best business/trade language after mandarin

[hidden12345]

Not sure what area of the forum this question would be best suited, so moderators please move as you see fit.

Here's my question:

Which of the following languages would give me the most opportunities for working in international consulting?

I'm a caucasian american-born native english speaker with fluent spoken/oral mandarin (who will continue studying for the rest of his life) and will soon be an MBA candidate. Here are the choices:

Japanese

Korean

Cantonese

Bahasa Indonesian/Malay

[bhchao]

Indonesian/Malay would be the least useful among those 4 languages. Korea gets very few of the consulting opportunities compared to China or Japan. But it depends on the locale of where you will be based.

[hidden12345]

Totally agree. Of the two (China and Japan) I've done business in Shanghai- which I hated (the locale, not the business) and Beijing (which I loved). Spent some time in Tokyo (which I didnt care for too much) as well. Heard great things about ShenZhen and HongKong though, and I'm wondering how valuable cantonese would be after english/mandarin. Shame about Korea, I have contacts there, and I heard Seoul is definitely hip.. thoughts?

[novemberfog]

Do keep in mind that Japanese managers do not tend to take the advice of foreigners on how to do business in Japan. However, when it comes to business outside of Japan, that is a different story.

[bhchao]

Seoul is where traditional and modern culture converge. You see a modern city, but you still experience traditional customs being displayed. I heard Tokyo is postmodern and stale. It may be a technologically advanced city, but may not inspire or excite culturally-wise.

Currently Seoul is the pop culture capital of Asia. It's a fusion of Western and Japanese pop culture, Korean culture, and age-old traditional values influenced from China. Nowadays Japanese tourists with money to spend go to Seoul, where things are less expensive than in Japan.

But Korea may not be the best place to do business in Asia, which is why business-friendly cities like Hong Kong get a larger share of consulting opportunities. Unlike Hong Kong where most people understand English, English proficiency in Korea is limited. Therefore it is more important for an expatriate living in Korea to learn the native language, than one living in Hong Kong.

If you're interested in Seoul, here is a good link: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla72/xpress1-e-2006.pdf. Myeongdong is a hip neighborhood, and caters mostly to young people, especially those in their late teens and early 20's. The Gangnam district is a high-tech hub for IT enterprises, is more upscale (many trendy restaurants and upscale shopping are located there) and caters to older adults.

Itaewon is where most of the foreigners and expatriates in Seoul live, like Tianmu in Taipei.

[novemberfog]

Nowadays Japanese tourists with money to spend go to Seoul, where things are less expensive than in Japan.

Be careful with your assertions though, as most tourists do not go to Korea. Western Europe and Hawaii are still the most popular places. Korea is popular with two specific demographics in Japan:

1) 30 - 50 year old housewives -- they really like to watch the Korean TV dramas, and decide they want to visit Korea. "Yon-sama", the guy from "Winter Sonata", is their champion.

2) University students -- It is a short flight with cheap airfare, and the buying power of the yen in Korea allows the students to be able to travel more and do more than they could do elsewhere.

However, most Japanese come back from Seoul saying how it is just like Tokyo. Both Seoul and Tokyo have boring business districts, and they both have exciting youthful areas as well (Setagaya ward in Tokyo, and maybe Myeongdong in Seoul?)

As for the OPs question, I am curious about your Chinese. You wrote that you are fluent in oral communications, but how about writing? Why not focus on reading and writing until you feel confidently fluent? If written communication is also no problem, then go for something more international. Korean and Japanese are fun, but they are not international languages. Bahasa would be limited to Malaysia/Indonesia. I suppose Cantonese could be used in a lot of different places.

It seems you are focused on Asia only, but you might consider German and French which would be good for the EU, or perhaps Spanish for South America? It would help make you more well-rounded as well. If you are set on Asia only...well, then just pick one that looks fun.

[Mugi]

I tend to agree with novemberfog.

Also, I have yet to meet any westerner that prefers Seoul over Tokyo, although if you preferred Beijing over Shanghai (presumeably because of the traditional culture), then Seoul would definitely be better than Tokyo.

As for the languages, if you speak Mandarin well then there is very little need for Cantonese (outside perhaps HK). It would definitely be the easiest language to add to your repertoire, but probably the least beneficial. If Northeast Asia is your thing, then I would recommend Japanese, although Korean is much more of a niche market (i.e. there are hundreds of foreigners with awesome Japanese, but I don't think there are nearly as many foreign Korean speakers).

If Asia in general is your interest, then from a long-term perspective Bahasa Indonesia/Malay would have to win hands down. But you've probably got the time to work on another language before Bahasa comes into its prime.

Ever thought about Arabic?

[bhchao]

I still think Mandarin will overshadow these languages in terms of importance. I agree that Cantonese has little use outside of Hong Kong. The mainland economy will continue to overshadow Hong Kong's over the very long term. There are consulting opportunities in Hong Kong, but the potential for growth in the area of consulting lies on the mainland.

