|
 |
Chinese will rule the World Wide Web | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 65 of 121 20 July 2011 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Two things: 1. Your point about the ease of reading written script would be relevant if we were comparing Chinese to a phonetic language like Spanish or Indonesian. But alas, "an afternoon of studying" is not sufficient for a confused non-native learner to understand why "through" and "though" and thought" or "wood" and "boot" or "united" and "untied" or "movie" and "lie" are all pronounced with different vowel sounds, and there are literally thousands of these types of irregularities. In short, it's not a matter of learning "26 characters vs a gazillion characters", but rather "a gazillion different and seemingly arbitrary combinations of characters vs roughly 2,000 characters". The end result is that both English and Chinese are memorization-intensive languages — they are no different in this respect. 2. Grammar. In English, I am; you or they are; and he or she is. In Chinese, I 是; you or they 是; and he or she 是. In English, I eat; I ate; and I will eat. In Chinese, I 吃; I 吃; and I 吃. In English, I can; I could; and I will be able to. In Chinese, I 可以; I 可以; and I 可以. Suffice to say, grammar is just as important as spelling, and Chinese clearly has the edge here. As for Spanish, it all depends on whether Hispanic America can eventually emulate the type of economic growth that China has seen, or whether it will stay stuck in the middle-income trap. It also wouldn't hurt if Spain got its economy back into viable shape (eliminating that 20% unemployment rate, for starters), but I don't see that happening. Needless to say, the Hispanosphere has yet to develop its own Shanghai (globally prominent financial hub), Guangdong (globally prominent manufacturing hub), Hong Kong (globally prominent commercial hub), or Beijing (globally prominent political hub). Linguistically, Indonesian should have the best chance, due to it having the phonetic simplicity of Spanish and grammatical simplicity of Chinese, but unfortunately I don't see that happening... 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sandman Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5409 days ago 168 posts - 389 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 66 of 121 20 July 2011 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
All languages have their specific grammar issues.
That is not the point. The point is that in Chinese there is an ENORMOUS time cost in dealing with the script alone IN ADDITION to actually learning the language and all their specific grammar, cultural, colloquial issues, etc. With latin alphabets a similar script related time cost doesn't exist. "it's not a matter of learning "26 characters vs a gazillion characters", but rather "a gazillion different and seemingly arbitrary combinations of characters vs roughly 2,000 characters" - I know you don't actually believe this. It seems you may be far too invested in your particular point of view at this time to be objective. There are rules to pronouncing different letter combinations in English that number far, far, less than 2000. Less than 100 probably. Even if there is more, certainly 99% of the language could be handled with that. Okay, did I say an afternoon? Maybe 2 days instead. In Mandarin one wouldn't even know where to begin. One wouldn't even have a GUESS. And don't pretend they don't have tones and other issues. Edited by Sandman on 20 July 2011 at 8:20pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 67 of 121 20 July 2011 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
This thread is taking an interesting turn. Despite all its warts and complexities, English has to be one of easiest languages to learn at a basic level for purposes of international communication. Of all the major Western languages, English is the easiest to acquire for a number of reasons:
1. No grammatical gender and agreement system 2. No noun cases 3. Relatively simple subject and object pronoun system 4. Simple word-order based syntax 5. Simple verb morphology 6. No diacritical markers What other major Western language comes close to having these advantages? I would also add something of a socio-cultural advantage: A relatively high level of tolerance of dialectical differences because of the international spread of English. English, of course, has its complexities, notably its etymologicallly-based and difficult spelling system and the subtleties of mood and aspect in verb morphology. Mandarin has its advantages, particularly in the area of grammar. But, really, is there anybody who will argue that the writing system and the tone-based phonology of Mandarin are as simple to master as any of the difficulties of English? As I have said, there are some trends towards the rationalization of English-spelling through texting. Who knows where this will lead? But the fundamental idea here is that a little bit of English can take you very far. OK, an afternoon may not be enough to learn the English alphabet. Let's say a week to get a grip on the alphabet. Let's assume that the learning conditions are identical. How functional can one become after a month of instruction in English vs a month in Mandarin? Actually, I think that the answer