Linguistics in Business

[Anonymous No.138373]

What would /biz/ recommend as a language to learn to open up opportunities in the business world? Not great at math, so I think learning 2 or 3 languages would do someone like me good.

[Anonymous No.138435]

>>138373
Chinese, Portuguese, & Arabic or german

[Anonymous No.138470]

>>138435
>Chinese
Stop recommending chinese just because you hear it parroted.

There are a goddamn gazillion Chinese immigrants abroad that speak both mandarin and whatever destination country language. Their children will also speak the new home country's language perfectly and usually have a grasp of Chinese as well. A lot of them are even fully literate due to being sent to Chinese school on weekends.

You retarded 老外 speaking broken chinese aren't going to be opening any doors that aren't already chock full of Chinese immigrants and their kids. The effort required to learn Chinese is enormous, learn a skill that's less over saturated.

[Anonymous No.138485]

>>138373
>Not great at math
No, suck it up. If you want to become successful, you have to learn math.

[Anonymous No.138488]

>>138470
What about Japanese? (Not because I'm an otaku or anything b-baka)

[Anonymous No.138508]

Depends entirely on whatever industry you're in.

Once you've picked the industry, learn the language of whatever place is up and coming.

Although to toss a few around; Indonesian, Arabic and Spanish

[Anonymous No.138517]

>>138488

Japanese pronunciation and structure is really straightforward. Only hard part is remembering Kanji

[Anonymous No.138531]

>>138488

japan won't grow anymore, at least until the world starts building gundams

they have pretty much achieved the pinnacle of society, no crime, good health, good education

[Anonymous No.138546]

>>138508
I'm in SE what would be the best language?

[Anonymous No.138544]

>>138485
I know basic math on every level up until what I am learning now, a junior in college and I have already taken algebra. Now I have the chance to continue with more advanced algebra, or take calculus. But that said, I still am not great nor do I enjoy it. I just want a job that doesn't require a lot of math. Of course still some math involved.

[Anonymous No.138567]

English

[Anonymous No.138612]

>>138488
Depends entirely on what your purpose is.

It could help you get a job at Japanese companies in the US like Toyota, Nintendo, etc... depending on the position. But then again, those positions don't -really- pay a whole lot more than a job that doesn't require Japanese, you might just have slightly less competition. Of course, your Japanese level will have to be commensurate.

To be honest, if you already know English there aren't really a whole lot of languages that will lead to a clear advantage when you consider the opportunity cost. There are better ways to spend thousands of hours studying.

[Anonymous No.138615]

German, Russian and Arabic. There's hormones in Japan's water to make them all gay, so that society is done.

[Anonymous No.138633]

>>138373
Language undergrad here. I speak 5 languages.

For business, it depends.
>For Asia
Mandarin, no question
>For Europe
You'll get away with English, but to make yourself useful learn German, Russian, or arguably Italian (in more demand than you'd think)
>South America
Spanish/ Portugese, obviously
>Africa
French, or maybe Swahili if you REALLY wanted to distinguish yourself
>Middle East
Arabic

Again, depends where you want ot end up

[Anonymous No.138656]

>>138633
>>Mandarin, no question
Fuck no, stop. Stop stop stop stop.

Some Chinese-American kid will always do circles around you in both Chinese and English. Don't do this to yourself.

[Anonymous No.138677]

>>138656
I still don't agree, considering there is enough prejudice that every pure blood Chinese I know has to get an English name just to get hired. Wouldn't being a white guy who can speak Chinese be more desirable.

[Anonymous No.138683]

>>138373
spanish is underrated. you would be surprised how many people say that can speak spanish but can't speak it for shit (including hispanics that were born in the USA).

if you got an american passport, a degree in some business crap, and you are fluent in spanish you are going to be a good candidate for a job. maybe even more so than one of those "hard" languages because those countries where the hard languages are spoken are typically xenophobic as shit and would rather talk about you without you understanding what they are saying.

the language alone isn't going to help you unless you get to native level and you just want to be an interpreter. That would probably take about 4-8 years depending on how hard you study, and it may never happen. Even then you will be discriminated against because your non-native appearance will hurt your credibility. You might be an asset to show off at dinners or something though.

you are going to have to be able to network in that language as well, which means getting along in the culture, that is another skill in and of itself.

