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Choosing between languages related to International Business
Small Switzerland 15 top 500 companies
Large Italy only 10 The Swiss showing is impressive "Spain + Mexico + Venezuela +USA = 157" You Hispanics aren't even decently pathetic
Repeat because somebody don't understand nothing. Spanish is spoken in 18 of 150 richest cities(by GDP)in the World. But Spanish+Portuguese in 28 of them. That was in 2.005,an now maybe 32 cities for Spanish+Portuguese,22 for English,11 all chinese languages,4 French,...etc.; and Spanish GDP total in the World is at 4'3 trillion+1'2 of USA hispanics+1'8 of Lusophony=7'3 trillion Dollars. French is at 3 trillion and English at 17'5. That is all.
German French and along with italian have very little room to grow. They have millions of their own speakers who speak English as well your not gaining much by learning their languages in terms of busniness. Keep in mind i'm learning german and would be learning French if it wasn't shrinking in importance.
The countries of Groth are China, indian, russian, brazil, mexico, argentina, indonesia, and the gulf region(depending on price of oil and internal politics). The major important languages of these groups are Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, and portuguese. Of course these countries are starting off from nowhere and that's where you can come in. Russia has a unique economy and it's very specific what you can be involved in. Portuguese is limited to Angola(major African growh doubling within ten years) and Brazil the powerhouse of the America's. Spanish of course is uncertain, it's future is reliant on whether or not southern europe/brazil/usa decide to enbrace it. Either way a fourtune can be made with it, even if it's selling soap to illegals. Mandarin is set to be the power house of East Asia, and maybe/possibly get influence in Afriaca. It's very useful to learn, as there are a small//very small group of people around the world who are actually fluently billangual.
Switzerland is only known for its chocolat industry and banks whose money comes from terrorism, prostitution, taxes evasion , etc. On the other hand Italy is known for its vast amounts of artistic treasures, fine cuisine, fashion, nice landscapes,... And last but not least, Italian economy , specially in the North is driven by small to middle sized companies, not big ones, but that also operate in foreign countries. That list of big companies is bullshit and only a dumb (or a French for the matter) would believe it reflects the economic importance of countries.
Southern Italy, on the other hand, is mafia infested and full of the most smelly and ungrateful of immigrants. But it's true that 'civilized Italy' deserves to be appreciated.
Would you crotch sniffers give it a rest. No one cares that you've smelt every asshole in Europe/Mexico
To those who consider this conversation useful. This banter is ridiculous. None of you are making sound arguments, with all this BS such as "French is Dead", "English is Dead". None of you know what you are talking about. I hope you are all amusing yourself. However, be aware that none of you are making any coherent arguments at all. I hope you are happy that you are wasting your prcious lives spewing worthless poppycock drivel and making false assumptions and claims.
To the person who thinks "Hate is a human right and should be expressed", perhaps you should channel your hate into more worthwhile tasks. It might be more useful. Everyone knows the GDP figures, the GDP growth figures and the GDP projections. If you want to know the high value languages of tommorow that have the most GDP and Speaker growth, learn the following. 1)Chinese 2)Spanish 3)Russian 4)Portuguese 5) Arabic 6) Korean Of course, English comes first. Chinese or Spanish will never replace English. Whoever thinks that is absolutley crazy!!! First of all Chinese is too difficult for westerners to learn (the average). Spanish is not global enough. You won't find Arabs in the Gulf speaking Spanish to an Indian for example. English will continue to the be global language, and all you hispanophiles will have to deal with it.
Chinese wouldn't be too difficult when it well be associated with money and when literally everyone is learning is. Non-IE people also learn English because they know it brings them far. Of course, difficult languages exist, but then you degrade them to primitive vernacular forms.
Still, as of yet it's possible for the common person to ignore Chinese and remain successful. The western world is still the most innovative thanks to our individualism, as of yet, that is. It's "too difficult for the retarded masses" is a weapon linguistic imperialists use all the time, even when difficult language do exist. They also say: Anglophones and Francophones are handicapped and total losers when it comes at language learning. It is repeated and repeated day after day, years after year, and many of them eventually end up believing it. I understand there's no necessity, but technical difficulty. I don't think so. Imagine, tomorrow, China would become the most innovative country in the world on all surfaces (sciences, arts, economy,... name it). We'd do best to keep the common masses in contact with Chinese culture, as they did with French and English cultures before. If you keep million and million of people in contact with the Chinese language from childhood on a daily basis, they WILL learn it. Where I live people used hear French on a daily basis 50 years ago. Only now when that has disappeared is the schooled younger population almost incapable to expressing themselves properly in French. English however, which they pretty much throw arround our ears, everyone already has a basis of before getting it at school.
