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A third language to learn?

#21
Thank you all for your inputs, which are indeed very helpful. Many of you suggest Spanish, which reinforced my determination… you never know when it will come in handy and it won’t hurt to learn a beautiful language. :) I’m planning to brush up my Spanish starting with some free Podcast subscription. Still at an infant’s level but I’ll make progress.

In fact for a Chinese native, Japanese will be within your reach once you mastered the alphabets. But considering that I don’t have much sitting-down study time, the writing and reading seem impossible to learn on-the-go. I learned English by years of extensive listening, and I plan to do so as well with Spanish. One of the reason I chose Spanish is that it’s alphabet system is similar to English, once you know how it is pronounced, you might be able to spell it out. When it comes to Japanese and Chinese this is impossible if you barely know the sounds. Even native speakers forget words from time to time if you haven’t write them down on paper, not to mention some really rare ones.

Actually I’m from Taiwan. As jobs are being relocated to lower-cost countries, working abroad became something to consider. I’m still waiting for opportunities to emerge.
 
#24
from a strategic point of view, you already got the most important languages down. I think Spanish was a good decision, as you cover pretty much all of South and Central America with that. and from Spanish to Portuguese is a small step.

is knowing how to speak 4 out of the 6 most used languages in the world enough for you?
 
#28
bassmanwho said:
Chinese is my native tongue and I've learned English as a second language. I have very rudimentary understanding of Japanese and a newborn baby's proficiency in Spanish. Those two don't count as languages that I'm able to speak.

I've started with a bit of Spanish but I don't know if it is my best choice from a business standpoint since at the time being my work is largely based in an Asian country where Chinese is spoken as an official language. A career change to sales might be on the way so I want to expend my horizon and to be able to reach potential prospects with languages that they feel more familiar and friendly. I'm narrowing down my choices to either Spanish or French since they are two of the most influential languages in the world now.

So here is my question: What's the best third language to learn for utilitarian purposes for a guy like me? Thank you for your opinions.:hyper:
Click to expand...

As someone who specializes in learning languages (Japanese and classical Latin) that have for most people no utility whatsoever I'm probably the wrong person to be answering this.

I'd say if you're thinking of working with people in the Americas go for Spanish. Otherwise French.
 
#29
Good luck with the Spanish! I speak some Spanish myself and its great fun. Like the Americans here, you may have some difficulties with the R sounds, but some tongue gymnastics once in a while should help.
 
#31
Just a few thoughts on German.

If you have a strong command of English, you will find that German and English have quite a lot in common especially regarding vocabulary...and I'm not talking about these silly Anglisisms we have.
Some people consider German a rather complicated language and in terms of grammar, I'm afraid, this seems to be very true if you're not a native speaker......might wanna check Mark Twain's essay on the "awful German language" :)

I taught German as a foreign language in England for almost a year and even the more advanced students who had been studying it for 3-4 years had a hard time understanding the cases and the constantly changing word endings and articles.
German is a highly inflected language, which makes it very different from English in terms of grammar (not vocabulary).
Lots of younger folks here speak and write half-way decent English, so businesswise one usually can get along quite well without any profound German knowledge.

In a nutshell, I'd probably go for Spanish and maybe a bit German on the side.

French used to be very popular in secondary school education here, but that has changed quite a bit. Lots of schools offer Spanish, Italian, Russian. Especially Spanish is getting more and more popular.

Regarding the "5 for 1" if you learn Russian: I have a friend who's originally from Ukraine and she speaks German, Polish, Ukrainian and Russian. According to her there are considerable differences between Ukr. and Russ.

Just my 2 cents.
 
#34
No doubt that Spanish is widely spoken, but is it that relevant when it comes to business? Germany is after all the flagship of Europe.. Just a thought.
Spain will most likely go bancrupt ..and latin amerika..i dont know.
 
#35
odin70 said:
No doubt that Spanish is widely spoken, but is it that relevant when it comes to business? Germany is after all the flagship of Europe.. Just a thought.
Spain will most likely go bancrupt ..and latin amerika..i dont know.
Click to expand...

These are good points, IMO. In fact, as far as Latin America goes, it might make more sense to learn Portuguese than Spanish since Brazil's importance is likely to increase.
 
#38
I read several books about foreign languages years ago just for the fun of it. One point that stood out is the popularity and prestige of French. However, if someone learns French, he needs to learn it well. Learning to speak and write letter-perfect French would be advisable.
 

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