is probably the same for most of languages of the world. When you combine the ease of learning (to some sort of functional level--a CEFR A2) with the massive cultural and media presence of English, you have a very potent combination. I see the increasing popularity of Spanish and the decline of French as international languages. Mandarin is certainly on the radar screen as a language of international interest, i.e. people of other countries learning Mandarin. But as a language of international communication, it hardly registers outside its natural sphere of influence. In this regard, English dwarfs everything else. That is the current situation. Who knows what the future has in store? From my understanding of the importance of the learning of English in China today, I would say that English is probably spreading faster in China than Mandarin is spreading in the rest of the world despite all the current work of the Confucius institutes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Improbably Diglot Newbie Norway Joined 4937 days ago 34 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English | Message 69 of 121 20 July 2011 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
What English has got going for it that Chinese doesn't have, and might never have:
-A long colonial history with a presence in every part of the world. -The colonial histories of languages that are closely related to English. -Victory in a world war. -A military and economic presence throughout the world for a long time after said war. -A combined GDP of over 18 trillion dollars (China has 5.9 trillion, spread over a much larger population). Can Chinese top these factors? Possibly, but will have to be via a different route. (It won't be a major lingua franca until it becomes readily available or compulsory in primary education, the way English often is, so a lot depends on politics.) An Indo-European language would be preferred pretty much everywhere but Asia, because Indo-European languages (particularly Romance languages), due to the colonial history of Europe, are already represented in pretty much every population on Earth. Since Chinese cannot readily be separated from its writing system, its difficulty remains on par with that of even the most cumbersome IE-languages. The spelling inconsistencies in English are a walk in the park in comparison. Chances are Chinese will remain a largely isolated island in the vast sea that is the World Wide Web. Edited by Improbably on 20 July 2011 at 9:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| petteri Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4933 days ago 117 posts - 208 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: German, Spanish | Message 70 of 121 20 July 2011 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
One very important point is missing. In English written and spoken language are pretty close to each other. Even though English pronunciation is very messy, distance between "proper" and casual language is not that wide and most commonly used dialects are easily understood. I have let myself to know that in china there are dozens of dialects of Mandarin which differ a lot from each other. Just think about a country there every major area has its own old-time Cockney dialect or its own Schwiizertüütsch (Swiss German). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| litovec Tetraglot Groupie Switzerland lingvometer.com Joined 5132 days ago 42 posts - 60 votes Speaks: German, Russian, French, English | Message 71 of 121 21 July 2011 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Let's take a look on them.
Full transition from one language to another can take place within only one generation.
ok
Wasn't China a co-victor in WW2?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A military and economic presence is a derivative of economic power. Less power - less presence.
You better count in the real dimension since the exchange courses are fragile. In terms of PPP China will overrun USA in several years (or already did it depending on how you count). I don't know which countries you combined, those, where English is the native language of the majority of population? In any case, counting in real terms, the difference is much less than 3 times whatever you put in your mix. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5999 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 72 of 121 04 August 2011 at 3:04am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
I've finally run across an article to lay the nonsense to rest:
"Starkly put, in 2010 China accounted for 20% of the world's population, 9% of the world's GDP, 12% of the world's R&D expenditure, but only 1% of the patent filings with or patents granted by any of the leading patent offices outside China. Further, half of the China-origin patents were granted to subsidiaries of foreign multinationals." Really believe in China? Okay, fine, put your money where your mouth is and invest all your portfolio there... you can laugh at me at retirement time. Or... I could be laughing at you. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB1000142405311190480030 4576472034085730262- lMyQjAxMTAxMDIwODEyNDgyWj.html The same URL: http://tinyurl.com/3dbla8j 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
