As I mentioned before, I will start to share what some of my New Year’s resolutions are. One of them involves increasing my foreign language skills. In addition to English, I can speak some basic, street level French as a result of having lived in Montreal, Quebec for five years.
My cultural language is Cantonese, which is the main Chinese dialect from the Hong Kong and southern China region. However, over the years, I’ve lost some of my Cantonese language skills from lack of use. So for the next three months, I will get my Cantonese skills back up by listening to some great audio podcasts I found on iTunes for 30 minutes after dinner during the weekdays and of course, use it in conversation whenever I bump into Cantonese speakers locally.
But after I get my Cantonese back to an acceptible level, the next foreign language I want to tackle is Mandarin Chinese, which is the most common language spoken in the world. Mandarin is totally different from Cantonese as I can’t understand a word of it. The vast potential of doing business with China just makes me drool and I know that getting some basic Mandarin in will be extremely helpful. By summertime, I will switch over to learning Mandarin by listening to iTunes podcasts followed by maybe taking a course in the fall. By the way, my motivational podcasts are on iTunes. Just do a search there for Clint Cora.
As you can appreciate, it is always helpful to learn new foreign languages as a business skill, especially in global business or even travel. What foreign languages would you like to learn as part of your New Year’s resolutions? Feel free to comment here.
