Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has earned the princely sum of Rs 2,400 by renting out its Language Lab Complex (LLC). This establishment in New Delhi is the examination centre for students of Japanese and German languages in India.

Actually, the amount is misleading. It is more a matter of the dons being bad businessmen. While languages like German, Russian and French are no longer hot subjects, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish have become all the rage. “Knowing Chinese can take you far in this world,” says H. Mishra, CEO of Orind, a refractory manufacturer that has large interests in mainland China.

Yesterday, it was a different set of jobs that foreign language skills opened up. You could become a translator, a tour guide, an interpreter or even a teacher. A clutch of new professions has opened up today. Some continue in the downmarket fringe. A person knowing, say, French can command big bucks at a call centre. But he or she is hardly a role model for those looking for a successful career.

Besides, there is a danger. As salaries here rise and good jobs become scarcer in their home country, Frenchmen will be descending in droves to take up call-centre jobs in India. When it comes to the spoken language, you can’t compete with a native speaker.

“If you want to parlay your language skills to the maximum advantage, you should not be using them as the core skills for your job,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant D. Singh. “A Chinese translator or teacher can go thus far and no further. A language makes a huge difference when it is added to other skill sets.”

STRAWS IN THE WIND

Learning Chinese is catching on • A Confucius Institute has been opened in New York to improve Chinese language teaching and learning • A Confucius Institute is on the anvil at JNU in New Delhi • Over 3,000 US students are currently studying in China • Over 5,000 Indian students are currently studying in China • Chinese is offered by more than 1,000 colleges and 200 schools in the US • Only a handful of Indian colleges offer Chinese as an elective. There is no information on schools offering Chinese. It is likely that there is none

Take management. An Indian manager posted to his company’s China operations can expect nearly 10 times his local salary. Salaries are, of course, higher still in the US and some other Western countries. But in many of these countries, there is no language issue; everyone talks English. And the demand for Indian professionals in places such as France and Germany is too low to merit attention.

China is the new world. And the people who are boning up on Chinese are CEOs in the making. In many business schools in India Chinese is being introduced as an elective.

The Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB) has tied up with the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business of Beijing for a student exchange programme. According to ISB Dean M. Rammohan Rao: “ISB and the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business make ideal partners for exposing our students to each others’ expertise, heritage and culture.”

At the lesser-known Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai, courses on offer include Mandarin, and Chinese history and culture. Some Mumbai-based B-schools have also taken the plunge. Up north, Punjab University is offering diplomas in Chinese and Tibetan.

“China and India are the superpowers in the making,” says Singh. “Executives who are comfortable with both the cultures and languages will be the stars of tomorrow.”