Current Student
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 983
Location: Hong Kong
Concentration: Entrepreneurship, Technology
Schools: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) - Class of 2010
Re: European Languages from a Business Perspective
[#permalink]
03 Jun 2009, 00:36
It's all about your targets. Where do you prefer to live/work, each major European language is useful, French, Spanish and German, so after that, it depends where you want to focus on afterwards.
AlexMBAApply is right in terms of the default language being English, however in securing a job overseas, bilingual capability is increasingly necessary, it's becoming a filter point, particularly in Asia. e.g. Japan, if you are working there, you will need some form of Japanese (Finance, English teaching sectors excluded) but even in the finance positions bilinguals are preferred. Likewise in China where Mandarin knowledge is preferred as investors are increasingly moving into territories where English is not as prevalent. Once you get to areas like Singapore, Bahasa and Malay become an advantage due to its proximity to Indonesia and Malysia. For Hong Kong, Mandarin is useful. The main reason is because a lot of MNC Asian headquarters are usually based in Hong Kong or Singapore, therefore for some roles, no other language is needed, but for groundwork, local languages are needed (e.g. Business development, supplier management, equity research etc.)