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Is Chinese going to be the lingua franca? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Holfeld Newbie Germany benjaminholfeld.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4985 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 209 of 249 06 April 2011 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I compared Chinese with English (with a Chinese Friend)
English writing and speaking seemed to be more efficient (faster) - thats why I think English will stay Lingua Franca! But it will get more and more influences from other languages. Benjamin A. Holfeld (http://www.benjaminholfeld.com) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Nguyen Senior Member Vietnam Joined 5097 days ago 109 posts - 195 votes  Speaks: Vietnamese | Message 210 of 249 07 April 2011 at 3:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Not a snowball's chance! Mandarin is difficult even for native speakers. Literacy is low in China and the number of regional dialects is mind bending! From town to town the language barrier is staggering. Why would anyone consider this a lingua franca? Nothing personal but there are a lot of hurdles to overcome for this language to be universal.
It is far too difficult and awkward... 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6586 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 211 of 249 07 April 2011 at 8:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I have only recently returned to this forum and as such haven't read through this monster thread (but then I've read a dozen threads about the same thing). Just wanting to respond to some misconceptions in the last post.
I assume this is about the writing system, since a claim that spoken mandarin is difficult to native speakers is pretty, uh, weird. I can't imagine a language that's difficult for native speakers, and if I did, it sure as hell wouldn't be Mandarin, which has the simplest grammar I've ever even heard about.
... but high in Taiwan and Hong Kong. And note here that not only do these places use a more complicated writing system (traditional characters instead of simplified), but in Hong Kong, the written and spoken language are completely different (spoken Cantonese and written Mandarin) in both vocabulary and to some degree grammar. Literacy is low in China because tha majority of China's population is extremely poor and uneducated.
It IS a de facto lingua franca, exactly because of the many regional dialects. People all over China with widely different mother tongues speak Mandarin to each other every day. You can get by in any city in China with only Mandarin, much better than you could with English in Europe. Mandarin is a lingua franca that unites more than a dozen different language regions. It's just that it's all within China's borders. I'm sure most of this has been said already in this thread. Also please note I'm not claiming that Mandarin will be the new world lingua franca. I doubt it. I just wanted to correct some misconceptions. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kenshin Triglot Newbie Taiwan Joined 5034 days ago 17 posts - 34 votes Speaks: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English Studies: Japanese, German, French | Message 212 of 249 07 April 2011 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Let me just remind you that "Nguyen", this common Vietnamese surname is derived from Chinese language. As a Vietnamese, you have already integrated numerous Sino-Vietnamese elements in your daily speech, thanks to the great amount of Chinese-derived words in Vietnamese. I wonder why would you dislike Chinese language since we have given you an exclusive discount on learning Chinese. Back to the topic, I agree that it's almost impossible that Mandarin Chinese will become a lingua franca like English, given the fact English has been dominating the popular culture globally, that is crucial for determining whether a language could be a universal language or not, in my opinion. But Mandarin does stand a chance of being a lingua franca in East and Southeast Asia, a region culturally influenced by China. Few years ago, learning Chinese as a second language was not a big concern for Asians. But these days, I have seen growing interests of Mandarin among Japanese and Korean people, and there are a lot of Vietnamese, Thai, Philippines people working here, who can communicate pretty well with me in Mandarin. Finally, I know this has been posted before: for people who have to do business with Chinese or work in Chinese-speaking countries, they just bite the bullet and learn to speak Chinese. Despite its reputation of being an extremely, ridiculously difficult language for foreigners. Edited by kenshin on 07 April 2011 at 6:58pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5344 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 213 of 249 07 April 2011 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Though I personally do not think that Mandarin (or any other languages for that matter) will be replacing English as the world's Lingua Franca anytime in the near future, I think Mandarin does, however, stand a very good chance to challenge English's role in East Asia.
On a side note, I would prefer to learn a language that has its own writing system, rather than one that has to give up its writing system, which has existed for centuries, for the mere convenience of foreigners. Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 07 April 2011 at 4:38pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Saim Pentaglot Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5087 days ago 124 posts - 215 votes Speaks: Serbo-Croatian, English*, Catalan, Spanish, Polish Studies: Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Occitan, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic (Maghribi), French, Modern Hebrew, Ukrainian, Slovenian | Message 214 of 249 08 April 2011 at 11:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Anecdotal evidence means nothing. Being a native Portuguese speaker who probably hasn't really associated with Mandarin learners or perhaps hasn't visited China, Singapore or Taiwan, your experience doesn't mean much. I know some people who speak Mandarin as a second language, it's not wildly uncommon - my dad works in Taiwan and so I've met some foreigners who speak Mandarin there. There's also a student from Macau in my grade who speaks Mandarin as her second language (her first being Cantonese).
People do not learn lingua francas because of ease of use. Sometimes languages are simplified because they are used by more people (see pidgins, for example), but beyond that there's not much of a correlation. People learn a second language if they need to, full stop. No-one gives a rat's ass about logographs or tones if their or their childrens' future is on the line. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| TDC Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6925 days ago 261 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian | Message 215 of 249 09 April 2011 at 4:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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English speakers are to English-centric to be bothered with learning other languages, thus no other language will be able to usurp it. It seems like it is now simply too widespread to be stopped...
Chinese isn't really that hard to speak though, and the characters aren't all that hard once you start getting exposure to them. Like anything else, it just takes practice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| null Groupie China Joined 6129 days ago 76 posts - 82 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 216 of 249 10 April 2011 at 10:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
China's literacy rate is 93.3%, HK is 94.6% but it has only 8 million people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_r ate 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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