melci
 

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