I know I'm rambling here but i am coming close to being fluent in a hard language at this point and i'm trying to figure out what i will do with it. admittedly, it isn't the free ride i thought it would be. right now it looks like i will be working in an area that doesn't speak the language i learned, because i have worked in that area before and i understand the business culture. the irony.

[Anonymous No.138716]

>>138656
>implying I am american

Also, I did Mandarin as half of my undergrad, and have lived in China. Trust me when I say I know the demand for white people who speak it- western companies can't trust chinese to do shit, they need howaito to go over there to have the company's back

[Anonymous No.138736]

>>138716
>howaito
Is Japanese but I still agree

[Anonymous No.138749]

>>138544
In that case, I'd recommend that you take calculus even if you don't intend on getting a math-heavy job. It opens you up to a whole new level of understanding. Basically, there are people who don't know arithmetic, people who don't know algebra, and then people who don't know calculus. You don't want to be stuck on the second tier.

[Anonymous No.138750]

>>138736
Sorry, ex-/int/ here.

Howaito is the general term for white-pig-in-asia there

[Anonymous No.138751]

>>138677
>>I still don't agree
Based on what? Absolutely nothing?

I know an HSK5 level white Chinese speaker and it's not helping him get jobs for shit.

Unless you've got yellow fever and your ultimate goal is to go live in China, Korea, or Japan. Don't even think about touching those languages. The amount of time and energy required for business level fluency could be much better applied to something else.

>>138716
>half of undergrad
So what, you can say wo ai ni? What HSK level are you? Do you realize you're worth crap unless you're actually good?

[Anonymous No.138776]

>>138633
what languages do you know?

what are good resources for learning new languages?

[Anonymous No.138784]

>>138751
>So what, you can say wo ai ni?

When I say it was half my undergrad, I mean it was a joint honours between mandarin and french. I spent my year abroad in Shanghai

Got HSK4 pretty comfortably.

Just missed HSK5 at the end of my undergrad, so I'm aiming to take it again in a few months, been letting my level slide during postgrad.

Yeah obviously you're not worth shit until your good, but you don't get good overnight

>I know an HSK5 level white Chinese speaker and it's not helping him get jobs for shit.

Depends what jobs he's going for. I only have HSK4 and its helping me loads

[Anonymous No.138786]

>>138751
I agree with what you are saying, but am I wrong in assuming a lot of American companies believe the hype too and would just hire some body off the hunch China is going to make something happen?

[Anonymous No.138793]

>>138373
Totally depends on what you want to go into. If you live in us, spanish is a good investnent regardless.

[Anonymous No.138795]

>>138776
>English
Native
>Irish (Gaelic)
Irishfag here, my irish is pretty fluent
>French
Decent
>Mandarin
Decent (bit rusty now due to lack of chance to practice during postgrad)
>Dutch
Intermediate. My gf is dutch, so learning it from her

Go to /int/ and check the sticky, there's tons of shit in there.

[Anonymous No.138831]

>>138795
thanks I'll check it out

[Anonymous No.138836]

>>138776
OP here. I am learning Mandarin now, started around 3 months ago. I agree that the language is hard, but most of the difficulty is in the writing/reading. Speaking is actually easy once you crack the tones. I would like to learn another language as well.

For language partners, I have used ItalkI and InterNations. I'm sure there are many more. For a learning program, I am using LingQ. It works very well.

[Anonymous No.138844]

>>138836
Interpals is a handy one.

The threads for it on /int/ have turned into a bit of a circlejerk, but the site itself is great for language learning imo

[Anonymous No.139029]

>>138435
>portuguese
Why?

[Anonymous No.139038]

>>139029
B.R.I.C

Brazil, Russia, India, China. They say those are the next four countries to develop rapidly.

[Anonymous No.139242]

>>139038
I'm huehue myself and that's why I'm asking. Brazilian's growth in the past few years wasn't so good, Brazil's GDP is mainly consumption with little investment due to high taxes, interest rate 11% and costs in general, yet it still is a huge market now with more than 200 million inhabitants, I wouldn't be too hyped nor demotivated about our economical future. imho Dilma is everything that is wrong with my country and will probably be reelected this year. There aren't any otheer countries that could justify the time you'd spend in learning in besides Portugal, but even then Portugal is not that big and I believe most of them already know English.

