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Top 10 Languages - Rankings in 2050 | ||
Tags: Language Importance | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes  Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 25 of 108 05 January 2011 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | ||
This may be true until you get out of the tourist areas. Will it be more or less true in 40 years? I don't know. But right now, not everybody speaks English. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6295 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 26 of 108 05 January 2011 at 3:16pm | IP Logged | ||
Consider the alternative. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5341 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 27 of 108 05 January 2011 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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On a side note, according to a few articles that I read regarding career opportunities in Italy for young people (which include both university graduates and unskilled youth), more and more of them find it difficult to 'launch' their first career in the Italian job market. As a result, many young Italians seek career abroad, which also means, the knowledge of a foreign language (I presume it's English for most cases) is essential for them to get a job abroad. Also, there are quite many Italians working in Zurich, for instance, and usually, the most important language naturally would be German.
What surprises me is, however, it's reported in nytimes that an Italian law graduate who speaks 5 languages and yet unable to find a paying-job in Italy. The articles are as follows: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5481350,00.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/world/europe/02youth.html? _r=1&ref=europe Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 05 January 2011 at 3:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6295 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 28 of 108 05 January 2011 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | ||
Suggested topics for reading or discussion on another forum. Inner Mongolia Outer Mongolia Inner Manchuria Outer Manchuria East Turkestan Inner Tibet Outer Tibet Back on topic for this form: Russian. Want to learn it. Seems useful and I want to learn languages that don't use the Latin alphabet. (I'm starting to mix things up since so many languages use the Latin alphabet.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5341 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 29 of 108 05 January 2011 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Jimbo,
Thanks for the suggestions :) I for one would also love to know more about these regions that you proposed! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5183 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 30 of 108 05 January 2011 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | ||
How come that your post doesn't surprise me at all? Italians are generally said to be not very good at languages - and that's partially true, - but things are slowly changing. Young university students are usually able to mantain at least a simple conversation in English, but we're still very far from the language mastery achieved by many other European countries. The truth is that when it comes to judge Italians for their language abilities, English is usually the only language taken into account. This is deeply wrong as we are, for example, generally pretty good at Spanish and French (but nobody seems to notice it). English remains certainly a must - and we're unfortunately still struggling with it, - but I honestly believe we're now moving in the right direction. As for the young Italian law graduate who speaks 5 languages and yet unable to find a paying-job in Italy, well... guys, we don't certainly have a meritocracy system here (and I'm not sure of being in a real democracy either.) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5341 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 31 of 108 05 January 2011 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Fabrizio,
I understand what you meant...as a matter of fact, during my vacation in Italy (I travel pretty often to Italy for over the weekend since it's one of my favourite places to visit) and have often come across a good number of Italians who could speak French and Spanish pretty well, not to mention some English upon seeing Asian tourists like me 'exploring' their beautiful country :) Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 05 January 2011 at 11:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SSalvestrini Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5175 days ago 33 posts - 43 votes Speaks: Italian, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 32 of 108 06 January 2011 at 2:02am | IP Logged | ||
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This has been a very interesting discussion! I must say, however, that apparently
unlike everyone who has posted thus far, I am not of the opinion that Mandarin should be ranked so highly. In terms of total speakers, yes, Mandarin will be in the top three I'd assume. However, I doubt it will be important economically. First, all university students are more or less required to learn English (even though many of them end up not needing it). Second, the younger business generation have all graduated from university, and those that deal internationally speak English very, very well (not all, but for the most part). Third, Mandarin has very little reach, so to speak. It's spoken primarily in China, Taiwan, and Singapore, that's it. Granted, all of the latter have great economies (and Singapore is a huge hub of international business in Asia), but the businessmen in all three respective countries speak English! Due to a high population in China, and hundreds thousands of unemployed grad students, competition for any far reaching business positions (meaning, positions involving international trading and whatnot) is unbelievable, and complete fluency in English is basically a prerequisite. When I was in China this summer I could not have gotten by without an extensive knowledge of Mandarin, but that's solely because I spent my time away from the economic zones of the country and explored the culture. I did, however, spend a lot of time in Shanghai and most people in the business district speak English (which is why foreigners in China do not learn Mandarin). A final point: again, due to the high turnout of educated people, there are thousands of grad students who would be more than happy to find employment as a translator for English speakers. A friend of mine who lives in China not only has a personal chef (who speaks English), but a personal translator who also, obviously, speaks English. So in short, I must confess. As much as I would love to continue learning Mandarin, I have stopped because of the above. Yes, I'm interested in the culture of the country, and in exploring its diversity, but Mandarin is just not economically important to me, despite doing a lot of business in China. Unfortunately, even if I were to devote the next five years of my life to Mandarin, my Chinese counterparts woulds still speak better English in comparison to my Mandarin. Of course, it would show professional respect to have a stronger grasp on the language, but other languages (like Russian) are more important to me right now. Note: some may argue that, on the contrary to what I'm saying, a lot of Chinese businessmen are just now learning English and do not have that great of a grasp on the language. While I disagree with this, it is still important to note that we're talking 2050. If China's education system improves just slightly, the number of English speakers will increase substantially. As I said, all university students learn English, and if more people go to college (it either becomes cheaper, or wealth begins to be more equally distributed), you will not be able to obtain a business position in China that involves the West in any way without knowing English. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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