French, English, Japanese, and..?

Hello there, I would very much appreciate some lingq’s members opinion on a question I’m asking myself:

What 4th language seems the most relevant career-wise between Russian and Korean for someone who already speaks French, English and, within 1 or 2 more years, Japanese?
I’m really interested in both Russian and Korean, so my decision is up to which one of them pairs best with the languages I already know…
If it can help: I’m French and I would like to work either in International trade or international relations…

Thanks a lot for your inputs !

It depends on your field and on the kind of companies you want to work with. French companies, foreign ones? For example, if I want to work with French companies in my field, German is almost useless for me. Yet Germany is our biggest trade partner and I could also decide to go to Germany and find a local job. It all depends on what your goals are, so learning a language only because someone will have told you that said country is booming isn’t very wise in my opinion.

Russian is spoken in more countries and is closer to us than Korean, but I’m sure there are some good opportunities for Korean speakers too. Would you rather live / work in Russia / Central Asia or in South Korea? Both languages seem to be hard for different reasons, but if your Japanese is good Korean might be easier for you.

Learn the one you like the most, and you’ll find job opportunities accordingly.

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Why these 2 ?
Why not mandarin, spanish ?

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spanish is useless out side of latin america

Thanks for the insight !

Well it’s just my own opinion but I do not like how Mandarin and Spanish sound^^

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If I were you, I’d wait until I got really good at Japanese before going on to Korean or Russian.

I’d get to C1 in Japanese before embarking on another language - that’ll give you a real edge.

There can’t be many trilingual French, English, Japanese career-minded “all rounders” (speaking, listening, writing, reading etc) around.

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I know many French like to learn Japanese and Russian, not many like to learn Korean. If you learn Korean, you may have an edge. But this edge thing is not reliable as a driving force.

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I also prefer the sounds of italian over spanish and japanese over mandarin but on average I prefer spanish world to italian and the mandarin is the language in the middle of the world.

If latin america is not enough for you - how could korea ?

Spanish could be an easy asset for a french even if we don’t understand it more than any others it is more easy to learn than any other language, for us.

Good point in short be high skilled in few languages or a bit less in more languages.
Nevertheless I would recommand to start all languages asap even if you don’t do a lot in 2 or 3 of them - i think it to be better than wait 2 years with nothing russian korean or what else because you get better or finish japanese first.

If you target more languages russian could be the better option since you don’t have anything slavic yet.

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japanese isthe only asian language f i would ever study although it might be the hardest of all of them i think the culture is fascinating i have never found any thing interesting about any slavic language or country

I know Spanish would be an ''easy / quick ‘’ language to learn as a French, but I really don’t like the flow of Spanish and I have little to no interest in the culture… :confused: It’s just a matter of personnal preferences :smiley:

Russian. Then DGSE will fit you nicely.

I’m not sure they are looking for Japanese speakers though. He should stop learning Japanese and start Arabic instead :stuck_out_tongue:

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One thing you might want to consider is that Korean + Japanese (provided you reach a good level in both) will turn you into some kind of “Asian expert” and you could become in charge of that area, using both on a regular basis. On the other hand, I don’t see how Japanese and Russian could work together at least from a French point of view, it would be “one or the other”, i.e. either you’ll work in/with Asia or in/with Russia, Eastern Europe or Central Asia.

All other things being equal, i.e. motivation, interest for the culture, etc- if you really love Asia, go for the first one, and if you want to have more options go for the second.

Makes one wonder what kind of food you like to eat. :slight_smile:

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‘‘hit’’ ^^

I was gonna suggest arabic, but good luck using lingq to help you with that. Lingq displays the text backwards so the new version is useless with arabic unless you are dyslexic. Arabic is ass hard enough as it is read. However westerners going out of there way to learn Arabic is always impressive.

The answer is… who knows. After English there is no guarantee that any given language will improve your job prospects more than another as all languages after english are regional. Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese are all vital in some places and completely useless in others. Some would argue that the rarer language of Korean makes you stand out more, while others would say that the bigger language will have a better chance of coming in handy.

Korean is definitely more difficult, but mastering russian grammar is no slouch either.

Since you seem to have equal cultural interest in the two of them, I would say just go with your gut on which one you think sounds cooler and would be more fun to take on since you will probably end up learning the other in a few years anyway.

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LOOK around for resources like for korean: http://forum.koohii.com/thread-6969.html I would never learn korena then japanese. i learned japanese then kroean