[Anonymous No.140240]

This picture isn't completely correct.
Korean is relatively easy to learn, I mean it has its own alphabet.

[OrthodoxJew !!2b5Co+cfw7S No.140266]

You should learn Hebrew, OP. Why didn't you invest in Eastern Jerusalem?

[Anonymous No.140297]

If you study engineering or work at engineering jobs you should learn German.

[Anonymous No.140565]

>>138488
If you plan on starting a western style business there.
Never work for a backwards Japanese company nor invest in any of them. They're all doomed to fail. マジよ

[Anonymous No.140596]

>>138546
C++, Python, Racket, AMD64, ARM

[Anonymous No.140602]

>>138373
spanish or standard chinese

[Anonymous No.140646]

>>140240
This, Each letter looks like it sounds. No tonal crap. Korean is one of the easiest languages to learn.

[Anonymous No.140641]

If you are American hands down Spanish

[Anonymous No.140671]

>>140297
This; I hear engineers are practically being kidnapped over there by firms.

So regretting not learning German in high school. Italian is worthless.

[Anonymous No.140680]

>>138373
Burmese, their rapid reform program means they'll be opening up to investment soon, if you can be one of the first you'll be rich.

[Anonymous No.140726]

>tfw when great at learning languages
>tfw have learned 3 at intermediate-ish level
>tfw the best way to advance would be to meet people
>tfw only do so when other people force me into it

Language is a social skill. Why do I love it so much when I'm so asocial?

[Anonymous No.140953]

>>140646
have you studied korean?

you are obviously here to draw me out, no?

[Anonymous No.141058]

>>140726
Art and knowledge. Smart people are often misanthropes.

[Anonymous No.142874]

>German is the closest language to English
>it's not even on the chart

[Anonymous No.142888]

>>138633
No point learning Swahili. Everyone in Uganda speaks English, and anyone worth their salt in Kenya speaks English.

[Anonymous No.142891]

>>138373

MFW german is not on this picture, at all, what the fuck?

[Anonymous No.142940]

>>138470
I'm with this, there's such a large amount of chinese people fluent in both chinese and english that even though it's useful it's not useful enough to justify the massive effort of learning 1,000's of characters and learning to pronounce the tones without sounding like a retarded child

[Anonymous No.142949]

>>142891
>>142874
German's halfway between the easy and medium group on the full list since they judge the cases and 3 genders to make it more complex than French or Spanish which are considerably easier

[Anonymous No.142974]

>>142949
where can i find the full list?

[Anonymous No.142979]

>>142949
Personally, I find German far, far easier than French. Language can be like that, I guess.

[Anonymous No.142982]

>>138751

As someone who has worked in China and knows plenty of American (and European) expats in Shanghai, I sort of agree and sort of don't agree

That OP picture is bullshit, but only because it uses misleading terms. "language proficiency" could extend to only being able to order fried rice at a local restaurant (and honestly, if you've ever studied a language and tried to use it you can relate). But if you want to be at the level that working in a fully Chinese office environment would require you're looking at 4 hours a day for 4 years of Chinese language study, for someone from a 100% pure English only background.

The reason I agree with >>138751 is that after those 4 years, you're only going to be making maybe ~5k more than your American counterparts, or maybe even less than them. For all the time spent, you're not really getting all that much (but you will easily get a job at a Chinese company)

With how well higher-educated Chinese are learning English these days, it's completely viable for an American company to just send someone who only speaks English over there to do the major work, and hire them an English speaking assistant for 750 usd/mo (4000 rmb/mo is the avg earning of a university educated university grad in Shanghai)

As for the original discussion, saying "proficient in <language>" may be cool on a resume, but unless you're willing to put in 4 years of hard work (seriously, hard work), or were lucky enough to be taught it when you were growing up, it's unlikely to achieve the fluency required for any serious work in that language. If the end goal is just opening opportunities, there are much better uses of your time.

