Scott Bibeau ⋅ Mount Washington , KY General Electric ⋅ 13 years experience

Dayron,
I am a Navy Veteran (22 years), and I've worked for a large manufacturer for a little over 13 years now. We are a global company that conducts business with mostly Asian and North American companies. The best advice I can give you is that you learn Spanish and Mandarin.
Scott

T T ⋅ San Francisco , CA U.S. Army, Specialist ⋅ 3 years served

I am a native Mandarin speaker. My wife is a native Cantonese speaker. We communicate in Mandarin. I never have a desire to learn Cantonese. Even I am now in San Francisco where a lot of Chinese people speak "Cantonese".

Mandarin is a hard language to master. Cantonese is harder. For example, Mandarin has 4 tones. Cantonese has 6! This is because Cantonese is more "ancient". I know this , for I was trained to teach Chinese to non-Chinese speakers. Let me know if you want to know more.

Russian is a hard language to learn too. Chinese and Russian belong to different language systems. If I were you I would not learn them at same time.

Wilfred Chan ⋅ Randolph , NJ Verizon ⋅ 28 years experience

Just want to point out that both Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects within Chinese Language. Cantonese is more commonly used in Hong Kong and Southern part of China. Mardarin is more an official dialect in China that most of the Chinese use. The written language is the same for Cantonese speaking or Mardarin speaking. Hope this helps to clarify.

Judy Tomlinson ⋅ Dallas , TX Energy Future Holdings ⋅ 25 years experience

I agree that Spanish and Chinese are preferred but, if you intend to stay in the US, you would have to base your decision on your location. If your goal is to work for an international company, then Russian and Japanese would be worth pursuing. There are also industry considerations....Gaming, IT, International Security....pick the place, then the industry, then the location and then add the languages that are best suited to those considerations.

Kerry West ⋅ Herndon , VA Accenture ⋅ 13 years experience

I work internationally, the two languages that are preferred are Spanish and Chinese (Mandarin).

Heather Gillbanks ⋅ Houston , TX General Electric ⋅ 26 years experience

Also, consider the type of work/ type of company you are targeting for future employment. If they don't do much work with offshore firms, then Cantonese may be less helpful than concentrating on, say, multiple Spanish dialects (Puerto Rican and Mexican Spanish have some difference). If you're looking at oil & gas companies, than Russian would probably be more help than Spanish (as would Portuguese). Short answer - where do you want to end up? Target your languages that way.

Leon Xi ⋅ Lutherville Timonium , MD UPS ⋅ 12 years experience

Agree with Steve's comments. If you want to learn Chinese, learn Mandarin instead of Cantonese. Mandarin is official language in China and you can go any where in China with Mandarin. Cantonese is only limited in a small area. Plus, most young generations who is native Cantonese can speak Mandarin.

I can help you if you want to learn Mandarin.

Steve Howarth ⋅ Nampa , ID Hewlett Packard ⋅ 11 years experience

Totally agree with Scott B; Spanish and Mandarin are what I'd recommend. Spanish is a great asset for domestic firms due to the increasing Hispanic population in the US, plus international appeal for Latin and South America (except for Brazil--Portuguese). Speaking Mandarin is an even larger asset for any firm wanting to do business in China (LOTS of $$ in China!), which has been growing economically for years and I expect will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.