Languages

More support in the news that Mandarin-Chinese is the language to learn, check it out:


"Both, Bhidey and Beena Menon who heads SIFL, told TOI that students knowing Mandarin were getting a preference in the job market. "Business with China is booming and many management students, businessmen and corporate representatives are now learning Chinese," Menon said."

"Almost every institute teaching Chinese has its own success stories in the form of students and businessmen having benefited enormously after having learnt the language."
- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2021333.cms

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"Zamora already speaks German and English, but she struggles to learn written Chinese characters and mimic tones unknown in Spanish. She persists for a simple reason: China is voraciously scouring Latin America for everything from oil to lumber, and there is money to be made. That prospect has not only Zamora but business people in much of Latin America flocking to learn the Chinese language, increasingly heard in boardrooms and on executive junkets."

"It's fundamental to communicate in their language when you go there or they come here," said Zamora, 40, a sales executive for the German drugmaker Bayer, which is growing dramatically in China. "If you don't know their language, you're lost."


"The world is divided into east and west, and the culture is completely different," said Miguel Angel Poveda, president of the Colombo-China Chamber of Commerce in Bogota. "The only way to get around it is to understand the culture and learn to do business with them, but in their language."

"Many of those taking up the challenge are young, like Leidy Catalina Ortega, 17, who recently dropped an English-language class in favor of Mandarin. Her parents want to import clothing from China to sell in Bogota. If she learns the language, she will help manage the business."
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14945958/

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"In recent years, schools nationwide have increased foreign-language offerings, partly in response to a call from government and business leaders who are looking for more bilingual workers.

D.C. school officials signed an agreement this week with education officials in China to hire several teachers to instruct students in Chinese language and culture. And in Columbia, Md., a second high school is seeking to offer students a course in Chinese next year."
N.Va. school system gets language grant (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

That's why I'm here, that's why I learn languages. Do I want to go to college and get a degree? Yes. Do I have aspirations for a future career? You'd better believe it, I've got a smorgasbord of ideas. Do I know which one of my ideas is a sure thing? No. But right now I'm planning, I'm ...(as George W. Bush would put it) "strategerizing". And as you can tell from the articles, being able to represent yourself as a multifaceted individual, is a key quality in this ever flattening world. Globalization.