The linguistic knowledge will benefit you throughout your professional career. If you can speak, explain and negotiate in another language, you will improve your employment opportunities, confidence and you can reach a better salary. If you improve your language while studying abroad, you will also be equipped with many social skills: the management skills and personal treatment that all companies seek. In short: knowing another language (and another culture) will benefit your personal and professional life, regardless of in which country or sector you work.
How to choose the appropriate language?
You have two options: you can learn a language that many people speak, such as English, and choose between a large number of jobs and countries in which to use your knowledge. In this case, there may be a lot of competition and you will need to find the way to stand out. Or you can focus on a less common language that, although it can be more risky and difficult. It will definitely give you good results because it will make you stand out with specific knowledge that not many have.
It does not matter if you decide to master Spanish or Icelandic, what matters is that you will learn another language, preferably one that interests you enough to not lose your curiosity and commitment. Although there are no rules when choosing your language, there are certain fields in which one language may be more useful than another which must be critically analyzed.
English
If you want to work abroad, you might need to speak English, but it will probably be better to speak it more professionally, regardless of your professional objectives. It is also a very important language in the academic environment and can give you easy access to universities, knowledge hubs and educational options throughout the world. Last but not least, English can help you when you travel or when you enjoy everything related to modern culture, after all, life is more than just working and English is widely followed around the world.
French
French is an official language in almost 29 countries and is spoken widely by more than 220 million people, most of which are inhabitants of Western Europe and Africa. French is one of the official languages of the Olympic Games, and the EU has chosen it as one of its procedural languages. If you want to develop your professional career in diplomacy or international relations, or if you want to work on projects that are centered in Europe then learning French is undoubtedly one of the best options.
German
There are more than 100 million native speakers of German, which makes Dutch the most spoken mother tongue in Europe. The German economy is the most important and strong in Europe, and the fourth in the world. If you want to be successful with that language, combining your German studies with a career in science, finance / banking, literature / publishing or engineering will put you in the right direction.
Chinese Mandarin
The Chinese economy is one of the most important in the world, which translates into an abundance of business and employment opportunities. You will also have many people to practice it with: Mandarin Chinese is the mother tongue of more than 800 million people in the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan. It is also spoken in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Mongolia and the Philippines. In short: you can talk about time and work with all kinds of people in Asia. Mandarin Chinese as a second language is the perfect complement to a professional degree in business administration or tourism, and can also highlight your CV if you work in a manufacturing sector.
Italian
Knowing Italian can improve your employment prospects if you want a professional career in the arts, fashion, design, music (classical), luxury goods or gastronomy sectors. You can talk about all these interesting topics with approximately 70 million native speakers. Also, can you imagine all the gelato you could ask for without an accent?
Japanese
Despite the size of the country, the Japanese economy is one of the most important and innovative, especially famous for the consumer electronics and automotive industries. Everything that has to do with manufacturing, engineering or research and development combines well with the Japanese language. As the country exports and imports a lot of goods, it is very possible that you have to interact with a Japanese company, and that the impressions with your knowledge of Japanese.
Author Bio
Lara Hawkins is a professional and highly experienced education management and career counselor. Over the years she has served a number of student and career consultancy firms. She started her profession by engaging with an assignment writing company UK based team of experts and now stands among the top listed career counselors.