[Anonymous No.143026]

>>142979
To be fair i haven't studied german and i'm taking someone else's work for it. I had a similar thing after i heard a load of people tell me that spanish and french are both as difficult but i found spanish a ridiculous amount easier than french, i learnt at like 3 times the rate i did french

[Anonymous No.143029]

>>142874
From what I understand, Dutch and Danish are actually a bit closer to English than German, especially in terms of phonetics. But I am surprised that German isn't on the chart. It probably falls somewhere between easy and medium.

[Anonymous No.143040]

>>142974
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers
German is at the bottom in the 'other languages' section

[Anonymous No.143083]

>>138656
I think this is a thing in Britain, I've heard that it's pretty much impossible for an english kid to get an A at Advanced Level Chinese because there are so many chinese kids pushing up that grade boundries

[Anonymous No.143154]

So /biz/...

German or Russian, ya think for an engineering/science fag with nuclear operations experience?

[Anonymous No.143183]

>>143154
Difference between the two is probably marginal, i went to Russia for a week earlier this month and it only took me a few hours to learn the Cyrillic alphabet and when there realized they used a reasonable amount of cognates from english. Just go for which one has the most opportunities rather than language difficultly

[Anonymous No.143188]

PROTIP: check your local community college for language classes they are usually extremely affordable

[Anonymous No.143194]

>>142874

german is pretty hard the romans never conquered them and introduced logic into their language

[Anonymous No.143784]

English and Computer languages are the only valuable ones.
Any learned person in a non english dominant country speaks English

[Anonymous No.144992]

English is the language of business. No other language is worth learning unless its for recreation.

[Anonymous No.145074]

Is there any language where the words are all absolutely phonetic? I cannot into spelling and homonyms in English.

[Anonymous No.146875]

bamp

Anyone have any other perspectives on >>143154?

[Anonymous No.147732]

I took German in college, I don't think it will do me any good since I'm not an engineer or scat-porn director.

If I was to take a language now these would be my top choices:

>Polish, Czech
The real emerging markets, ex-commie countries with good, open economies.

>Greek, Latin
The classic education. Knowing one of these will give you a better understanding of English etymology, and you'll be better spoken for it. People will think you're smarter and your bosses will like you more. Greek might become useful in itself if they (Greece) ever cleans up their act.

>French
Chicks dig it. Lol.

[Anonymous No.147952]

>>145074
>phonetic
99.99% Japanese (with the small handful of exceptions は/へ/おねえ/とおる/おおじ)

>No homonyms
Absolutely not Japanese.

Did you mean not heterographic

[Anonymous No.148059]

I learned Spanish because latina chicks are fucking hot. Business wise, I've found the greatest benefit of knowing Spanish to be speaking with janitors. Janitors know everything that is going on, even if they don't understand why it's important.

[Anonymous No.148114]

That's not even proper Japanese on the top-left corner of the image, is it? I've never seen anyone make a structure like 話す日本語

[Anonymous No.148147]

>>145074
What is japanese

[Anonymous No.148816]

>>139038
This is fucking old news already. Rouseff is fucking up Brazil. India is not much better with all the capricious populist policy backsliding. Russia's economy is entirely dependent on energy export and the shale gas revolution in the US is threatening to undermine that. China is in the midst of transitioning towards a consumption-based economy and it's still up in the air whether they will be able to successfully pull off a soft landing. A slowdown in Chinese growth will affect commodity exporters like Brazil and Russia.

[Anonymous No.148835]

>>142874

FYI modern English is nothing like old English, in case you didn't notice.

English and German are vastly different and you're fucking stupid.

With that said. I was surprised it wasn't on the chart too.

[Anonymous No.148897]

I live in Taiwan and I think Chinese isn't that useful.

I have lots of friends (white) who are totally fluent in Chinese and they don't have better jobs or better pay or better opportunities from what I've seen.

There are millions of well-educated Chinese (or HKers or Taiwanese) who speak English already. You're competing with these people and they've been learning English since elementary school or earlier. And Chinese is one of the hardest languages to learn.

[Anonymous No.148908]

>>138836
Mandarin gets easier, trust me. The hardest part is getting comfortable with the fundamentals. Once you learn them, the amount of variation in the language falls off pretty quickly, and its just a case of learning more vocab and some little grammar points.

