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I have been living in Asia for 8years and I have learned Chinese. Initially because i thought it would help me to thrive professionally in Asia. I am happy I l

I have been living in Asia for 8years and I have learned Chinese. Initially because i thought it would help me to thrive professionally in Asia. I am happy I learned Chinese, however I wished I had done it for the right reasons. i.e to do something intellectually interesting. Professionally, your time is way better invested in learning a tech skill, developing a business or expanding your network. Those are the thing that you can leverage. Chinese language abilities? Not so much. Apart from the exaggerated congratulations of chinese speakers after they hear you speaking 2 words of Chinese, it wont provide you much business wise. Remember that if for any position chinese language is important, they will just hire a local, never a foreigner...

Kagerjay 8y ago
I disagree with this statement If you live in heavily populated Asian communities, there are a lot of business oppurtunities, specifically in Mandarin. For instance, a law firm specialized in one ethnicity. You'll find a lot of well off wealthy Chinese clients coming overseas starting businesses in America. Controversally, if you do any overseas importing, you'll have a larger selection of manufacturers to work with if you speak Mandarin. I don't speak Mandarin all that well though, granted I speak Cantonese and studied 3 years of Japanese. I do agree that your time is better spent learning a tech skill though.