Poll: Languages

[Cornell07]

IR people, as you all are aware, it is crucial to have a passing knowledge of at least one foreign language to advance in our careers much less get into grad school. So, here's the quick poll of the moment: which languages do you know? As everyone must know English to attend 99% of the IR schools, please don't check that off if it is your native language.

As for me, I checked off Italian and A Dead Language (Latin in my case). I also have a passing knowledge of French (slightly better than tourist level) and am in the process of learning Mandarin.

[golonghorns]

IR people, as you all are aware, it is crucial to have a passing knowledge of at least one foreign language to advance in our careers much less get into grad school. So, here's the quick poll of the moment: which languages do you know? As everyone must know English to attend 99% of the IR schools, please don't check that off if it is your native language.

As for me, I checked off Italian and A Dead Language (Latin in my case). I also have a passing knowledge of French (slightly better than tourist level) and am in the process of learning Cantonese.

Wow, how did you learn so many languages?

[Cornell07]

Well, Latin I learned in high school (4 years, one of which I did both the Latin IV course and independently studied AP Latin with my teacher after school). I took another semester of it in college, but hated the structure when they forced me to return to intro level Latin ("Cornell07, you can read wonderfully (we're talking Virgil, Catullus, Livy - real Latin), but you can't produce basic declinations. Even my 7 year old daughter can learn to do that." - The Classics Dept. Chair. In particular, that last comment was the final straw in killing my Latin studies)

For my final two years of college, I took Italian, which was an easy leap from Latin. For a while after graduation, I picked-up a bit of French here and there from interaction with my girlfriend and her father, both of whom speak fairly good French. Again, French, being another romance language made it an easy addition to two other romance languages.

As for Mandarin, since leaving the Obama campaign, I've had some sporadic contract legal work here and there to do while completing and following-up on grad applications. Hence, I've picked up a copy of Rosetta Stone and have been working my way through it in my spare time. Quite frankly, none of my other languages are marketable enough in the IR community and, given the choice between working in the Middle East and China, I'd take China.

[prospectiveMPP]

Cast the second "Other" vote, this time for German.

[CheBruno]

Fluent Professional SPanish

8 years Latin (middle school, highschool, and 3 semesters college)

Basic French and Portuguese (read, and understand spoken)

Started taking arabic 6 months ago

[ashes75]

Conversational Hebrew and starting to learn Arabic

[HisRoyalHighness]

French and Irish Gaelic :shock: Guess which one comes in more handy?

[mrynka18]

English was not my native language, but now I know it better than the other languages I know and usually say I am a native speaker.

Other: Polish, Russian, French.

I want to learn another one though haven't decided what. I wish I was fluent in 10 or more

[Jeppe]

Hmm, I'm fluent in English (which is not my native language) as well as Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.

Basic knowledge of French and Spanish. Unfortunately I haven't studied any of these since high school, which is kind of killing me right now, as I might have to start from scratch with language courses at grad school.

[riz1]

1. Spanish since the age of 7 -- professional fluency

2. Kutchi (native tongue, Indian dialect, my first language even before English but of course totally useless for IR purposes)

3. Arabic for the last 2.5 years of undergrad -- very basic grasp so far

[jpa]

Cornell07, curious, why are you learning Cantonese? It's only spoken in HK, Vancouver, some parts of Southern China, and dim sum restaurants. Even in HK, companies were looking for people fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English.

[dang]

English is my second language.

My native tongue is an extremely marginal Chinese dialect in Southeastern China. I grew up with Mandarin and I have no problem with it. Guess I can say Mandarin is also my mother tongue. But I speak Mandarin with a very funny accent.

I understand some Cantonese and Taiwanese Minnan, which are quite close to my mother tongue.

[Cornell07]

Cornell07, curious, why are you learning Cantonese? It's only spoken in HK, Vancouver, some parts of Southern China, and dim sum restaurants. Even in HK, companies were looking for people fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English.

*facepalm* That was a typo/slip of the mind (oh how the mind starts to go in the mid-20's!). Yes, I am starting to learn Mandarin, not Cantonese.

[stigMPA]

why are you learning Cantonese? It's only spoken in HK, Vancouver, some parts of Southern China, and dim sum restaurants. Even in HK, companies were looking for people fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English.

Paradoxically, it might be quite a competitive advantage to know Cantonese rather than Mandarin (obv. preferably both).

Think of it like this: learning Spanish as a second language is a low-value skill for most Americans, since millions of bilingual US citizens (Puerto Ricans, recent immigrants from Latin America etc.) already speak it at the native levels. The demand for new ones - especially at learner's level - is very low.

Likewise, there is and will continue to be a glut of Mandarin speakers in the US and English speakers in China. Cantonese? Not so much. Remember, too, that Hong Kong's influence and wealth is disproportionate to its size.

[dang]

Paradoxically, it might be quite a competitive advantage to know Cantonese rather than Mandarin (obv. preferably both).

Think of it like this; learning Spanish as a second language is a low-value skill for most Americans, since millions of bilingual US citizens (Puerto Ricans, recent immigrants from Latin America etc.) already speak it at the native levels. The demand for new ones - especially at learner's level - is very low.

Likewise, there is and will continue to be a glut of Mandarin speakers in the US and English speakers in China. Cantonese? Not so much. Remember, too, that Hong Kong's influence and wealth is disproportionate to its size.

Besides, if you know Cantonese, you won't have much problem reading any material written with Chinese characters, although there are some differences between traditional characters(used in HK & TW) and simplified characters(used in mainland). One interesting thing about Chinese languages is that most Han dialects share the same characters, but the pronunciations of those characters are very different.