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Is Chinese going to be the lingua franca? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| knadolny Diglot Newbie United States capturingchinese.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5515 days ago 11 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese | Message 121 of 249 13 November 2009 at 11:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I have to respectfully disagree. If China becomes the world's number one economy and begins to innovate, then more people will start to learn the language and it will have a shot at being the global lengua frenca. Whether that happens is mostly up to China and how they deal with their growing pains as well as how good the US keeps being at reinventing itself. Also, English is anything but easy. I think English is a great language because of all the history and borrowing of words and sounds from other languages, but this makes the language a nightmare to learn. I'm living in Japan now and help out with people's engineering papers. (I'm a structural engineer.) If they mix up an "a" or a "the" then the meaning is completely different. Sometimes I have no idea what they are trying to say and have to ask them. Are people lenient for such grammar mistakes? I would say absolutely not. If you want to be a great engineer then you better be able to write a decent paper to let the world know. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Dixon Groupie Canada Joined 6052 days ago 54 posts - 74 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 122 of 249 16 November 2009 at 7:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
On the whole, the US respected property rights to a much greater degree during the time period you mention. If you would tell a business owner from those days that he would have to make his building accessible to disabled people or be shut down, or that he is going to be taxed at fifty percent, there would be open revolt. Imagine if there were rules protecting animals and trees that we have today, rather than property rights--the railroads wouldn't have been built, and nobody would have settled the West for fear of endangering an owl or diverting a stream. So, I would say that the United States transformed from a war torn agrarian nation to the most industrially powerful and wealthiest country on the planet due to it's capitalism and respect for property rights, not the opposite. 1 person has 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 123 of 249 16 November 2009 at 11:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think we could look at it in two ways however; soft power and hard power. Right now, China, as a whole, does have hard power. At least, more than it did have and approaching that of a world power. However, it does not have any amount of soft power. The US has both in huge amounts. To be an empire or hegemony you need both. You need not only people forced to learn your language as a tool, but you need to have the superior culture that others are trying to imitate, so you can sit back and wait for people to adapt to you. Right now it is the opposite in China, where people worship all things western. As of the moment, western culture is the superior world culture that others imitate, regardless of a rising China's GDP. I still have doubts though. Take Japan as an example. Japan has not only the 2nd largest economy but has large amounts of cultural power. Nevertheless, only a fraction of Americans (mostly young) are learning Japanese, and their power does not seem to extend beyond entertainment into the "Japanese way of life"/ As a side thought, there seems to be something inherent to western culture that makes it able to adapt to any other culture, like a tool, while Chinese and Japanese values are impenetrable. Western culture seems to be perfectly suited to globalization and free market capitalism, or in fact these ideas are inherently western, so the current world system can only support the dissemination of ideas within it's own rubric. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 124 of 249 16 November 2009 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think the reason for this is that modern Western culture, as seen by its international adopters, is extremely watered down. It has very little to do with what is actually the glories of the European civilisation, what is spreading is sit-coms, pop-music, glorification of greed, consumerism and individualism to the point of not caring about your family or your culture. These things are very easy to take to heart, it's like floating downstream in a river. Real culture, like Chinese calligraphy or Bach, is very much harder to appreciate. 2 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 125 of 249 16 November 2009 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
So this modern western culture you speak of... is not a culture at all? Rather, a non-culture? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 126 of 249 16 November 2009 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, I rather mean that when we say that Western culture is being adopted by people all over the world, we tend to forget that Western culture once upon a time was more than Mcdonalds, skyskrapers, Britney spears and consumer capitalism. Those are the things that are spreading like a disease, not Lermontov, Lassus or Leonardo. Compared to them, no, I wouldn't call Britney Spears culture. Edited by Gusutafu on 16 November 2009 at 3:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alvinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 6235 days ago 828 posts - 832 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish | Message 127 of 249 16 November 2009 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You yourself set your own culture....Globalization which has been widespread by West has a lot of elements...therefore, you can scrap whatever you find it useless...it doesn't matter what crappy elements yellow media spreads....you have the right to be inside of a bubble and enjoy whatever you want.....it doesn't matter if it's western or eastern.... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 128 of 249 16 November 2009 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This is true but irrelevant. We are discussing what the Western world exports to the rest of the planet, and it's not Bach, believe me, it's Britney. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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