Which is better for a career in Finance?

French. It is spoken in more places, including world financial centers.

Would you consider Mandarin, Japanese or Arabic? They would be useful in dealing with large, monied countries.

If your Spanish is really good, you can guess at much Italian, French and Portuguese. Same grammar, same structure, same nominal genders, same irritatingly complicated subjunctive, often same idioms. (I don’t know about the facial and hand gestures, however.)

Learn Portuguese. Brazil is popping, and if you speak the language, you’ll have an edge. Make sure your Spanish is razor sharp first, though.

@bob_: ¿Que? (Didn’t Manuel say that in Fawlty Towers?)

I don’t believe Mandarin campares to other languages in Finance, also I dont feel comfrotable about japan’s economy and in arabic countries higher ups speaks more english than in other countries.

But arabic if any of those three would be the one that i believe to be the most beneficial in a career in finance.

@gailcalled Huh?

To clarify,
I feel mandarin is better for someone who is in business in a more general way, like management or something else.
I feel Japan is a strange economy that has no natural resources and has less oputunity for growth in general.
Arabic is a good choice but I just feel like other languages would be more beneficial and easier to learn with my background so i would gai from it sooner. Also, since arab countries aren’t super stable and are still trying to bring in monies from around the world they are less resistant to speaking enlgish than other countries like french and german or japanese who might expect you to speak their lnaguage. (Dubai national languages are english adn arabic)

I would recommend a third language that makes you more unique on the job markets. Almost all educated Germans in a business context speak reasonable English, so unless you wanna work in Germany for a year or more, there’s no real need. Arabic would be a good idea.

I agree with mattbrowne, English is a universal language and most finance books are in English. A good choice for a third language would be Arabic. Next to it is French.