As the labor force on the mainland becomes more developed in job expertise, and workers move up the ladder; incentives to attract, retain, and reward employees will become important. Consulting opportunities in the area of compensation and employee benefits will see growth. This is especially considering a recurrence of labor shortages in China. And when government regulations over retirement benefits change over time, companies will need to keep track of these changes. This is where consulting comes into the picture.

Of course this is just one consulting area.

Cantonese has little use on the mainland. Unless you really want to work in Hong Kong, which in my opinion would not make much sense considering the Mainland potential, then yes, Cantonese could be useful for your job there. But even then, why converse with your organizational peers in Cantonese if they have a good understanding of English? You could, but too "ma fan".

IMHO, I see little practical use of Cantonese outside of Hong Kong and Canto-pop.

Nowadays everyone is doing business with the mainland (Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan). South Korea's investment on the mainland surpasses Taiwan's. I recently had a telephone interview with a recruiter from Hong Kong for a consulting position in Shanghai or Beijing. The recruitment for the Asia-Pacific region was from Hong Kong, but almost all of the positions are on the mainland. And the most important criteria the Hong Kong recruiter emphasized was a solid knowledge of Mandarin.

Speaking of Korea, I think Korean has a lot of potential to becoming a useful language outside of the Korean Wave. Korea could become a regional hub in the region given its geographic location between China and Japan. A few months ago there was a conference in Seoul attended by former NYC mayor Giuliani and Alan Greenspan on Seoul's potential to becoming an attractive, regional economic hub.

I would put a question mark on learning Korean. It has a lot of potential, but the conditions and environment to make that happen is not there yet. (Not to mention the very long-term possibility of reunification between North and South)

Be careful with your assertions though, as most tourists do not go to Korea. Western Europe and Hawaii are still the most popular places. Korea is popular with two specific demographics in Japan:

1) 30 - 50 year old housewives -- they really like to watch the Korean TV dramas, and decide they want to visit Korea. "Yon-sama", the guy from "Winter Sonata", is their champion.

Now it's Byung-sama. . But yes, I agree that most Japanese tourists do not go to Korea. I should have been more specific. Korea is more popular with female Japanese tourists who are into shopping at affordable prices, and who are fans of K-drama.

[atitarev]

Ever thought about Arabic?

Mugi, I am fascinated by foreign languages and now learning the basics of Arabic. I don't think I will need much of it but I still want to understand the basics of input, computing, spelling rules grammar, pronunciation. I won't get serious with it (same story with Korean). I am focusing on Chinese and keep refreshing my Japanese.

as-salaamu :alaikum

السﻻم عليكم

[wushijiao]

As far as the languages given by the OP, I’d vote for Korean. As far as Cantonese, I wonder how many Hong Kongese businesspeople can speak English? I think the number is fairly high. In other words, Cantonese is hurt because of the high level of English competence among many of its speakers, combined with the growing dominance of Mandarin on the Mainland.

As far as the others, I’d tend vote for Korean because, as Mugi pointed out, Korea has a lucrative market and the number of competent foreign people able to speak the language is probably really low, which might give you a competitive advantage.

I agree that learning Arabic might be good for business, and would certainly be fascinating from a cultural point of view.

[bhchao]

These four languages can be summed up this way:

Mandarin - the dominant language in East Asia in terms of importance, and will continue to see growth.

Korean - a potential growth market

Japanese - not a growth market, but has staying power. In other words, a "cash cow".

Cantonese - a declining market. May be the most funnest to learn, but as Mugi mentioned, the least beneficial. If Cantonese was a business product, it would incur losses for the "company".

[Antares]

As for oriental languages i would strongly suggest mandarin and japanese. Here is my analysis of the future market of the languages:

Cantonese - it can only be applied in HK, not even southern China. The area for its use is very limited. Especially now that China's economy is improving very quickly, the need for HK is decreasing, thus leads to the decline of business opportunities.

Malay/Indonesian - It has some opportunities, however the economy in south east Asia hasn't really start recovering, therefore there are risks learning the language.

Korean - I would say it is very competitive with China right now, however, I would say Korea's prosperity is nearly over, especially when the Korean trend in Asia is slowly dying (although I still like their stuff), besides the only influential international coorperations I could think of from Korea is Samsung, Hyundai, and Kia (sry if i missed anything). Therefore I would say that it is fairly limited but still, it is not bad to learn it.

Japanese - A fairly stable market, it is fairly influential as we can see their coorperates: Sony, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Honda, Yamaha etc. have major operations and projects around the world. Therefore it is fairly stable. I would say learning this language is like investing in blue chip stocks (i'm currently learning this language as well).

Other benefits of Japanese, with the knowledge of Japanese, you learn other oriental languages faster, such as Chinese (kanji characters) and Korean (sentence structure and grammar). In conclusion I would recommend japanese for you.

*JAPANESE IS A VERY HARD LANGUAGE FOR ENGLISH SPEAKERS, but then KOREAN IS HARDER IMO, lol