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Will Korean catch up to Japanese? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5784 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 25 of 54 28 February 2010 at 6:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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You should not learn Chinese unless you plan to move to China in the next 3 years. There are no uses for Chinese besides living there because there are almost no Chinese speakers outside of China and it is nearly impossible to get books or other media in this language.
You should learn Korean because Korea has no pollution and its cities are incredibly clean. The GDP per capita will overtake Japan's in 2021 proving that Korea is the future. Most American companies will start phasing out their business interactions with the Japanese over the five years preceding this and start to invest heavily in Korea instead. This will crush the Japanese economy and put the need for Japanese speakers at an all-time low. Even the Japanese will be scrambling to learn Korean. I am totally serious. Edited by ericspinelli on 28 February 2010 at 6:26am 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5736 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 26 of 54 28 February 2010 at 10:43am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, yeah, if that's really all your motivation, thenthat's what I'm trying to say. I don't think it's like ericspinelli says - there are lots of Chinese speakers outside of China, and there's some interesting Chinese stuff, especially online, but I'm totally with TixhiiDon - I think you imagine that to be too easy. My "agenda" is to save you a lot of frustration that'll lead nowhere in the end, and to save me a lot of frustrated newbie posts in my favorite Chinese boards. I'm not trying to offend you, but there's a reason that 98% of the people drop out of their Chinese studies, and it'll be better for everybody, if people wouldn't assume they'll do Pimsleur for 30 minutes a day and they'll be fluent in two years. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| aquablue Senior Member United States Joined 6383 days ago 150 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 27 of 54 28 February 2010 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Nope, never said it would be easy.... and whatever knowledge i gain would be useful if I did intend to go there and study in the future.
Regarding Korean, that is a bold prediction you make sir. I have no idea how credible you are on the subject of economic forecasts. Anything could happen in the future and Japan is not going to let their country go down without a fight, I can assure you. However, I can see that Korean is going to be a valuable language to learn compared to its previous status. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5496 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 28 of 54 28 February 2010 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not trying to discredit anyone, or point fingers in any particular direction, but
who is anyone to determine the reason why someone else should learn a language? For those who say that learning a language solely for business is not achievable, consider your bias first. Yes, it would be a lot of difficult and perhaps uninteresting work to learn Chinese to a functional level, especially without an interest in the culture or literature etc. Your bias might be that language learning is good for exploring a whole new class of books, or maybe talking with locals will make your travel just a little more stimulating. In fact, I myself fall into this category. Now, consider those whose main goal is to make money. They're not the artsy type, for whom math and long hours of numbers and planning are difficult; business people (at higher levels) enjoy hard work because of the economic benefit it can bring them. I see no difference between slaving away over Chinese characters with the potential profits in mind, versus an entrepreneur operating a business that maybe only gets him 50k a year with 12 hours of work per day because he sees potential for major growth in a few years. As for why, or why not, to learn Japanese or Korean based on the economic futures of these countries, I don't see this is a good place to discuss it. There might be some economists here, but the main unifying trait we all share here is that we like (and are probably reasonably good at) learning languages. For anyone who uses Google or Wikipedia to support your 9 minute planned thesis about the GDP growth of a country for why one should, or should not, study a language, I suggest you take a breather. I'd consider my own business needs or talk to someone at a financial institution about the economic benefits before I'd consider someone's rant online. If someone wants to learn Chinese, and fails, so what? I wouldn't even call it a fail. If only a conversational level is reached, but not the original goal of near fluency, well that's better than nothing, actually it's still impressive. For the record, I do agree that 2 years of Pimsleur does not suffice, and that to reach any high level in Mandarin will require more work than for most languages. And one more point, why is it proposed that one should only learn Chinese if he plans to move to China? That's ridiculous. To entertain this argument, let's assume Mandarin does reach a worldwide level near English in the near future. (I'm not implying that it will or won't). There will be plenty of reasons to learn it. Think of all the people who learn English not to move to the USA, nor to read Shakespeare, nor to work in the tourism industry, nor to deal with American businesses, but instead they simply learn it because of how common it is in everyday life. The same argument could potentially apply to Mandarin. Edited by canada38 on 28 February 2010 at 7:07pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 29 of 54 28 February 2010 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't see what's wrong with a little amateur analysis of economic developments on this forum. It has a direct influence on language learning and is therefore important for many of us. That's nice and all that you would go talk to someone from a financial institution on these matters, but it's much more probable that your average language student would get information on these matters from the internet. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| aquablue Senior Member United States Joined 6383 days ago 150 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 30 of 54 28 February 2010 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Why do you imply that I will fail and that my efforts will ''lead to frustration'' and that i ''will most likley'' drop out-- i find that offensive. who are you to determine what I can or can't do or to assume i'd use pimsleur at all? What a horrible, horrible attitude you have. By your logic, people should only attempt easy tasks in life. Oh, and I am intereted in Chinese culture, literature and healing arts (tai chi, etc)...so it wouldn't be just for potential business purposes. Edited by aquablue on 28 February 2010 at 9:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| str0be Senior Member Korea, South Joined 5605 days ago 103 posts - 148 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, Korean | Message 31 of 54 01 March 2010 at 12:07am | IP Logged | |||||
I think not. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5736 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 32 of 54 01 March 2010 at 12:28am | IP Logged | |||||
I didn't say you *couldn't*, but I suppose you *shouldn't*. Let's face it, in the time it takes you to get the language to a level where it can be economically useful, you could have learnt much more valuable skills. I have a business degree, which took me three years, of, let's say, 4 hours of work a day, if I average it over weekends and so on. I expect to spend more time (maybe not more years, but more hours) to get to a good Chinese level, and even when I've reached that, it might not be too valuable, money-wise. So learning a hard language like Chinese for business is simply a bad business decision. So far Chinese has only sucked up my money, and "not even" given me the 50k that you hypothetical entrepreneuer gets. Edited by Pyx on 01 March 2010 at 12:33am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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