The writing gets easier too. After a while you'll be able to write a new character after just a glance. Learn the radicals and download Pleco

[Anonymous No.148912]

>>140726
Same thing here. I got past it though, now I can chat to strangers no problem.

Essentially, when learning languages, one of the most important things is to never be afraid of making a complete tool of yourself, just accept that its going to happen, a lot. However, by making a complete ass of yourself by butchering the language time and time again, you'll get bettr and better, and one day people will be amazed at your level.

Also, here's a protip: get a gf who speaks the language as her first language. It's unlimited practice time with someone who you want to impress, and who has the patience for your mistakes

[Anonymous No.148914]

>>142874
Frisian and Dutch are much closer

[Anonymous No.148937]

>>148897
>I live in Taiwan and I think Chinese isn't that useful.

Taipei engrish teacher pls go.

[Anonymous No.148974]

If you're 'Murican I'd say learn Spanish for the south, French if you live near Quebec.

So much business is conducted in English that unless you intend to live in the rural section of a country where they only speak ǁXegwi you'll probably be fine.
Otherwise just learn what you want. What Chinese I know is proving useful for my job, but my Japanese completely useless.

[Anonymous No.150256]

>>147732
wtf is this....latin? no.

[Anonymous No.150300]

>>143188

>Go to local CC and take Chinese
>It's online
>The lecturer sends me to activechinese.com and tells me to pay them 65 us dollars for their online class
>Thats it
>Email lecturer one time and ask for the difference in pronunciation for 早 and 找 (my family is Shanghainese so there is no difference for us)
>"One is pronounced zao and one is zhao"

Great use of my $650

[Anonymous No.150587]

>>150300
>activechinese.com
This site looks awful.

[pete pe No.150646]

>>148897
China is a gold mine right now, Chinese is super useful.

Nothing been fully established yet, so opportunities everywhere.

[Anonymous No.150741]

Emerging markets languages will be useful - Russian, Spanish, Chinese.

Also, bullshit chart is bullshit. I never understand why people keep calling Japanese hard. It's not. Kanji is the only thing that could be called difficult, but even they are not hard, it just takes some work. The grammar and pronunciation are simple.

[Anonymous No.150842]

>>150741
As a native Spanish speaker i think jap is rather easy. Korean too, but why in the fuck would anyone want to learn korean?
Mandarin is not too bad either.

[Anonymous No.150866]

>>148114
Makes more sense in a spoken spoken context:
話す、 日本語(を/は)?

[Anonymous No.150890]

>>150842
Native Finnish speaker here, and I thought Japanese was easy and intuitive. The only thing I would call difficult is not what you say, but what you don't say. Japanese is not explicit in comparison to western languages, and you leave a lot of things unsaid. Those must be understood from the context, and for that you need to understand Japanese culture.

[Anonymous No.150920]

programming languages has the most economic value prove me wrongs

[Anonymous No.150924]

>>150890
same goes for mandarin, the best way to make the language usable is actually travel to the country and learn their culture, and how it relates to the language.

[Anonymous No.150929]

>>138373
There is no point in learning a language for business if you already know English.

English is the lingua franca of the world. Learning Engish and English alone is all you need for business.

Learning any other language is near-useless for opportunities.

If you want to do a job overseas, languages make no difference. Highly-skilled jobs will require English alone. Anything else and you're competing against the locals which means you need fluency (note: fluent does NOT mean native-level).

Now compare the time it takes for you to learn a language to that level compared to doing studies in your chosen career. Learning a language to fluency takes about the same amount of time as the top level Cisco qualification or the CFA or CIMA or something like that.

These qualifications will carry you much further than learning another language.

Any anyone who wants to do global business will speak in the international business language, English.

Languages are great for other reasons, but not for business (apart form English).

[Anonymous No.150943]

>>150929
Hey there, enjoying high school so far? Excited about making it to junior after the summer?

[Anonymous No.150941]

>>150300
>Chinese professor
>conman

What did you expect?

[Anonymous No.151006]

>>150741
>>150842
any of you dumbasses actually speak korean or japanese? i get the impression you have dabbled in them but never actually used them in a business setting.

