Thread: the mandarin offensive

Originally Posted by troung

Would we have to learn to speak Chinese or Spanish?

Nah, if the Mexican kid is holding up a bag of oranges and three fingers, give him $3, then go home and enjoy your oranges.

Originally Posted by Onyxnine

Americans should be learning Spanish, so they can hold their country together, then Chinese, to keep up with Chinese economic expansion-- and then French, because-- well, because American French is so bizarre and so irritating to the French.
And yes, the Chinese expatriate community is huge, still speaks Mandarin or Cantonese, and plays a significant role smooting the way for mainland business (and other) enterprises as they take up global challenges.

Hey, shouldn't you guys convert to islam so you can hold your country together?

I want to learn Spanish so I can tell my maid what to do.

And Chinese won't be as big as English unless they can control the internet.

irishman,

Let me offer a rebuttal of this article, because I happen to know a thing or two about this subject. You see, I teach English in China. I can say from first hand experience that the Chinese are actively trying to teach their population to speak ENGLISH. The English language training now begins in grade school here. And trust me, if you are any sort of teacher who’s native language is English you can find a job here tomorrow.

And another thing. Hell….. most people here speak Cantonese. They cant even get “their” entire population to speak Mandarin, how are they gonna influence anyone else to?

that sounds pretty suspect for a guy who's both worked and lived in china. the article did not question the fact that the chinese have been teaching their population english- as a second language. hell, to use pinyin, you have to know the basics of the alphabet, anyway. even on taiwan, where they use the zhuyin system, english is still taught extensively (although very poorly).

the real suspicious part is your last paragraph. "most people here speak Cantonese", this would be true where? Hong Kong? Guangdong? but in either case, most hongkongnese can speak mandarin and english just fine, while in guangdong most people also known cantonese. there's some 65 million cantonese speakers...and some 865 mandarin speakers. you do the math.

as for influencing anyone else, there's a dam' good reason why all those US high schools are suddenly offering programs in chinese.

gunnut,

And Chinese won't be as big as English unless they can control the internet.

http://www.internetworldstats.com/top20.htm

http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500

with a very low percentage of internet penetration, china's already number two. the US's internet penetration has slowed down dramatically in the past few years, as most people who want the internet already has it. most of the others don't have the internet, not because they are too poor, but because they don't want to.

so...wait 5-10 years, china will start approaching the number of US users in at least absolute terms. we're not even talking about the investments in cable and broadband technology which places like South Korea, Japan, and even China are making, and which the US is not. it is of sufficient concern that a piece on that matter showed up in Foreign Policy magazine a while back.

i would disagree, speaking-wise, chinese is a good deal easier to learn than english. writing, however, is another matter.

The only people who keep telling me this are mainland Chinese. Are you one of them...
Seriously man how exactly is Mandarin supposed to be easy to learn when you have the same word having different meaning based on the pronounciation. I agree that even in English there are words like Minute (time) and Minute (size) which are similar words but pronounced differently but its not as common as in Mandarin.
I am fluent in English and Tamil. I know some Hindi. I even found it easier to learn German but I failed at Mandarin.....

medic,

The only people who keep telling me this are mainland Chinese. Are you one of them...

i am taiwanese-american.

Seriously man how exactly is Mandarin supposed to be easy to learn when you have the same word having different meaning based on the pronounciation. I agree that even in English there are words like Minute (time) and Minute (size) which are similar words but pronounced differently but its not as common as in Mandarin.

mandarin's grammar structure is less complex than that of english or german. not only that, there are far, far fewer "exceptions to the rule" which english has a plethora of. the difficulty which you point out of having the same word with different meanings based on pronunciation- well, it's the same way you would differentiate between the two types of "minute"- context.

you know the context of what the person is talking about, and you know the pronunciation of the word, you should know exactly what's happening.

Originally Posted by astralis

so...wait 5-10 years, china will start approaching the number of US users in at least absolute terms. we're not even talking about the investments in cable and broadband technology which places like South Korea, Japan, and even China are making, and which the US is not. it is of sufficient concern that a piece on that matter showed up in Foreign Policy magazine a while back.

It does not matter how many users China will have. A typical internet user searches and looks for webpages in English. So unless China has many websites offering interesting content, let it be media, technology, research etc non Chinese speakers will not get the urge to read/write Chinese in the web.

And for that you have to beat the current internet powerhouses who almost exclusively publish in English and the big ones who translate them in English. French tried to propogate their language in the internet, and so far they are failing miserably.

Thanks to Google's translation tool, even if the content was in Chinese, Google would just translate it into English.

It does not matter how many users China will have. A typical internet user searches and looks for webpages in English. So unless China has many websites offering interesting content, let it be media, technology, research etc non Chinese speakers will not get the urge to read/write Chinese in the web.

jay, gautam,

there's a reason why google bought out baidu in china.

Originally Posted by astralis

gunnut,



http://www.internetworldstats.com/top20.htm

http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500

with a very low percentage of internet penetration, china's already number two. the US's internet penetration has slowed down dramatically in the past few years, as most people who want the internet already has it. most of the others don't have the internet, not because they are too poor, but because they don't want to.

so...wait 5-10 years, china will start approaching the number of US users in at least absolute terms. we're not even talking about the investments in cable and broadband technology which places like South Korea, Japan, and even China are making, and which the US is not. it is of sufficient concern that a piece on that matter showed up in Foreign Policy magazine a while back.

Like what the colonel said, even if the entire Chinese population is online and using the internet in Chinese, how often are you likely to converse with them in Chinese halfway around the world?

Do you think people can communicate with each other without writing? Speaking, maybe, but a huge part of online communication is in writing. People need to learn how to write Chinese first before they can post anything in Chinese. How likely is that to happen?

gunnut,

it will most certainly get more likely, what with both europeans and americans jumping on the learn-mandarin bandwagon

as any nation's influence increases, more people will speak the language. we saw this with both english and french during their period of dominance.

Well, I don't mind learning Mandarin, in fact I had tried to in the past. It would help me communicate better with my Chinese buddies from mainland and Singapore.

Astralis, can you direct me to a source where I might be able to learn Mandarin. Must be free ofcourse

Date a Chinese Mandarin speaker ... Oh, wait, you said "free."

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers

Date a Chinese Mandarin speaker ... Oh, wait, you said "free."

Well Sir, that's probably the main reason why I had tried to learn the language in the first place and failed miserably