Business languages in europe...

JLK   Sun Apr 01, 2007 9:35 pm GMT
I'm planning on majoring in business(finance) in college and then seeking employment in europe soon after. I've taken 4 years of french durring high school, but am considering switching to german in college. I know french is the language of diplomacy, but is german better for business? Germany has a much bigger economy. Supposing I achieved fluency in one of these languages, which one would be more useful in the job market?
eu   Mon Apr 02, 2007 7:40 pm GMT
what about English? This is the language of business! German is for tehnicians, for engineers!
Guest   Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:54 pm GMT
it depends where in Europe you plan to go !

If you go in France, French will be usefull, if you go to Germany german would be...
Josh Lalonde   Mon Apr 02, 2007 10:15 pm GMT
Obviously the choice is up to you, but I would recommend that you stick with French. Eight years of French would be more useful than four years each of French and German. After eight years in French, you should be fairly fluent, whereas only four years in German could still leave you uncomfortable in it. If you were on business trip, for example, you might not need a translator after eight years in French, but you probably still would after four years in German. French is more useful outside Europe too. It would probably be easier for you if you're a native English speaker.
Travis   Mon Apr 02, 2007 11:06 pm GMT
>>It would probably be easier for you if you're a native English speaker.<<

This one I have to disagree with, as while English, especially formal written Englsh, has many loanwords from French, English (and especially archaic English) syntax, morphology, and phonological are fundamentally closer to that of German, despite having lost much morphology that German has retained or even gained through analogy. German may have verb movement that English lacks through the combination of SOV and verb second, but they have more than plenty in common just through both being West Germanic languages.

If anything would make German more difficult than French to an English speaker aside from German having more inflectional morphology, it would be simply that much German literary vocabulary would not be familiar to the average English speaker due to it having been coined natively by German-speakers rather than borrowed from French or Latin. Mind you, though, that German actually still has plenty of French and Latin loanwords, albeit not as many as English or, to a lesser degree, Dutch.
JLK   Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:07 am GMT
EU: I'm a native english speaker, so I'm looking for another language that would be useful for business in europe.

Guest: Im thinking about going to switzerland after I graduate. German dominates the country. However, from what I hear, the local german dialects(Schwiizertüütsch) are unitelligble with standard german.

If I wanted to end up in zurich, should I bother with learning standard german?
eu   Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:52 am GMT
If you want to end up in Zurich, then go on German for 100%!

Viel Erfolg!
eu   Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:58 am GMT
I speak German, I was in Zurich, Luzern and didn't have any problem understanding the or speaking to the local people! If they sau that you are a foreigner, they would try to pronounce as clearley as possible.

With the peasents will be more difficult but after a longer exposer, you will understand their dialect as well...

Good luck!
JLK   Tue Apr 03, 2007 2:01 am GMT
But I would have to learn the dialect wouldn't I? My swiss friends tell me that the average swiss german is much more confident in speaking english than hoch deutch.
Josh Lalonde   Tue Apr 03, 2007 3:15 am GMT
Yes, Swiss German is very different from Standard German, and it also varies from canton to canton. However, almost all writing is done in Standard German, so most Swiss have a good knowledge of it. I think in the cities Standard German is more common, but I don't know for sure.
Back to the relative difficulties of German and French: I don't know that much about German, but it seems to me that all the things that anglophones find difficult in French are also in German: verb conjugation, gender and agreement, etc. On top of that, German has case and a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary. I think German pronunciation might be a little easier, since there are no nasalized vowels, and German spelling must be easier than French too.
Guest   Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:23 am GMT
@JLK

Yes, if you want to live there for a long time, you will have to learn at least the basics of the local dialect - *after* you have learnt Standard German. You cannot learn a dialect only, without learning the language that's the base of it. That would work in no language.
Like Josh said, the written language is Hochdeutsch (with some Swiss originalities). Schwyzertütsch is only spoken but normally not written. For comedy purposes maybe, but not for regular writings, especially in business.
L'italofilo   Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:56 am GMT
What I prefer as follows:


1, British English

2, Standard German

3, Standard French

4, Standard Italian