Most Important Natural Languages?

[Pinetree]

English and Bad English

And broken English

[Skomakar'n]

So I guess the answer is: English.

The answer to which are the most important languages isn't, no.

My unwritten point was that the s was incorrect. My singular answer was intended to retroactively rewrite the plural question.

That is the cold and concrete answer, but it can still be an interesting discussion to see what at least comes after it.

English and Bad English

And broken English

What about Anglish?

[clawgrip]

That is the cold and concrete answer, but it can still be an interesting discussion to see what at least comes after it.

Yeah, I agree. But It seems English is the only one on a global scale. The others really depend on where you are, as we have said.

What about Anglish?

I like Anglish. I wrote the Star Trek page on that wiki.

[Drydic]

If you're travelling for business, the most important languages to know are

Nice try, but those are, in fact, the circles that Hans-Werner moves in.
_____________________________________________________________________________

English and Bad English

And broken English

Failure to get an Awesome Reference.

[hwhatting]

OTOH, in the Arab world people you normally meet for business are most frequently either anglo- or francophone; in (say) Pakistan those people speak English, etc.

I am unclear on whether this is meant to imply Pakistan is in the Arab World.

No, that's not what I wanted to say, that's why I put a semicolon there - end of one excample, start of the next.Sorry for being unclear.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If you are a business person, there is only one language you would ever study without a specific purpose: English. All other languages you need to learn are based on where you plan to do business. If your company is partnered with a company in Estonia, then it is of no consequence how important Mandarin is in the international market. You learn a language out of a catalog of dozens of choices based on very specific needs, not based on their weight relative to each other internationally. I get what you're trying to say, but the concept of a list of most important business languages seems flawed from the start.

Flawed as any list of "most important languages". Numbers of speakers, cultural relevance etc. had already been done - so my idea was just to add the most important languages for a globe-trotting business traveller. At a pinch, you can indeed find people who speak English everywhere, the idea was just which languages would add the most value for this business traveller beyond English, taking into account that in some areas the share of people you meet on business and who don't speak English is bigger than in others.

Speaking about business, here are the countries with the largest GDP (top 25):

With my notes on the main business language (where it's not English, English usually has 2nd place):
US, UK, Australia : English,
China : Mandarin,
India : English (used even by locals from different language backgrounds)
Japan : I've heard different stories here, some say everbody you need to talk to in business knows English, other that this is not true beyond a narrow circle of business contacts. If the 2nd verion is correct, it may make sense to add Japanese
Germany : English for international business, German doesn't add much value compared to the languages I listed
Russia : few English speakers outside of Moscow and among older decision-makers. Same for most of the CIS republics
Brazil : I've heard that knowing Portuguese -> understanding and being understood by Spanish speakers works better than the other way round; if yes, it makes sense to add Portuguese to the list instead of Spanish. If not, I stay with Spanish due to higher number of speakers
France : Add francophone North Africa - many important business contacts who don't know or don't want to speak English
Italy, S Korea, Turkey, Iran, Poland, Netherlands, Thailand : Levels of English being spoken in business vary, but each of the national languages spoken in these countries offer too little critical mass compared to the ones I listed
Mexico, Spain: Add the rest of Spanish-speaking LatAm.
Canada : English & French cover it
Indonesia : In my experience, English is spoken widely even on 2nd and 3rd management level
Taiwan : Mandarin & English
South Africa: Everybody in business speaks English
Saudi Arabia : the people who you meet as a business traveller normally speak English

But yeah, nonsense about studying language other than English for international business or scientific research. Virtually everyone is those fields speaks English nowadays

From my own experience and from the experience of colleagues trying to do business in the francophone and russophone world - you'd be surprised how little use English can be.

If you're travelling for business, the most important languages to know are

Nice try, but those are, in fact, the circles that Hans-Werner moves in.

Can't see the image that is linked due to firewall settings. I hope it's a good joke.

[Astraios]

Can't see the image that is linked due to firewall settings. I hope it's a good joke.

"So the ZBB is full of international biznessmen? Tell me all about how you plan to monetize your made up imaginary language."

[hwhatting]

Can't see the image that is linked due to firewall settings. I hope it's a good joke.

"So the ZBB is full of international biznessmen? Tell me all about how you plan to monetize your made up imaginary language."

Thanks!

[installer_swan]

If you're travelling for business, the most important languages to know are

Nice try, but those are, in fact, the circles that Hans-Werner moves in.

Can't see the image that is linked due to firewall settings. I hope it's a good joke.

Was it?

Otherwise, I more or less agree with your list though I would think Japanese would be a definite plus, if not a necessity.

[clawgrip]

There are plenty of people in Japan who speak English competently, but on average, Japanese people are pretty poor English speakers, even though they usually retain some basic words from their English education. But learning Japanese takes a lot of effort if you're starting from English, so it would have to be quite a long-term commitment. However, if you can become competent in Japanese it's a definite plus for doing business in Japan.

