Don't understand the obsession about wanting to learn Chinese (Mandarin) (literacy, major)
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Yeah some people really think knowing Chinese is ticket to high salary jobs.
If there was a real economic incentive to learn Chinese or any other foreign language, then lots of Americans would be jumping at the opportunity to do so. The fact of the matter is that there is no such incentive. English is the language of money and business nearly everywhere, certainly in America - the richest country in the world.
I happen to be fluent in a foreign language, but it has no effect on my income at all. It does, however, open up my experience in understanding a foreign culture.
It was his niece, and I found the story implausible. Not the fact that a fully bilingual person might be offered a great job--that could certainly happen. It was the idea that with nothing but four years of high school Chinese, a student would emerge "speaking [Chinese] as well as she could English." One feels that there must be something missing from this story--such as the fact that the school was actually in China, where the family was living at the time; or that the girl's rather broken but sincere attempt at conversation with the old gentleman led to an entry-level job where she worked on polishing her Chinese for many subsequent years.
Have you ever heard of any monolingual American student who took four years of any language in high school and ended up speaking like a native of the second language? With no other input than the high school class?
I suppose it could have happened just that way. It's also possible that after four years of singing with the high school chorus, a girl could step right into the role of a lead soprano with the Metropolitan Opera. Some people really are that talented. But it's kind of beyond the reach of us ordinary mortals.
the Indians are a more than a billion people too but no one is pushing to learn Hindi
the Arabs are close to half billion people and no one is pushing to learn Arabic and yet most oil come from them
why Chinese? if the the Indians reach 10t economy, does that mean we should learn HIndi too?
Where I work at a National Lab, all 3 languages are in great demand. A technical degree (good grades, Master's or PhD preferred) plus Advanced Intermediate or better proficiency in Hindi, Arabic, or Chinese will get your resume noticed at least.
About 25% of my work last FY involved knowledge of written Russian plus knowledge of nuclear measurement technology.
You put the right skills together and you can have something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Learning Japanese was supposed to be the wave of the future, back in the 80's, "so you can get a good job". Japan's economy has been a shambles for decades and nobody talks about learning Japanese anymore.
But if learning Mandarin can help to get your takeout order filled faster, go for it!
People may or may not talk about it anymore, but there is still a demand, especially with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics coming up. As the owner of one Japanese language school, we have plenty of students for our, currently, 21 teachers.
Depends on the job. US Defense Department, for example, is unlikely to prefer a Chinese national.
US Defense Department will hire good Chinese speakers (American citizens with Chinese background who can speak much better Chinese than you).
So yeah, your odds of getting a job that requires speaking Chinese is still very los since there are so many people who can speak much better Chinese than you in any job field.
Just think about it. You need employers who can speak Chinese. You would you hire someone who speaks broken Chinese and someone who has hard time communicating with the customers?
At least with Spanish, knowing just some Spanish may increase your chance of getting a job.
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