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Is Chinese going to be the lingua franca? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6660 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 73 of 249 23 October 2009 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeterday's New York Times ran an article about the growing prevalence of Mandarin in New York's Chinatown at the expense of Cantonese.
In Chinatown, the Future is Mandarin Edited by Keith on 24 October 2009 at 4:18pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| JasonBourne Groupie United States Joined 5753 days ago 65 posts - 111 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Arabic (Written), Turkish | Message 74 of 249 23 October 2009 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Sorry but it's not going to happen.
Chinese speakers learning English probably outnumber English speakers learning Chinese 100,000:1. Maybe more. For better or for worse, China is becoming more English, not the other way around. Edited by JasonBourne on 23 October 2009 at 10:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5678 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 75 of 249 24 October 2009 at 4:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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Will learning Chinese help individuals in terms of work and stuff? Sure. Will it get to
the point that you need to learn Chinese in order to get a job? Probably not in my lifetime (and I'm fairly young). Secondly, by citing numbers of people who are studying Chinese, we might be putting too much confidence in the perseverance of those people. Without intending to be cynical, I wonder how many of those people will study the language to any level fluency and how many will stop once the work load overtakes the chic factor. Edited by Paskwc on 24 October 2009 at 9:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5987 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 76 of 249 24 October 2009 at 4:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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My experience in china was that a lot of young people know tons of individual vocab words, but are unable to hold a basic conversation. If i talked to them in chinese, and then i didn't know a certain word, i could usually say the English word and they'd tell me the chinese equivalent right away. but when we tried to actually talk in English, it was usually very difficult for them. (Some were very very good, though)
This reminded me a lot of the highschool language classes here in canada. I know tons of people who know technical details about french grammar, and know a little french vocab, but they're all hopeless at actually speaking. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 77 of 249 24 October 2009 at 6:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Exactly my experience. Anyway, lets all be honest. Despite the hype, not many people are learning Chinese. If I remember, the statistics are about 2, 3% of college students, compared with 50% Spanish. Even fewer people are learning it to fluency. More people learn English in China than the entire population of the United States. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5678 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 78 of 249 24 October 2009 at 8:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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edit:mistake Edited by Paskwc on 24 October 2009 at 9:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 79 of 249 24 October 2009 at 9:16am | IP Logged | |||||
This is an urban myth. 1. Don't confuse "studying" English with learning it. 2. The school-age population of China is equal to or smaller than the population of the US. 3. Not all Chinese students study English. I saw a recent news article which said English classes are still in the process of being introduced in much of the country. Chinese education focuses heavily on Chinese and mathematics. There are other issues. The majority of Chinese people in China have no access to native English speakers, while people learning Chinese can find native speakers and communities in practically every every country of the world. And in much of China, there are other languages like Russian and Japanese that are more likely to pay off economically. I've heard that in parts of Western China, Russian is the standard language a white foreigner will be greeted in. The Dalian Economic Zone is dominated by Japanese companies, and I've heard enough Dalianites speak Japanese that Japanese companies sometimes outsource their call centres there. Edited by Captain Haddock on 24 October 2009 at 9:17am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 80 of 249 24 October 2009 at 11:15am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't see anything in your message that contradicts the fact that it is very probable that the amount people are "studying" English in China is in the vicinity of the population of the United States, whereas in the US, 3.3% of US college students (according to this article) are enrolled (studying) in a Chinese college course compared with 52.2% Spanish. This up and coming lingua franca is going to have to do a lot more than that. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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