|
 |
Learning Mandarin: False Eastern Promise | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| orion Senior Member United States Joined 7021 days ago 622 posts - 678 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 33 10 February 2008 at 1:46am | IP Logged |
|
According to an article in The Economist, the craze for teaching Mandarin may be a misguided fad.
Link Edited by orion on 10 February 2008 at 1:47am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 33 10 February 2008 at 3:13am | IP Logged |
|
I agree. Today's hype surrounding Mandarin seems more like a bubble to me and reminds me of the previous manias for German, Japanese and Russian.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Vlad Trilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member Czechoslovakia foreverastudent.com Joined 6584 days ago 443 posts - 576 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, Hungarian*, Mandarin, EnglishC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, French Studies: Persian, Taiwanese, Romanian, Portuguese | Message 3 of 33 10 February 2008 at 3:17am | IP Logged |
|
This is such a typical capitalist article..
What about all those other reasons why people learn languages?... culture, history, literature...? But there's also plenty reasons why learn Mandarin even if you are a capitalist :-) It's not that difficult but it takes a longer time to learn. Mandarin is just as difficult for us as English is for the Chinese. The value of a western Mandarin speaker will only rise with approaches like these, since there will be so few of them. It is really stupid to say 'why bother to learn their language..let them learn ours'.. China will soon be able to understand us but there will be no one here who will understand China. Very good strategy. It is also known to some extent, that Chinese master the written part of our languages very well, but when it comes to speaking and understanding, they preform much worse. And if we talk capitalism.. what about small-mid size companies that would like to have thier own man in China and not a mediator? Using transaltors is fine, but in our countries there are very few fluent mandarin speakers, not to mention translators. Very often the translating is done Mandarin-English-Slovak/Czech/Polish/Hungarian and vice-versa which triples the time for business discussions..or any discussions. The message is lost on the way, if not the information itself, then the emotional tone for sure. I can also hardly believe post communist governments for instance employing Chinese expats as diplomats or Foreign department high ranking officials any time soon. I was doing my internship at the Ministry of Foreign affairs and I was told that there were no speakers of Mandarin, that there was someone, but moved to the corporate world soon. Edited by Vlad on 10 February 2008 at 3:22am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 33 10 February 2008 at 3:36am | IP Logged |
|
By the same token, there have always been people who've studied German, Japanese and Russian for reasons outside business. Those people will always exist. However, most people don't study things unless there's financial benefit to themselves so they need to perceive this connection that knowledge of Mandarin is a prerequisite to confirming profitable transactions with Chinese. It ignores the fact that most Chinese businesspeople are reasonably educated and already have learned some English (indeed it's mandated by the Chinese Ministry of Education and thus indirectly by the Communist Party of China)
I believe that the hype surrounding Mandarin is coming from the reasoning that a bunch of foreigners knowing how to speak Mandarin will tend to do better (i.e. make more money) than those who don't. This reasoning ignores the fact that what matters in business is the deal itself and whether the buyer feels that he/she is getting his/her money's worth. In the banking industry, I am surprised by how naive many foreign businesspeople are about their prospects in East Asia. Knowing Mandarin is only part of getting the deal done. If a business cannot convince the buyer of the economic advantages of the transaction, then the deal is off no matter how polished one's grammar or vocabulary is. There's a reason why foreign banks haven't been successful in setting up viable branches in China - and it's not because the banks haven't sent Mandarin-speaking contacts. A foreign businessperson would need to be trusted by his/her clients and that trust comes from more than merely knowing how to speak the language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6702 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 5 of 33 10 February 2008 at 4:45am | IP Logged |
|
And anyone who focuses on learning the language just to do deals is forgetting that the language is also a way of getting information that might otherwise not be available. I see the newspapers in Chinese around here are usually twice as thick as the English newspapers, and there are racks of Chinese magazines that focus on what's happening in the local area that will never get translated into English. Maybe it's not the most important material, but it might make the difference between spotting a developing trend before everyone else or just following trends everyone else finds.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Vlad Trilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member Czechoslovakia foreverastudent.com Joined 6584 days ago 443 posts - 576 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, Hungarian*, Mandarin, EnglishC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, French Studies: Persian, Taiwanese, Romanian, Portuguese | Message 6 of 33 10 February 2008 at 5:43am | IP Logged |
|
Chung,
But I can beat your answer by saying that in our countries, even if you are a business God, it doesn't mean you'll get a job you want:-) It's still about who you know and not what you know. And if your uncle is in the government somewhere and you tell him you speak Mandarin fluently, it is worth much much more than good business skills. We have an abundance of economists here and very few Mandarin speakers. This is a very different kind of capitalism than the one you know. Of course you need to know more than the language, but that is kind of expected and logical. Knowing the language is a solid skill and a great asset. A business diploma is a paper. Plus the ones, that speak only Mandarin and do nothing else (how many are there?) are the ones that usually go for the poetry and don't care about business or career growth. Edited by Vlad on 10 February 2008 at 5:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 7 of 33 10 February 2008 at 6:38am | IP Logged |
|
Whether learning Japanese was a "fad" or not, I don't see how you could effectively do business here in the world's second-largest economy without knowing quite a bit of Japanese.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6890 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 8 of 33 10 February 2008 at 6:50am | IP Logged |
|
I think it's also worth noting that knowing fluent Mandarin does not guarantee you success in the business world. To be a successful businessman/woman in China, you really do need to know how to do business. Language alone won't get you very far if you haven't a clue about business. I think a lot of companies mistakenly employee Mandarin-speaking graduates thinking that their language skills will give them an edge, only to find out that their 'young talent' are far from business savvy.
Businessmen/women who learn fluent Mandarin will get a lot further than language graduates who are employed by companies on the sheer basis of their linguistic skills. This is not a criticism of language students per se (I'm one of them myself) but language skills will only get you so far. The same could be said of, say, medical translators who don't have any knowledge of medicine or technical writers who have no background in engineering or technology. Specialisation is the key to a good career. If someone sets out to learn Mandarin (or any other language) alongside a business or management course, then they'll get a lot further in the business world. 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. |