I might be wrong, but you don't sound like you know wtf you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.151034]

>>151006
You would indeed be wrong. I speak Japanese, though not fluently. What makes you think you know wtf you are talking about?

[Anonymous No.151051]

>Written Korean also relies on many Chinese characters

No it fucking doesn't. This info graphic is filled to the brim with shit. Nobody has used Hanja for 500+ years so unless you plan on being a Korean historian you only have to learn Hangul. Which is 20 characters.

also:
>implying Norwegian isn't also a tonal language

[Anonymous No.151076]

>>150842
>why in the fuck would anyone want to learn korean?

Because Korea is a business hotbed right now?

And some of us want to praise the Great Reader properry

[Anonymous No.151101]

>>151006
I speak both as learning both is complimentary. I've never used Japanese in a business setting because of a cultural aversion to non natives speaking the language. However, Koreans really do appreciate the gesture and it helps smooth out confusion

[Anonymous No.151110]

>>151034
>>151101
yeah neither of you know what the fuck you are talking about. call me when you get fluent, until then you might want to stick to studying the language instead of talking about how easy it is.

[Anonymous No.151122]

>>151006
I speak mandarin, Spanish, English
only shit that really matters unless you got business in japan or Korea. Both of these countries are saturated, china is worse, china has been growing and moving to other countries, fucking going global.


There is an Asian country that nobody knows of, and there are great business opportunities. I wish i learned their language, and had the resources to go there.

[Anonymous No.151133]

>>151110
That certainly was a well thought-out and mature reply backed up with facts. Are you simply jealous because you took introduction to Japanese and found it too difficult?

[Anonymous No.151138]

>live in Canada
>parents are immigrants from South Asia (think India)
>don't teach you their language
>only know English
>don't even know French
feels bad man

[Anonymous No.151148]

>>151133
it could be that or it could be i'm way past that level and it gets old hearing people talk about how easy it is to gain fluency in the language when they don't even understand what advancing in the language entails.

beginner japanese and korean are actually very easy.

[Anonymous No.151156]

>>150943
wtf are you talking about, retard? Am in my thirties.

[Anonymous No.151206]

>>151148
Just because you think Japanese is difficult doesn't mean it's difficult for everyone else. Maybe you just aren't cut out for languages. Also if English is your native language, you have a disadvantage with learning other languages in general. You probably agree with the OP poster's description about Japanese:
>Three different writing systems and two syllabary systems add to the language's difficulty.

>>151156
My apologies. Your post just made you sound like you're 16.

[Anonymous No.151226]

>>151206
no it's not that. unless you are a native korean or mandarin speaker japanese is going to be hard for anyone really. mainly because of all the formalities and subtle grammar changes.

[Anonymous No.151264]

>>151226
>It was hard for me therefore it must be hard for everyone
A piece of advice if you want to make it in the real world - you need to be able to think outside of your own limits. It's fine if you have no talent for languages, but you can't assume everyone is like you. Some people here have posted that they didn't find Japanese difficult, and your only reply is to go on an aspie rage rampage because omfg how dare anyone be better than me.

[Anonymous No.151289]

>>151264
not really. i know a few people that have learned those language with ease, but even they will admit that relative to other languages japanese and korean are extremely hard. from what i learned after talking to people that speak mandarin and japanese or korean, mandarin is actually the easier one because of the grammar.

i just realize people are easily led to believe those two particular languages are easy because beginner lessons are easy. to use them in a real business setting is extremely compiicated because you will be expected to use the proper formalities with your words, even native speakers of the language have trouble with that type of thing.

call me angry or whatever, i just don't like seeing misinformation being spread about how easy they are because someone learned to give directions or order a beer.

[Anonymous No.151303]

>>151101
whatkind of job do you have?

[Anonymous No.151345]

>>138435
>Chinese

Do you mean...Mandarin?

[Anonymous No.151417]

>>151289
I never said Japanese was easy, I only said it was not difficult for me. My native language for sure gives me an edge over English speakers on it though. Of all the languages I've had to learn, English was the easiest, German the hardest, and Japanese somewhere in between.

