Question.

hi. I'm thinking of learning one of these languages at uni, my major study subject will be business studies.

Japanese
Finnish
spanish
french

Does anyone know which one would probably be most useful? I have learnt french up to and including AS level (got grade C) and spanish up to and inc GCSE (got grade B) However i'm not sure if i should expand on both of these or just one, or pick up on a new language. I also am not sure on the difficulty of finnish and Japanese. i hear Japanese is quite hard?

Does anyone also have a list of the most useful languages for business?

Cheers for ANY help. :smile:

Reply 1

BovineBeast

Well, Finnish would be totally useless (most of them speak English), and rather challenging, but I think it would be great fun.

Japanese, Spanish, and French, however, would all be useful, depending on what you want to do, where you want to work, etc. etc. Japanese *is* hard, but I like a language to be a challenge. I'd go for Japanese simply because it's the most interesting.

Reply 2

Gael

German's a good one for business. I also hear chinese is the language to learn nowadays but it's bare hard. out of those four i'd do japanese because the amount of french graduates is quite large these days.

Reply 3

Gravastar

ffaf

Japanese or Chinese would both be useful for business, especially the latter, but be aware that they take a lot of work, and you're not likely to reach anything like near native fluency if you're only doing it as a subsidiary course - but then again, if it's for a specific purpose then you're not exactly going to need to discuss the finer points of feudal reform in China, so it may well be sufficient.

I think I remember Cardiff doing a good optional course in Japanese for Business students.

Reply 4

Mikharper

Im applying for Business + Japanese, if that helps. Go with the one that you think you can throw yourself into the most!

Reply 5

Debs

It's all down to personal preference really. What one would you prefer doing? I'm sure you have one you favour over the others.

Joint honours degrees are demanding though so I'd really go for a language you're either passionate about or at least interested in. I'm doing Business and Japanese (just reread your post saying that you'd be majoring in business, same still applies though)

Reply 6

Cunning Linguist

I think Finnish is finished (yes i know, lame!)

out of the other three, i would choose Japanese if you want something slightly more challenging, and spanish if you want something easier to become fluent in.

Reply 7

mrteacher

spanish - as more people in more countries around the world speak it, or french. definitely not finnish. what would be the business use of that?

Reply 8

kellywood_5

Definitely not Finnish. If you want to work in Europe, French would be good and you have the added advantage of already knowing it to AS level. If you're looking to work further afield, especially in Latin America, Spanish would be a good choice and again you already know it to GCSE level. Japanese might be fairly useful, but Chinese is better for business and both of those languages would probably be much harder to get to a god level in. Personally I'd go for French or Spanish, but choose one you'll enjoy.

Reply 9

Piggsil

Finnish is a rubbish business language, so much so that kids there are made to learn Swedish in school, because that's the only way they'll get a job in the future!

Reply 10

BovineBeast

Becca

Finnish is a rubbish business language, so much so that kids there are made to learn Swedish in school, because that's the only way they'll get a job in the future!

This isn't true. The reason Finns learn Swedish in school is that it's one of the official languages of Finland, because they have a significant (around 10%, I think) Swedish-speaking minority. No, they learn English to get a job.

Sorry, me and my nitpicking. But learn Finnish anyway, because, if it's anything like Estonian (its closest major relative), it's a bloody fantastic language.

Reply 11

Piggsil

BovineBeast

OK....I was only quoting what my Finnish friend said to me. :redface:

They learn English too, obviously, but acoording to my friend you cannot get any kind of non-manual labour type job without Swedish.
And I wasn't saying that nobody should bother learning Finnish, I said it was rubbish for business. I like Finnish! So many double letters! :biggrin: