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I'm With Stupid
Senior Member
Vietnam
Joined 4172 days ago
165 posts - 349 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Vietnamese
| Message 73 of 75 17 August 2013 at 8:58pm | IP Logged |
casamata wrote:
| However, the size of the Mandarin speaking group in China is so strong that the gravity of that metaphorical body pulling on us in the US is so great that it makes it more economically useful to learn Mandarin. If everything about China were the same EXCEPT that there were 100 million Mandarin speakers in China except for the roughly billion or so, then the financial and professional benefits that we get from learning Mandarin in the US would undoubtedly be much smaller. US companies wouldn't be so keen to devote so many resources on a much smaller nation for trade. |
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One important thing to consider in terms of the economic use of learning a language is the ease with which companies from your country can do business in that country. China might've opened up a lot in recent years, but there's still a lot more than language barriers when it comes to doing business there. On the other hand, if this US/EU free trade agreement goes through in the future, American companies might suddenly find themselves in need of speakers of various European languages to take advantage.
1 person has voted this message useful
| casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4261 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes
Studies: Portuguese
| Message 74 of 75 17 August 2013 at 9:17pm | IP Logged |
I'm With Stupid wrote:
casamata wrote:
| However, the size of the Mandarin speaking group in China is so strong that the gravity of that metaphorical body pulling on us in the US is so great that it makes it more economically useful to learn Mandarin. If everything about China were the same EXCEPT that there were 100 million Mandarin speakers in China except for the roughly billion or so, then the financial and professional benefits that we get from learning Mandarin in the US would undoubtedly be much smaller. US companies wouldn't be so keen to devote so many resources on a much smaller nation for trade. |
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One important thing to consider in terms of the economic use of learning a language is the ease with which companies from your country can do business in that country. China might've opened up a lot in recent years, but there's still a lot more than language barriers when it comes to doing business there. On the other hand, if this US/EU free trade agreement goes through in the future, American companies might suddenly find themselves in need of speakers of various European languages to take advantage. |
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Just to be clear, I wasn't actually saying that I think that knowing Mandarin is incredibly important for Americans. I was just saying that an increased speaker base would make it more economically useful than if much fewer people spoke Mandarin.
Worldwide, most reputable analysts think that English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, and Arabic are more influential than Mandarin. I agree with this; just having a lot of native speakers doesn't make a language that influential. There are a TON of Bengali speakers, for instance, and very few people learn it compared to the aformentioned languages.
1 person has voted this message useful
| tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4706 days ago
5310 posts - 9399 votes
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 75 of 75 18 August 2013 at 5:51pm | IP Logged |
casamata wrote:
tarvos wrote:
| . Diasporas are EVERYWHERE. |
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It's not easy finding all language speakers. In the small city where I am currently
living the latino population is 2.9%, which is a very small percentage for Hispanics in
the US. In the few months that I've lived in this city, I've met one native (fluent)
Spanish speaker in my daily life circle. The closest Spanish club meetings are about 30
minutes away but I'm not willing to spend an hour driving since a lot of times there
are pure beginners in those meetups and I don't want to waste time saying the basics
with people that just started. Thus, I've done skype paid chats or exchanges the last
few years.
However, though it is much harder finding Spanish speakers in my state (~4 or 5% of the
population is Hispanic and not all will speak Spanish) compared to California where 30%
or so of the population is Hispanic, it is much easier than...Slovene.
My good friend speaks very good Slovene apparently but there are apparently only a few
thousand speakers in the ENTIRE US, a country with 315 million people. He can't find
people to practice with. Conversely, there are 40 million or more native Spanish
speakers here in the US.
Diasporas are everywhere, yes, but if there are 10 German speakers in your city, for
example, you are going to be a lot less likely to bump into them than if you have 50
times more Spanish speakers in the same city, for instance. A diaspora of 1 or 2 people
is hard to find. Similary, let's say you want to meet a Spanish person in my college
town. In the latino association at my university there are literally two Spanish
people. Aside from Spanish teachers in college, I've literally never met a Spanish
person in the US in person. They are VERY rare. On the other hand, there are a ton of
Mexicans. So unless I find the handful of Spaniards in my state, I will have to speak
with Mexicans.
Edit: Keep in mind that the US is the third largest (Russia and Canada are larger)
country in terms of geographical area and by population. (China and India beat us for
population). A lot of cities literally have only a few speakers of some languages. Thus
if you live in those cities, it is going to be almost impossible to have a face to face
chat with that Romanian or Estonian speaker that you want to chat with. And you may
have to drive hours and hours to reach a city that actually has a tiny language
community. It's not like Europe where you drive two hours and you're in another
country. (in some cases) You can travel 4,000 km and still be in the US.
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Odds of finding Slovene speakers are indeed lower. It doesn't mean they're not there
and it also doesn't mean that you should be lazy and not increase or target your search
efforts better. You can always find someone, unless you really are in the middle of a
secluded forest in North Siberia or Albania or in the Australian Outback.
I find that for any language with more than 1-2 million speakers, it becomes easy
enough to find speakers everywhere (or for example, I speak Swedish also to
Norwegians).
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