[Anonymous No.151455]

>>151417
you said you thought it was easy and intuitive. it definitely isn't once you start getting to the higher levels.

anyway, it sounds like you are guilty of the same thing you said i was doing. because it's easy for you it must be easy for everybody right? there is a reason those languages are ranked the way they are.

[Anonymous No.151480]

>>151289
You're right about mandarin. The characters are a bitch and a half to learn, but the grammar makes retards look like wizards of syntax and structure

[Anonymous No.151552]

>>151455
>you said you thought it was easy and intuitive. it definitely isn't once you start getting to the higher levels.
If anything it gets more intuitive. Maybe you just aren't good at thinking in the manner Japanese requires you to. There's no shame in that, everyone's wired differently. The reason it's ranked that way isn't because something about the language is inherently more difficult, it's that learning the characters is a huge time commitment and the habit people have of trying to force the rules of their own language onto the one they want to learn.

[Anonymous No.151572]

>>151552
the way you are trying to piss me off by implying i'm not good at learning japanese is really getting old. find a new angle or something, please.

[Anonymous No.151580]

>>138373
ceo of a bulge bracket here if someone told me he knew anything other than various western european tongues i would immediately identify him as a mercantile wage-slave of the most vile sort and either ask him to leave my office and return to the trash bin that is his life or relegate him to some sort of translation position where he is given information only on a need to know basis
the world outside of the anglosphere, israel, and western europe is barbarous, repulsive, dangerous, and basically useless. i suggest learning french, german, italian, and spanish in that order.

[Anonymous No.151611]

Serious post though
Don't learn a language to make money. Unless your firm's management/ownership speaks something you don't or you want to start translating technical documents for a living, it's stupid. Do you know how much time it takes to reach fluency in an easy language (say French, Spanish, whatever)? Years.
Learn a language that is attached to a culture you enjoy and have fun. If you want to make money, go learn database management or investment stuff or something.

[Anonymous No.151749]

English

It's the only language that matters. The rest are poor people speak

[Anonymous No.151862]

>>148147
Fun Fact:
Japanese and Latin have almost the same orthography.

[Anonymous No.151975]

>>151580
>ceo of a bulge bracket
http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Bulge+bracket

I never heard of this term until you came along. Thanks for the education ceo anon!

[Anonymous No.152000]

>>151580
ok so let me ask you question in all seriousness. Only because I happen to speak one of the languages you seemingly detest and I'm curious of how you feel about what I'm going to say.

I have realized that a lot of Western companies that do business in Asia really have no fucking clue what is going on around them. i believe their solution when they really need to figure shit out, is to hire a local that speaks english. Only issue with this is they don't even know how to run a background check on this local so they have no idea if he is really going to clearly explain what is going on. Is this a scenario you anticipate or is it something you overlook?

[Anonymous No.152009]

>>151110
someones a bitter sperglord

[Anonymous No.152161]

>>151862
>orthography
I'm pretty sure you don't know what that word means. Share the majority of a vowel set in the tokyo standard dialect? I'll give you that. Orthography? あなたバカ?

[Anonymous No.152283]

>>151580
>israel
>Not barbarous, repulsive, dangerous, and basically useless

0/10

[Anonymous No.152461]

>>152009
bitch come at me.

[Anonymous No.152534]

The most time/cost effective language to learn for business is Spanish

Learn it in 6 months, you got any business you want in Florida, Texas, and California

[Anonymous No.152753]

>>138531
And lots and lots of suicides.

[Anonymous No.152808]

>>152161

そうだね。

[Anonymous No.152821]

>>138373
I think someone should change this inforgraphic in regards to korean. They have their own alphabet.

[Anonymous No.156376]

Russian is the second-most used language on the internet.

the more you know

[Anonymous No.156387]

>>138656
This is awful faulty logic. There are bilingual people for any pair of languages.

Not everyone is interested in jobs where those things are actively put to use. Most aren't.

[Anonymous No.156418]

>>152821
Korean actually does rely a lot on Chinese characters, just not in the written form. When you are doing conversation it's going to be mostly English borrow words that are pronounced in a completely different way than their origin and pure korean words. Once you get into business or politics the majority of the words you use will be from a Chinese root, or a Chinese character.

