Le Baron wrote:Ug_Caveman wrote:Japanese ... for 'business' (which, as an eight-year-old, I absolutely knew what I was talking about.)
That phrase "learn it for business" has got to be one of my favourite "sounds good but little substance" nuggets where people haven't really thought what they were saying through. Eight-year-old me heard my brother say it once (my brother is considerably more business/economics interested than I am) and I latched onto this idea that speaking Japanese would suddenly make me better at "business-ing". Of course, I've now worked out that plan doesn't make much sense given that I don't really want to work in Japan and don't have the time to dedicate to a language of such complexity.
Working as a teacher I often hear kids says their life plan is to "own a business... Like Lord Sugar** does!" - of course, when I ask them what Lord Sugar actually does - or even better, what his original business that made his fortune was actually called, they have no answer.
(**For those outside the UK: despite his name Lord Sugar is NOT a character from a children's cartoon he's a very real businessman whose company originally made electronic goods and is a reality TV judge on the UK version of 'The Apprentice')