[Vuvuzela]

There are plenty of people in Japan who speak English competently, but on average, Japanese people are pretty poor English speakers, even though they usually retain some basic words from their English education. But learning Japanese takes a lot of effort if you're starting from English, so it would have to be quite a long-term commitment. However, if you can become competent in Japanese it's a definite plus for doing business in Japan.

Or, what agoraphobes like myself would use it for: watching anime without having to read subtitles.

[brandrinn]

Are we still talking about business? Guys, big companies always use professional translators for international deals, not some dude in the office who studied German in college. You would only be expected to learn a language for business if your company was sending you somewhere long term, and in this case international importance has no bearing; only the particular language of the country they send you to matters.

[clawgrip]

I think it's already been established that for business, the choice of language other than English is primarily regional, so perhaps the next point is, which language other than English would be most useful in the highest number of places, or, which places do a lot of business yet still have poor English communicative ability?

For example, Japan does a lot of international business and there are a lot of people with poor English skills, so learning Japanese would be useful if you intend to do business in Japan, but the language itself is very hard to learn for English speakers and its usefulness is very limited regionally, so its importance really depends on how long you intend to stay. If you are staying less than say, 5 years, it's probably not worth it to study.

Spanish is going to cover a much wider area than Japan, and is much easier than Japanese for L1 English speakers to learn, but I imagine there are a lot more L1 Spanish speakers who are also competent English speakers, so its usefulness is somewhat limited (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Hindi and Dutch are probably extreme examples, since basically anyone who does international business is going to speak English competently as well. And while Hindi is at least a second lingua franca in India (I think?), Dutch is pretty useless unless you intend to live permanently in the Netherlands or Belgium (again, I think, feel free to correct me).

[Thry]

Spanish is going to cover a much wider area than Japan, and is much easier than Japanese for L1 English speakers to learn, but I imagine there are a lot more L1 Spanish speakers who are also competent English speakers, so its usefulness is somewhat limited (please correct me if I'm wrong).

of cors... competen...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaLDoWqIq2M

[clawgrip]

Hah! I stand corrected.

[finlay]

Hindi and Dutch are probably extreme examples, since basically anyone who does international business is going to speak English competently as well. And while Hindi is at least a second lingua franca in India (I think?), Dutch is pretty useless unless you intend to live permanently in the Netherlands or Belgium (again, I think, feel free to correct me).

You're wrong, Dutch is pretty useless if you intend to live permanently in the Netherlands or Belgium.

That said, it's one of the easiest languages for English speakers to pick up, as long as you can get your tongue around the [χ] sound being used for <g>. It did help that I had high school German under my belt, too, meaning that I had the hang of some of the syntactic changes already. (I was only there for two months, though – my level never really got above beginner, but I progressed much faster in the language than it's possible to in Japanese)

Think of it this way: it's fairly easy to get by in Japan (or at least in Tokyo) with limited or no Japanese. Signage is in English, you can get a job where you don't need to speak any Japanese fairly easily, and people aren't disparaging when you struggle with their language. Well, it's like that in the Netherlands, but most locals you meet speak very good English on top of that.

[hwhatting]

Are we still talking about business? Guys, big companies always use professional translators for international deals, not some dude in the office who studied German in college. You would only be expected to learn a language for business if your company was sending you somewhere long term, and in this case international importance has no bearing; only the particular language of the country they send you to matters.

1) Doing business negotiations or consultancy through a translator is much worse than if you can talk to people directly. I know that from my own experience. Of course, no one is going to send you to a negotiation just because you know the language. But if you're otherwise qualified, it can be an additional argument to include you in the negotiation team.
2) During my work in consultancy I've seen lots of cases where people were staffed on a project over others because they knew the regional business language (French in North Africa, Russian in the CIS, Chinese in China).
So learning one or two of the languages I listed is not a waste of time. This will also be handy if you apply for a job in sales, tech service or management covering certain geographical regions.

[clawgrip]

Hindi and Dutch are probably extreme examples, since basically anyone who does international business is going to speak English competently as well. And while Hindi is at least a second lingua franca in India (I think?), Dutch is pretty useless unless you intend to live permanently in the Netherlands or Belgium (again, I think, feel free to correct me).

You're wrong, Dutch is pretty useless if you intend to live permanently in the Netherlands or Belgium.