<<Spanish is not global enough. You won't find Arabs in the Gulf speaking Spanish to an Indian for example. English will continue to the be global language, and all you hispanophiles will have to deal with it.>>
Almost all you have said has sense, and in this forum is amazing. Anyway, if the predictions of Red Echelon and other people are true, we are in 2050 in a World with a similar GDP for Chinese speakers, Anglo speakers and Spanish speakers. So, it would depend on other countries to have the most important world language. Spanish depends on Hispanics in USA (almost a 33% of USA population in 2050), Brazil, Spain, Mexico, South America, France and Italy. If ALL of them bet for Spanish, it can be the most important World language by 2050. All of them have similar languages and all of them would benefit of that. Do you think that China, Russia, Arabic people or Japan are fans of the English language? If other language is the most important, they study another one. The same for Chinese, if ALL Asia bet for this language, but I doubt that Japan and India prefer Chinese. The languages are not similar at all. So, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia or India don't care about Chinese. Anyway, French was the most important language in 1900. The same for English in 2000. I am not sure which one will be the most important in 2100, but it can be English, Spanish or Chinese...
<< French was the most important language in 1900 >>
-- I don't think so. English predominance started much earlier than generally stated. IMO the 1770's were a pivotal moment. All French intellectuals (including Voltaire in his latter years) began to learn English, to read Shakespeare's works and to imitate English novels.
I'm not that at home on western cultural history as you are, PARISIEN, but how much were for instance the French or German influences on the English elites? Wasn't there more of a mutual reproduction when it came to arts? Avant-gardists, wherever they came from from the cultural capitals of that era, were copied for whoever had a sharp eye for them. Already playing a major role in the French society, how dominant was English in that regard?
Not only on the domain of arts, but for other domains I am inclined to think that certain languages benefited from their prestige. I know for instance that English scientists studied German until far in the XXth century.
If the Chinese were to devise a phonetic script, I think there would be a huge uptake in learning Mandarin. 4000+ squiggly shapes to just get literate is too much for most people.
The Japanese tried, and failed, with hiragana and katakana. They failed on two counts, because they still retain their Kanji symbols anyway, and they devised two scripts, ascribing one of them (katakana) to imported words in the main. I do think those squiggly shapes look cool though, and no doubt the Chinese do as well. They'll never change it, most likely. There's little point in learning Spanish if it's just for a business edge; you'll never compete with the millions of American bilinguals. Mandarin will take decades to get fluent. French is only good for one big economy: France (since most Canadians can speak English). If you like Brazil, learn Br Portuguese; If you like Russia, then learn Russian: those languages might just give you an edge if you're lucky. By all means learn a language because you like how it sounds or you want to travel or live somewhere it is spoken. But if it's really only for business, and business alone that's not a good enough reason. If that's the case you might as well just stick with English and see how things pan out.
Not annoyed Tue Feb 16, 2010 6:05 pm GMT
very good point. Trying to predict the future of languages is very complex. Spanish will either either become lingua franca of the romance countries or it won't it won't just happen naturally. As fair as mandarin. Don't underestimate it. Of course it will have little influence on any country east of bengladesh, or india. but east Asia has 2 billion people. There are only two regions there at the moment and thats english, and japanese. But aren't strongly embracing either.You guys gotta realize that China is growing super super fast. It can have a huge influence in the orient. It's doubling it's wealth every decade. It can't be understated how much this could change east asia. Arabs/west asia have no great love for english there pretty neutral. Africa i think will be more neutral as well, they favour where the moneys coming from. India will be the power of english most likley. Russia I think if it can continue it's growth will stay russian, and be like germany is now, somewhat able to speak english but not dependant. That leaves just Northern America//and northern europe. Only about 600 million people, granted by far the richest.
Between Russian, Arabic, German or Japanese, which would u say is the most important language to learn in terms of global business, culture and job prospects?
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