I think the chart is referring to the Character sound, not the written character. I know this sounds weird, and people that have studied Mandarin are going to ask me wtf I'm talking about, but it's true that the language just relies on Chinese roots a lot.

[Anonymous No.159907]

>>150890
IIRC Finnish language's closest relative is Japanese. Perhaps this is why you find in intuitive?

[Anonymous No.159953]

>>156376
Hack forums and CP sites are worthless as far as /biz/ is concerned

[Anonymous No.160045]

>>138656
Except that Chinese-American kid can only speak it, not read it.

[Anonymous No.160079]

>>151417
>Of all the languages I've had to learn, English was the easiest

And this is the flip-side. English is so fucking easy, yet another reason not to bother learning another language, because everyone is learning yours anyway.

As we get more globalised, I believe we are going to see English spoken widely in the major cities and nobody taking offence if you speak it.

[Anonymous No.160088]

>>159907
>IRC Finnish language's closest relative

I thought it was Hungarian

[Anonymous No.160097]

>>159907
>>160088
Actually it's Estonian. Hungarian is a distant relative. Japanese and Finnish aren't related, but they do share a lot of similarities in grammar and pronunciation, which gives Finnish speakers an advantage when learning Japanese.

[Anonymous No.160137]

>>150866
lol no.

they wouldn't even say that. They would say:
日本語できる?or 喋れる or maybe 話せる

nobody would ever say 話す日本語? ever.

[Anonymous No.160144]

>>151572
>>151552
>>151455
>>151417
>>151289
>>151264
>>151226
>>151206
>>151148
>>151133
>>151110
>>151034
>>151006
>>150741

If you haven't passed AT LEAST the N2, you don't speak Japanese. End of discussion. You have no right to critique the language until you get to that point.

>Lol Japanese is so easy bro, I've studied it for like 2 months and its cake.

Either underage or 極端自閉症

[Anonymous No.160169]

>>160097
hmm true, I didn't really acknowledge Estonian

>>160144
god I hate weeaboos

[Anonymous No.160176]

>>160169
The Chinese Sperglorg McButtfrothy there is most likely a weeaboo himself, knowing just a little bit Japanese and getting all buttmad at the possibility that some white people actually did learn Japanese.

[Anonymous No.161092]

I'm a weaboo

How do I get a business job that allows me to travel to japan and frequent maid cafes?

[Anonymous No.161131]

>>138683
>business culture
>hard language
>you're learning japanese

[Anonymous No.161163]

>>161092
>learn Japanese
>learn Chinese
>sell your soul to the yakuza
>rape maids erry day
>???

[Anonymous No.161888]

>>160144
Since the JLPT doesn't test for speaking or writing abilituy then even an N1 certificate doesn't mean shit.

You have no right to critique the language until you actually live and work in Japan with a non-teaching job

[Anonymous No.162033]

>>138373

Wrong Russian is an easy language to learn and I speak Dutch and I know it's on of the hardest to learn that's why every immigrate scum can't speak it. That pictures doesn't make sense at all.

[Anonymous No.163924]

>>148912

Anon, not sure if your aware but us asocials don't have qt3.14 gf's......

[Anonymous No.164084]

>>161888
I said AT LEAST the N2. That's basic Japanese. You can have a decent, well formed opinion on the languages difficulty at that point.

>N1 doesn't mean shit

why? It does test speaking and writing ability. Just not directly. The listening is designed on an emphasis on conversation and you need to have a solid grasp of that to understand the questions.

This whole Idea that someone can understand a spoken language fluently, but not speak it at all is made up in your head. It doesn't exist. Same thing for writing and reading: they are inseparable skills. One may be weaker than the other, but not to the point where someone would pass the N1 and literally not know how to hold a conversation. Please throw this idea out.

You sound like a mad English teacher, could be wrong though.

[Anonymous No.164094]

>>164084
>It does test speaking and writing ability. Just not directly

[Anonymous No.164441]

>>162033
Dutch is fucking easy.

[Anonymous No.164547]

>>162033
No one bothers to learn Dutch because it sounds awful, is completely useless and everyone of you dutch speaks perfect english anyway.