Foreign Language for career in Consulting or Banking

Russian is not a walk in a park either. Romanic languages are a little easier to learn

I would say that fren or spanish might be the "relaively" less difficult to learn... May I ask why are you trying to do that? To boost your B-School application? or for your long-term career goals?

From hardest to easiest:

1. Chinese

2. French
3. Russian (not a big gap between 2. and 3.)

big gap

3. English (just for the sake of comparison)
4. Spanish
5. Arabic (from people who have experience with it)

Anyway, unless you speak the language really fluently so as to conduct networking, it will not be an advantage.

I do speak Arabic, french and spanish, and I must say I do not agree with you: Arabic is a totally new alphabet, which is an additional task when learning. Moreover, the grammar is very different from latine language... I think french and spanish are "less difficult".

I have taken into account the complexity of the grammar and how prevalent exceptions from the rules are in the language. I have not taken into account the 'foreign' factor as it will vary by nationality. To someone who does not use Latin or Arabic symbols in his language, French and Arabic may seem equally difficult. My feedback from people who have studied Arabic has been that although the grammar is different from European languages, for instance, it is not as complex as French grammar. Of course, if you come from Spain, French might be easier because Spanish is from the same language group.

I guess it depends on each opinion: arabic is difficult not only because of the grammar, but also because of the accentuation, which is an additional difficulty. Anyway, we could debate for a long time, I guess we have to agree on how difficult chinese is

I am just considering learning an additional language. Not for career prospects though. English is applicable for 80% of all careers and there might be a slight advantage if someone knows other languages.

I guess you can easily choose between french and spanish, depending on what you prefer. Remember that almost all central and south american countries are spanish speaking countries. That might be a "positive externality you might think to help you for the decision process.

Yes, Driss, There seem to be some good coaching in my country for French and Spanish Languages.

Kudos and Regards.

I have to disagree. I am fluent in spanish, english and arabic and intermediate in german and french , my uncles speaks russian.

it is
1. chineese
2. arabic
gap
3. russian
gap
4. french
5. spanish
6. english

Being myself from Spain and speaking French (I work for a French bank), I think is great that you want to learn any of both languages as they can help you in your career, depending on where you want to work.

Here some data about both languages that you may find interesting to help you choose. First, I honestly think Spanish is easier than French. Grammar is very similar, but the pronunciation of French and writing are much harder.

Spanish
People: About 450 million, and more than 500 million as first or second language.
Where: In Spain, in all ex-Spain's colonies (almost all Central and South America's countries, West US). Also in the US today there are around 50 million people who speaks Spanish as first or second language. In many European countries you can find people speaking Spanish.

BTW, forecast from the "Instituto Cervantes" says that by 2050 there will be more people who speaks Spanish in the US than in any other country in the world.



French
People: about 500 million.
Where: France, Belgium, Luxembourg, a region of Switzerland, Canada (Quebec) and many African countries. There are also some ex-colonies in Asia where some people speak French (Vietnam for example), and some French Pacific islands.

This is a great question, but fundamentally, I think it depends on each persons' native language. I'm from Romania and I find it much more easy to learn Italian or French (and I assume Spanish) than German or Dutch. It depends on the perspective, but I believe that after one point, you can just go for the one you 'feel' more comfortable about.

I too have planned to start learning Chinese in the coming months, so good luck!

As ionutulescu said, it really depends on your native language.

The easiest language to learn is the one within the same family, and the next easiest would be the language family that is close proximity.

For example, if your native tongue is a romance language (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc) then learning another language within this family is the easiest. After that, it would probably be English, then the Germanic/Nordic languages (German, Swedish, Finnish, etc.). English as you may know is a mix between the romance and Germanic languages. Then after that it would be the Slavic languages like Russian, Ukrainian, etc.

East Asian languages may be the most difficult for westerners to learn simply because it's so different and unfamiliar, but for an Asian, learning another language would likely be easier than say, learning German.

Mandarin Chinese is a mixed bag -- in terms of speaking, it's surprisingly easy once you get the four tones; writing/reading is notoriously difficult because it's simply rote memorization, and is one of the few languages left that doesn't use an alphabet.

Learning to speak Mandarin is easier than most people think because Chinese probably has the simplest grammar:

No tenses: "I go yesterday", "I go right now" "I go tomorrow".

No verb conjugation: I be, you be, "it" be

No male/female pronouns: just a generic "it" (no he, she, they, we -- just "I/we" "you" and "it")

No plural: 1 apple, 2 apple, 3 apple

No complex adverbs: "It play piano so beautiful" instead of "she plays piano beautifully"

So grammatically, it's very simple: just nouns, infinitive verbs, adjectives, and 3 pronouns ("I/we" "you" and "it").

The hardest part is mastering the "tones" which is an alien concept to western languages. In Mandarin, there are 4 tones (i.e. a "word" can be said 4 different ways, like singing a different note):

Ma(1): mother
Ma(2): leprosy
Ma(3): horse
Ma(4): to scold; anger

So if you're talking to your Chinese mother-in-law, you want to make sure you're calling her "Ma(1)" -- and not calling her a leper, a horse, or scolding her.

well, Arabic grammar is hard, ALSO, you might learn arabic but you wont be able to talk to anyone, because you need to learn a local dialect. so most foreigners have to learn two Arabics: the traditional one (books, news, education) and dialect, normally the syrian since it is the most standard.

My personal opinion is that Spanish is fairly easy to learn - quite possibly the easiest it comes as for learning a foreign language - as well as the most beneficial. Spanish is becoming more and more prominent in the United States, so it is very beneficial to have that skill on a resume or to use if needed in the work environment!

For banking - definitely go with Mandarin. Not the easiest language to learn but will take you a long way. Just google "Pingyin" and you will realise that it is not impossible to learn.
(I learnt mandarin in 1 year- 20 mins of reading everyday)

Hardest to learn, but most useful - Chinese. Don't look at me - I would not take it on, but you asked!