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2nd Foreign Language in ASIA ? | ||
Tags: Asian Languages | Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 20 18 July 2009 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A question for people in Asia:
How common is it for people to learn other languages of the region? Or perhaps a second European language? Is this very rare, or quite common in your country? I realise that English is probably the first foreign language for MOST Asians due to the dominant economical position of the USA at the moment. However, many people study a second foreign language, right? Which language is this, and what are the justifications for the choices that people make? Whereas in Europe it might make a lot of sense to learn German for instance, I imagine the usefulness of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Bahasa Indonesian etc is a lot higher for you. It would be really intresting to hear from the Asians on the forum about your thoughts on this! Edited by cordelia0507 on 18 July 2009 at 1:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5608 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 2 of 20 18 July 2009 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In Mainland China,
1, Mandarin (native) 2, English (second, a must) 3, Japanese (third, optional) 4, German/French/Russian/Spanish (at random, optional) 5, Korean (popular in eastern China) 6, Thai (popular in southern China) *7, Indonesian (I guess, few Chinese people are willing to learn it, due to something abhorrent happened in 1998----Jakarta riots of May 1998) Edited by Z.J.J on 19 July 2009 at 3:49am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fat-tony Nonaglot Senior Member United Kingdom jiahubooks.co.uk Joined 6140 days ago 288 posts - 441 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian, Esperanto, Thai, Laotian, Urdu, Swedish, French Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian, Arabic (Written), Armenian, Pali, Burmese | Message 3 of 20 18 July 2009 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not an Asian but the situation in Thailand is that Japanese and Korean are very
popular. Mandarin seems to be less popular, maybe because there is a significant Chinese diaspora in Thailand who dominate business links with the PRC. Trailing some way behind these 3 (English, Korean and Japanese) are French and German, although in the major tourist areas (I spend most of my time in Chiang Mai) it's viable for speakers of "smaller" languages such as Italian and Russian to make a living. It's not unusual for Thais to speak another regional language, but it's likely to be due to family ties or having lived in that country rather than classroom study (One of my sisters-in-law speaks fluent Malay having worked in Kuala Lumpur for many years). However, when I was in Mandalay I did see signs for Thai classes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6618 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 4 of 20 18 July 2009 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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That is a good question. I sometimes wonder, how many Chinese are learning Vietnamese or Mongolian as a foreign language? It seems like so many people are in a rush to learn English that people tend to forget about the languages that are spoken in the country next door.
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| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5608 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 5 of 20 18 July 2009 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
In Thailand, most of Chinese people, especially those whose families have been living there for many years (even for centuries), usually speak an ancient dialect which is called Teochewnese (Tiô-chiu-oē, 潮州話). And it's also regarded as a branch of Minnanese (Bân-lâm-gú) language. Generally speaking, in most cases, they're not mutually intelligible. Edited by Z.J.J on 18 July 2009 at 2:56pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fat-tony Nonaglot Senior Member United Kingdom jiahubooks.co.uk Joined 6140 days ago 288 posts - 441 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian, Esperanto, Thai, Laotian, Urdu, Swedish, French Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian, Arabic (Written), Armenian, Pali, Burmese | Message 6 of 20 18 July 2009 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
I know most Chinese-Thais speak Teochow but they are the conduit for a lot of Thai/Chinese trade, so there's not the economic benefit from learning Mandarin that there is for Korean or Japanese. If you look in the jobs section in the Thai English language press (The Nation/Bangkok Post), almost every job requires one foreign language, most often English, but a significant proportion require two from English, Korean and Japanese. However, there's much less demand for Mandarin. In fact, the demand for Cantonese is almost equal to that for Mandarin. It's true what you say about Thai being moderately popular among Chinese, when my (Thai) wife and I have travelled through South-East Asia we always seem to bump into Chinese who speak very good Thai. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Isarin Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 5639 days ago 34 posts - 41 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Japanese Studies: Czech, Mandarin, Italian | Message 7 of 20 18 July 2009 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In most public high schools in Japan English is the only language you can learn, once you enter university you can study many different languages of which German, French, Korean & Mandarin are probably the most popular ones.
Private high schools sometimes offer I wider range of choices, most commonly French and Korean in addition to the compulsory English. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6436 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 20 18 July 2009 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As you correctly diagnosed, English is the first foreign language for people in Korea. It works like this:
1. English: compusory from elementary school 2. Japanese: optional from high school. Many people choose this language, even if unavailable in their high school, because of the proximity of the country, economic importance and similarities with Korean language. Plus, during the Japanese colonial period, it was a compulsory subject, so a surprising number of people over 60 can speak Japanese on a fuctional level. The legacy lingered on for many years until Mandarin started kicking in, but it is still safe to assume that Japanese is the de facto second foreign language in Korea. 3. Mandarin: a very close third to Japanese. Like the former, some schools opt to teach at high school level. Traditionally not as popular as Japanese, but it seems that the trend is quickly changing. Many Koreans have a great interest in China and the language. However, unlike Japanese, not many people do reach fluency. 4. French and German: Well, if I had to pick, French would be a bit more popular than German - but there's not much difference really. They are both known as languages of "culture" and are popular among the Europhiles. They used to be taught in quite a number of high schools until Mandarin became a lot more popular recently. Anyway, there's not much of Korean population who knows these languages well enough to be useful. 5. Spanish, Russian and Arabic : the first two are available as foreign languages in many universities, although very few high schools have these classes. Arabic is available as an optional foreign language under Korean secondary education system, but no school has any facilities to teach it. Again, not enough to form a significant number of functional speakers, but more than other languages. After these come all the other languagegs. This would include the rest of European languages (Italian seems to be the next most "admired" but not studied properly) and Asian languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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