Click here to get a copy. The Lusophone Portuguese-speaking giant we all know and love is of course Brazil. The country that put the B in the BRICS countries —the four other countries plus Brazil that together make up the biggest, baddest, boomingest economies—is spending countless reais to influence the world and the way it does business.
In Hong Kong, Singapore and other key financial centers in southern China like Guangzhou, Cantonese is the language of choice. Most Chinese emigrants to Western countries in the 20th century came from the Cantonese-speaking Guangdong area, resulting in Cantonese rather than Mandarin becoming the lingua franca of Chinatowns from Vancouver to London and most places in between.
China normally steals the spotlight in The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times , but just to the south the Indian subcontinent and its 1. English fluency is high in this part of the world, but never underestimate the impact of learning the local language. Pakistan and most of its million inhabitants speak Urdu, the national language, which spills over into the homes and businesses of 50 million more people in India.
Even better, Urdu is mutually intelligible with Hindi, and linguists often consider the two to be dialects of one language called Hindustani. These Latin American powerhouses are well-established global forces, but they no longer tell the entire story of how business is done in Latin America. Inconspicuous economies like Chile, Peru and Colombia are quietly pushing forward through initiatives like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and successful measures to reduce corruption and violence in their countries.
These growth-leaders will almost certainly bring unprecedented cash flows not only into their own borders, but also to their neighbors through trade unions like MERCOSUR and the Andean Community of Nations.
The other Spanish-speaking G20 country that is too often overlooked on a list like this, the country with the 2 hispanohablante population in the world, is the United States. German-speaking Austria is another dynamic European economy, and Swiss banks still save and spend their dollars and francs in Deutsch. Germany is yet another nation whose economic power is significant in the west. Several business-central nations outside of Germany also utilize German as an official or de facto language, including Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and Liechtenstein — making it an excellent language to learn for anyone that conducts international business across Europe.
Especially important in the Americas, Spanish is the official language of many Central and South American nations, and has become a second de facto tongue in the United States. Spanish is not only important to business to business relationships, but also to the customer base — in the United States especially, a large amount of Americans speak Spanish as their first or second language, and learning Spanish can help to broaden customer bases in both the US and Canada.
Once considered the language of the common folk, English has become one of the major languages of commerce , prompting many to study and become fluent in English or encourage their children to do so.
English is the de facto language of the United States and an official language of the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and several other countries — all with thriving business landscapes.
The prominence of Spanish in the Americas and Europe has led to it becoming one of the world's most spoken languages. It has over million native speakers and another 95 million non-native speakers. It's an official, national, or widely spoken language in 44 countries, including the United States. In fact, the United States is the fifth largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, with 41 million Spanish speakers.
The buying power of the Latin population in the US has been steadily increasing, and more and more businesses are aligning their services to suit the changing times. Spanish is, by far, the most useful business language in the US second to English. It is an especially useful language in the fields of mass-media and management where communicating with the growing number of Latin communities and employees are of great importance to business. The Summer Olympics and the World Cup brought Brazil and its national language - Portuguese - into the global limelight.
Brazil's economy has been steadily rising in strength for years, and more and more businesses are looking for opportunities to enter this new market. Portuguese is one of the top 10 most spoken languages in the world and the second most spoken language in Latin America.
There are over million Portuguese speakers worldwide in Brazil, Portugal and parts of Africa. With its large population of native speakers, the wealth of untapped Brazilian natural resources and its presence on the internet it's currently the sixth most spoken language online , you can bet that learning Portuguese is a great career move. Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations thanks to the historical power of the Soviet Union. It is often cited as the most influential Slavonic language in history.
Estimating the number of Russian speakers around the world is tricky, but sources indicate there are somewhere between and million native speakers.
If you speak the language well, you will have better relationships with your counterparts. And less of a chance of mistranslating something and offending someone, or selling your company for the price of a pomegranate. International companies are increasingly using English as the language of internal communication too.
Nissan, with its headquarters in Japan, was the first company to adopt a policy of English as the language of communication in the s. More and more companies followed — even Airbus in France, that notoriously English-averse country. If France is on board, that means you should be too. If you want to give a presentation at a large conference, it will likely be in English. The most prestigious academic journals are published in English.
English is the driver of innovation because it enables people to share ideas. Spanish is another language that is great to learn for work.
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