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Is Chinese going to be the lingua franca? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5082 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes  Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 225 of 249 26 April 2011 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have been thinking about it, and I realised that in the next years, Chinese is going to be the lingua franca of the EAST. Yes.. Why? Because languages like Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese (I'm not sure about this last), have a lot of common/loan/borrowed words with/from Chinese language. It's easier for them if we compare with us.
In China, not everyone born speaking Mandarin. Lots of people speak it as a second language, so, when you read on some website that 1350 million people are native speakers of Mandarin, think again. I don't doubt that everyone can speak Mandarin there, but at least the Chinese people I know, half of them were born speaking a different dialect. A guy (who I don't remember the nickname) did quote my post, and said that I don't have experience with Chinese people and etc, so my experience was not valid. I said that I've known more than 40 people who learnt English from zero to fluency, and I've never known anyone who did learn Chinese from 0 to fluency. I travel to São Paulo (business) two times per month, and if you knew how many Chineses are there, you'd not say that I don't have experience with them, or learners of Chinese. In EAST, many languages have common words with the Chinese languages, and some of them are tonal, other languages use Chinese characters, so.. in EAST, it's inevitable, Mandarin WILL be the next lingua franca, if it is not the lingua franca yet. If we only count China, we have 1350 million people already. That's a huge number, even if they learn English, they will prefer Speaking Chinese over English. What's more comfortable, you speaking a language close related to your own as the lingua franca or a language from another family/culture/etc? In the future.. English will still being the lingua franca of the WEST, and Mandarin is going to be the lingua franca of the EAST. That's my opinion. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Nguyen Senior Member Vietnam Joined 5094 days ago 109 posts - 195 votes Speaks: Vietnamese | Message 226 of 249 26 April 2011 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think Chinese will be that popular in Vietnam for a number of reasons, mainly cultural. We don't really get on with the Chinese that well. English is by far the most popular language to learn (as in China). After that Korean and Japanese seem to be the languages of choice judging by what is available in bookstores. Not very many Chinese resources in Vietnamese I'm afraid... 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7224 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 227 of 249 27 April 2011 at 6:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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Matheus: Yeah, I really don't buy into your argument at all...The world is becoming *more* integrated, not less; it makes absolutely zero sense for there to be to one lingua franca for the "West" and another for the "East"...As the use of Mandarin in East Asia grows, that just gives people in the rest of the world even more reason to study the language; the potential economic cost of not knowing Chinese grows, while the potential economic cost of not knowing English remains the same. Even if Chinese is harder for a Westerner than English, that difference will remain constant while the other factors change, which means that in time it'll be overwhelmed if things continue moving in the same direction.
Furthermore, you misunderstood the objection to the "evidence" of you knowing 40 people who have learned English from zero; those 40 people are what percentage of the people you know who have studied English? Something very small for sure; if you know 2000 people who have studied English at some point (And to be fair, who hasn't?) and 40 of them became fluent that's 2%. Even if you knew 50 people who studied Chinese, if the success rate were the same that's still only 1 fluent person, and none at all wouldn't be statistically abnormal. And that's not even taking into account other factors like the average number of years spent studying the respective language...I agree with you that Chinese is more difficult than English, but it's just a coincidence that your observation happens to coincide with the truth. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 228 of 249 27 April 2011 at 7:29am | IP Logged | |||||
If people in China are learning English, the potential economic cost of not knowing English does not remain the same (for people who can't speak Mandarin). 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Nguyen Senior Member Vietnam Joined 5094 days ago 109 posts - 195 votes Speaks: Vietnamese | Message 229 of 249 27 April 2011 at 10:33am | IP Logged | |||||
Good one Ari! Cool Avatar by the way! Is that you? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7224 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 230 of 249 27 April 2011 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Ari: That's a good point, I didn't think about that...For the time being though, Mandarin is spreading in China faster than English is, so in the long-term we'll just have to see how willing the Chinese are to keep learning and using English.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 231 of 249 27 April 2011 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
Very true, and not just how willing -- how able. English is really hard for them and their education system isn't very good at teaching it to them. Business people will of course always have passable English skills (but may well be relieved if they don't have to use them), but for going into China and creating new business opportunities where none were before, Mandarin will be a necessity in the immediate future, at least. This will likely mean that Mandarin will be an advantage but not a requirement in the West for savvy business people. Two Westerners communicating in Mandarin because their English isn't as good is just not gonna happen this century unless something very radical occurs. There is also this possibility: As Western educational centers start picking up more Mandarin, the Chinese government will seize on it as a matter of national pride. They will then aggressively promote Mandarin learning in foreign countries and through exchange programs and try to push their own people to use more Mandarin when abroad. Chinese nationalism is a very powerful force. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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