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Russian is past, Chinese is future? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| sayariza Triglot Groupie Indonesia Joined 6553 days ago 42 posts - 54 votes  Speaks: Malay, Indonesian*, DutchC1 Studies: EnglishC2 | Message 73 of 150 23 May 2006 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think the chinese shall never be the number one or two world language. Most chinese I met speak english (with diverse levels)
what you said about Indonesia is not really true People who speak chinese in Indonesia are chinese-Indonesians. not all young chinese-Indonesians can understand chinese, most of them can not read chinese newspaper or book, some of them understand only but have problem to speak in chinese. Just few of them can write, read and speak at same time. Edited by sayariza on 23 May 2006 at 9:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Red Raider Newbie United States Joined 6596 days ago 39 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 74 of 150 01 June 2006 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Chinese will never be a lingua franca simply because it is too hard to learn and there are only few, if any, non-Chinese that can speak it fluently.
French and Spanish were considered lingua franca because they were faily easy languages to learn and use and due to the colonization by France and Spain, more people were exposed to them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6733 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 75 of 150 01 June 2006 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
By this logic for a native speaker of an East Asian language, a European language must be "too hard to learn". Yet, they are learning English anyway. Perhaps not succeeding at the same rate as Europeans at pronunciation and some grammar features, but learning it they are. If China ever succeeds at supplunting the West as the engine of creativity and prosperity, we'll be all learning Chinese regardless of how hard it is. Edited by frenkeld on 01 June 2006 at 6:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Red Raider Newbie United States Joined 6596 days ago 39 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 76 of 150 01 June 2006 at 8:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That is not a fair comparison. English is one of the easiest languages to learn, due to it's lack of a case system, lack of noun genders, and the fact that English speakers can still understand you when you make mistakes. English and Spanish are the top languages because of their ease of learning by non-native speakers and their widespread colonies in the past. There are far more Chinese people that speak English as a second language than there are English speakers that can speak Chinese as a second language. I'm going to go on a limb here and suggest that perhaps there are more Chinese that speak English as a second language than they do with Japanese or Korean.
I can see China supplanting the West when it comes to economics, but not as the engine of creativity. The Chinese government supresses creativity, but that's not a topic I wish to discuss on this message board. No offense, but the problem I see with your argument is that in the West, Americans in particular, do business to themselves and for themselves. I can see someone in international business who deals with the Chinese on a regular basis needing to know Chinese. However, to the rest of the industries in America, such as construction, automotive, retail, movie making, etc. Chinese is not needed and will probably never be needed. I honestly can't think of any reason why a carpenter or an auto dealer in America would need to know Chinese. The Chinese have already taken over America when it comes to imports. It's rare for me to find a 'Made in the U.S.A.' sticker anymore, but I can find a 'Made in China' sticker without too much effort. But this had nothing to do with whether or not Americans could speak Chinese. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hagen Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6750 days ago 171 posts - 179 votes 6 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 77 of 150 02 June 2006 at 1:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
The first two points are equally valid for Chinese, the third comes naturally with exposure (to half the world speaking your language imperfectly).
For the present you're right. The interesting question is whether and how this will change in the future!
He wouldn't need to - not any more than he would need any other foreign language. But the same is true for every country. The carpeter in China will have no problems without English as well. - Hagen 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6558 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 78 of 150 02 June 2006 at 2:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Perhaps a historical analogy is in order:
America = Greece China = Rome China, with its enormous population, steady emigration, and growing tourism, could by sheer numbers dominate the civilized world for the next few centuries like Rome did as it gradually supplanted Greek culture. (Hopefully, none of that nasty war stuff will be involved.) Nevertheless, the US and its culture will remain significant even it plays second-fiddle one day (and it probably will). The Greek sphere never stopped using Greek for art and science even though Latin came to dominate the bigger picture. Looking farther ahead, Spanish might be the equivalent of the Turks. They could slowly replace English in much of the US just like the nomadic Turks turned Greek Asia Minor into a Turkish homeland over a few centuries. Whatever is and whatever comes, it too shall pass. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7013 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 79 of 150 02 June 2006 at 6:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Red raider: No offense, but the problem I see with your argument is that in China, Chinese people in particular, do business to themselves and for themselves. I can see someone in international business who deals with the West on a regular basis needing to know English. However, to the rest of the industries in China, such as construction, automotive, retail, movie making, etc. English is not needed and will probably never be needed. I honestly can't think of any reason why a carpenter or an auto dealer in China would need to know English
You can easily replace "China" with any other country on the planet besides the handful of English ones and come up with an equally true statement. And yet English is the nearly undisputed lingua franca at the present time. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Red Raider Newbie United States Joined 6596 days ago 39 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 80 of 150 03 June 2006 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
If you are suggesting that Chinese can be picked up as a second language as easily as English, then I can't agree with you there. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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