If you were going to learn a new language and your motivations were part out of cultural curiosity and part wanting to standout in the business marketplace, which would you embark on. French or German as most significant in the Euro-zone, Japanese or Chinese? Obviously the decision would have to account for things like- well what type of consultancy are you involved in (technology and communications as it happens), if oil then arabic would be useful. Just wondering if people with a healthy experience in consultancy have ever had any thoughts like "knowing how to speak ......... would be a real advantage" etc. Gracias.

Business Chinese, surely (I forget if that's Mandarin/Cantonese/Other)Everyone is growing offices in Asia and would bite your hand off to help grow business in that part of the world.

there is NO pont in learning german, little with other european languages too. If i had 2 years to take up a language, i would do Russian / Estonian / Buglarian or Polish. You wait 5 years and see what the CEE can do. Bolshevism was just a hint, jigga.

I would also factor in how easy it is to learn the language. Mandarin would clearly be the stand out language in terms of business importance but your chances of getting fluent are probably pretty slim unless you have time to take an immersion course. I currently take French lessons at the weekend - while I realise it may not be the ideal language from a business perspective, I have a good chance of getting reasonably fluent.

Russian I can understand. But Estonian/Polish/Bulgarian......REALLY? whilst I can see that the former red states have a lot of potential for development do you really think learning their language would be business savvy? I kinda presumed they would learn English (Everyone else in Europe largely does business by it). I think Mandarin would be the best thing- sure it would be tough but it's also a really interesting language (to look at at least- Japanese sounds way cooler). I think it would be the best to open business avenues and if they rule the world in 50 years I'd make one hell of a butler for 'em. Anyone else have views on this?