|
 |
Learning foreign languages: Will it become obsolete | ||
Tags: Foreign Languages | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 25 of 42 14 May 2013 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I guess the original comments were tongue in cheek, so I will dismount my high horse. But #10 in the world for a language that is almost exclusively confined to Europe is pretty good going. I don't think people are going to stop learning German any time soon, in fact the reverse is probably the case due to the strength of the German economy. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 26 of 42 15 May 2013 at 12:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wikipedia has a nice list of the most common languages spoken: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_ native_speakers I hadn't realized that Portuguese was such a major language group compared to German shows my implicit Euro bias. I think English is still the most common language in Europe if you count second language users. Edited by patrickwilken on 15 May 2013 at 12:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Surtalnar Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 4397 days ago 52 posts - 67 votes Speaks: German*, Latin, English, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 27 of 42 15 May 2013 at 12:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Google Translator is just bad. It doesn't know what ruby means in German and French by default settings. This is ridiculous, considering how long the Google Translator is in existence.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4779 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 28 of 42 15 May 2013 at 2:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
To answer the OP's basic question, probably learning MOST foreign languages will become obsolete in the not too distant future. The world could be divided into several regional languages, English for the West, Arabic for the Muslim world, Mandarin for the Far East, and Spanish for Latin America (with apologies to Brazil). Future translators could corner the market just knowing those four.
Any language other than the above-mentioned ones will probably have a shrinking pool of native speakers and learners, therefore declining in importance. Even Hindi, Russian and Japanese have uncertain futures. Africa and Oceania may go all-English. So follow the advice of the previous poster who suggested learning Mandarin and Japanese, assuming you have thousands of vacant hours to fill. My friend's brother is fluent in his native Russian as well as English, Mandarin and Japanese. He has a job with the Bank of London and has more work than he can handle. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| gainer Newbie Russian Federation Joined 4218 days ago 1 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Russian* Studies: English | Message 29 of 42 15 May 2013 at 7:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Do you think russians for instance will speak Mandarin soon? I don't think so. We will not all speak English either. I'm sure. So, you aren't right in your guess about the future of languages. Different languages will stay alive. Edited by gainer on 15 May 2013 at 8:00am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| wber Groupie United States Joined 4302 days ago 45 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Vietnamese, French | Message 30 of 42 15 May 2013 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree with tanya b. Not in a million years. For a new language to "replace" the native language 1. It has to forcefully take over the native language, force assimilation, and destroy every trace of that language 2. It has to carry a certain amount of prestige, and the native language has to be seen as low prestige and inferior. Here are case examples of what can be deemed as the two most influential languages of our time ( English vs Mandarin Chinese) a) Do you seriously expect any East Asian country warming up to the idea that Mandarin Chinese is inherently superior to their own language? That's a NEVER. Its closest neighbors despise them. It's been proven by 2000+ yrs of history. It will be used as a supplement, but not a replacement. b) I doubt Russians will go give up their language freely. They are extremely prideful c) Any country that has already faced "forced assimilation", ( former Soviet block countries, near extinction of Aboriginal languages in Australia) will never accept the same path again. d) English has become a dominant language at a time where human progress has grown exponentially, yet it doesn't have the most native speakers. It has a lot of second language speakers. However, that is what they are second language speakers. Language is linked to culture. No one will willingly give up their culture for another. The French will continue to speak French, Germans German, Italians Italian etc... e) What type of Arabic? There are two MSA and colloquial Arabic. So which one Arabic country will become the better one? f) Brazil has the largest amount of Portuguese speakers in the world. I doubt they'll go down easily. g) There are things that will never be translatable. Why do you think the English language has borrowed so many words from so many different languages? Edited by wber on 15 May 2013 at 11:38am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| overscore Triglot Newbie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4564 days ago 23 posts - 38 votes Speaks: French*, English, German | Message 31 of 42 15 May 2013 at 12:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
The populations of Europe are dwindling. Will they fade into insignificance? Germany is expected to have 60M
people by 2050, that's a loss of like 20M+. Meanwhile, muslims (and islam) are growing in huge numbers. So in my opinion the future for european languages is bleak. Language learning won't become obsolete anytime soon, but as the western nations are all converging towards a monoculture, the return on investment for the effort is only going down. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 32 of 42 15 May 2013 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Any learning done solely for financial gain can potentially become obsolete. Speaking a language is not a skill that becomes useless when you switch jobs or retire, it stays with you forever and enriches you in far more ways than can be counted in dollars or euros. 5 persons have 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. |