That said, it's one of the easiest languages for English speakers to pick up, as long as you can get your tongue around the [χ] sound being used for <g>. It did help that I had high school German under my belt, too, meaning that I had the hang of some of the syntactic changes already. (I was only there for two months, though – my level never really got above beginner, but I progressed much faster in the language than it's possible to in Japanese)

Think of it this way: it's fairly easy to get by in Japan (or at least in Tokyo) with limited or no Japanese. Signage is in English, you can get a job where you don't need to speak any Japanese fairly easily, and people aren't disparaging when you struggle with their language. Well, it's like that in the Netherlands, but most locals you meet speak very good English on top of that.

How about people who don't live in the cities? How well do they speak English? Also, I imagine if you're interested in watching Dutch TV or understanding Dutch politics or cultural things, learning the language would be important (again, I've never been, I don't know. Dutch TV could all be English for all I know).

[installer_swan]

Hindi and Dutch are probably extreme examples, since basically anyone who does international business is going to speak English competently as well. And while Hindi is at least a second lingua franca in India (I think?), Dutch is pretty useless unless you intend to live permanently in the Netherlands or Belgium (again, I think, feel free to correct me).

English, is used extensively for business and higher education in India, but it is absurd to suggest most Indians speak English. If your only interest is business, yes, that would be largely true, but with well over 80% Indians not speaking English, if you want to move beyond English-speaking business/academic circles you would need to learn an Indian language, Hindi being the most widespread one, and a sort of lingua franca in the North, though the number of L2 Hindi speakers is increasing in the South, and you could possibly manage with Hindi+English in most of urban/semi-urban India.

[clawgrip]

Naturally I would never suggest that all or most people in India speak English. My post was made from a business angle and, as I said, my comments were restricted to those doing international business in India. I wasn't sure how well the business people within large cities who do not do international business speak English.

[installer_swan]

Naturally I would never suggest that all or most people in India speak English. My post was made from a business angle and, as I said, my comments were restricted to those doing international business in India. I wasn't sure how well the business people within large cities who do not do international business speak English.

Hmm ... depends on what you mean by "well", and what you mean by "business". I mean shopkeepers/smalltime businessmen might not be fluent in English. Though they'd definitely know enough to get by so long as you aren't negotiating the exact wording on a legal contract or somesuch, which would need a lawyer anyway.

English is just too deeply entrenched in the legal system and it's been difficult to replace, because the largest native Indian language is spoken by less than 50% of the people, so switching to Hindi would cause huge political problems in the South and the East, where it would be (rightly) seen as privilleging one linguistic group over another. English isn't a native language for any community, so it is seen as impartial in a sense, and that status quo has persisted for over 60 years now despite several attempts to replace it with Hindi(mostly in the 60's and 70's), which faced severe opposition from non-Hindi-speakers.

[installer_swan]

of cors... competen...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaLDoWqIq2M

Other than the really thick accent, his idiom/phrasing seems good enough to be called fluent. I actually think that's more than enough, if all you want to do is business.

[Thry]

of cors... competen...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaLDoWqIq2M

Other than the really thick accent, his idiom/phrasing seems good enough to be called fluent. I actually think that's more than enough, if all you want to do is business.

Are you aware that he was reading it ?

You can't have that fluency/grammar level while pronouncing "every" as if it was (Spanish-ly written) éberi ['e.Be.ri]... it's just nonsensical.

[installer_swan]

You can't have that fluency/grammar level while pronouncing "every" as if it was (Spanish-ly written) éberi ['e.Be.ri]... it's just nonsensical.

That makes no sense. You can very well have a much higher level of competence in grammar/vocabulary while having very poor pronunciation. Especially, if you are more used to working with written texts and rarely speak/watch TV in the language.

I've noticed this fact that English monolinguals have a much harder time of understanding someone with non-standard pronunciation, when it's very to guess what they're trying to say. I suppose people exposed to non-native varieties/accents get used to it over time, but still I find this obsession with native-like pronunciation in language classes in America a bit too much at times.

[Thry]

That makes no sense. You can very well have a much higher level of competence in grammar/vocabulary while having very poor pronunciation. Especially, if you are more used to working with written texts and rarely speak/watch TV in the language.

Higher maybe, much higher is strange (specially for this kind of people, who do actually need to talk), but that was just extreme. Other than that, count with the fact that he was reading it. It is obvious in his intonation and way of talking. He was not communicating, he was just puking sounds. Which explains the extremity.

Edit: For context, he's a bank owner, so I don't think he needs to write in English much. He'll just have people do that.

[brandrinn]

Installer_swan: note he said "fluently." In my experience teaching ESL, grammar does often lead well ahead of pronunciation, but fluency usually goes hand in hand with pronunciation (up to a point), since fluency is almost impossible to learn from a written medium. Listening and speaking is the way to gain a comfortable understanding of and ability to use a language, and that usually means hearing native pronunciation. This may be different in some places, however, where L2 varieties of English have become their own pseudo-dialect, and people learn English from other L2 learners. I'm told Malaysia, the Philippines, and increasingly India are like this.