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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.
LOL, oh really? It's very popular, in part due to Anime.
The desire to learn Japanese is alive and well at one of the top high schools (Rated 10) in Fremont, CA, where some homes sell for upwards of multiple millions of dollars. Most of the students do not have Japanese ancestry.
What it means is the turning of the U.S. into a Tower of Babel where all kinds of languages' statuses are enhanced for political reasons. Or just wanting to seem to be sophisticated.
You got an axe to grind, bro?
Interest in learning Chinese (the thread topic) has nothing to do with "language status" issues in the US.
Yes. That's why you should try learning Spanish, French or any Western languages first, and see if you can handle learning a much more difficult language like Chinese or Arabic.
The most difficult languages, in my opinion, are those that don't use mostly Western alphabets that make it easier to read and memorize.
But, as for pronunciation: have fun trying to speak Dutch and not being recognized as a foreigner! Yikes.
Funny enough, today, I spoke Mandarin with a nice woman visiting from China. Her grandson kept saying "sorry, my grandma doesn't speak English". I told my son how to say hello and introduce himself. I find this increasingly common as I live in an area with high immigration. Breaks barriers. It's also fun to speak another language, I wish I had the energy to take it beyond bare basics.
Yes. That's why you should try learning Spanish, French or any Western languages first, and see if you can handle learning a much more difficult language like Chinese or Arabic.
Well, I do think people should attempt the language they are most interested in / most motivated to learn / personally find most useful. Someone with zero interest in learning Spanish is not going to do well with it even if it's "easy."
My sister-in-law grew up in Romania in the 1970s and 80s when they were all required to study Russian in school. She hated it and says she can hardly remember any of the language. As an adult, she moved to Germany and married an American, and now speaks excellent German and pretty good English. The problem with her learning Russian was not the difficulty, but that it did not interest or motivate her.
I also want to remark that there is a huge continuum between knowing nothing of a language and being "fluent." People tend to think that if you're not fluent, your knowledge is worthless. But MOST English-speakers who study Chinese or any second language will never be truly "fluent," especially if they do not have the opportunity to live where the language is spoken. That does not mean that the study is useless or a waste of time. Just being able to muddle along, ask basic questions and take part in a simple conversation, read street signs and menus and the like, can be very valuable and rewarding.
My sister-in-law grew up in Romania in the 1970s and 80s when they were all required to study Russian in school. She hated it and says she can hardly remember any of the language. As an adult, she moved to Germany and married an American, and now speaks excellent German and pretty good English. The problem with her learning Russian was not the difficulty, but that it did not interest or motivate her.
.
Is that what she told you? Because Romania had moved away from requiring Russian by the 70's. Romania had distanced itself from Russia in the 60's, allying itself with China, actually, and was teaching French and English in the schools in the 70's and 80's. Older generations had learned Russian in school, but people who were in school in the early 70's and later were learning English. Some of the universities stopped offering Russian, as well.
"After the Second World War, however, the lingua franca of all the communist countries was Russian, which became the chief compulsory language in all Romanian schools until 1989."
Is this incorrect?
Edited to add: I also found this statement by a Romanian on another forum:
"One main thing is that Romanian kids are taught foreign languages since childhood (since kindergarden many times). I personally started learning English since I was 8 years old.
Now, this was a practice in Romania even on communist times!
That was quite rare in the communist block: to learn English especially on those times (yes, I was a kid on those times and I learned).
In that period of time kids usually started to learn English, French, German and Russian at the age of 8. Now, you could have learned two languages (and you didn't have a choice back then): English and French, French and German, English and German, German and Russian, Russian and English, Russian and French.
I was lucky to start at the age of 8 with English, then at the age of 10 with French.
Italian and Spanish were introduced in schools after the communism fall (1990) and Russian was taken out."
It sounds like he is saying that children learned two languages, and which two those were depended on the school. My sister-in-law must have gone to a school that required Russian.
I see a lot of people nowadays who want to learn Chinese or want to teach their kids Chinese.
I don't understand the obsession.
Yes China has 1.5 billion people, but the languages is very focused mostly on China and not widespread like Spanish and French.
Also, the kids who have Chinese parents in America, most of them don't speak Mandarin fluently and almost none of them can write. The languages is so difficult that even many people from China cannot write that well.
And I don't think people really should worry about businesses with China because English will be just fine, just like businesses with any other countries.
The chances are, no matter how much you put your effort to learn Chinese, the Chinese people will probably speak English better than you speaking Mandarin.
I've seen many people who tried to learn Chinese and they all gave up relatively quick. All gave up on basic level. Only person I have seen who learned was my teacher from college (She studied for long years in Taiwan and China).
My opinion is that unless you are 100% sure that you will go all the way with Chinese, don't even bother learning it. Better to use that time on something else.
So yeah, many people seem to be very afraid of China's economy, but there's just no way in hell that Chinese will surpass English and it would just take too much time to even learn a little that it probably does not even worth trying it.
I took Chinese as an undergraduate. Just to fulfill my foreign language requirement. I was told the class was "easy" and it was. I got a B in both parts. That was fine with me.
Like you I have no idea why there seems to be almost a fad concerning learning Chinese.
IMHO - the less we deal with that country, the better. I really am non a fan of NAFTA or China's Most Favored Nation Status OR TPP.
They are a vile country on so many levels. Walk through Walmart or Hobby Lobby. That's what they make. CRAP.
China treats it's people terribly. Takes jobs away from Americans. And tortures Dogs, Cats and especially bears.
"After the Second World War, however, the lingua franca of all the communist countries was Russian, which became the chief compulsory language in all Romanian schools until 1989."
Is this incorrect?
Maybe in some parts of the country they retained Russian, but Romania broke away from Russia in the 60's; the only Eastern Bloc country to succeed in pulling that off without getting run over. Apparently some historians aren't aware of that fact.(?) In fact, the US government was supporting the Ceausescu regime because of that. He was pitching himself as an anti-Soviet "maverick" to the Americans, and they bought it.
I know a couple of people (Americans) who taught English in Romanian schools: one in a village school, and one in a city school. There was no Russian being taught in those schools, nor in nearby villages in the early 70's. (Though the quality of English instruction in the schools wasn't high, unless the school scored a foreign teacher.) Halfway through the 70's, Ceausescu decided that school kids should be learning British English, so the Americans had to leave.
But there were other Americans teaching at the university level, where American English was allowed. In Cluj (capital of Transylvania), there weren't any Slavic languages being taught at all in the university, and the university had redirected its attention to Western Europe. IDK, maybe your in-law was from Bucharest, and that was different? Or it's quite possible that there simply weren't enough English teachers to staff all the schools, so some were stuck with Russian, from the old days. But Romania was definitely NOT looking toward Russia after President Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (predecessor to Ceausescu) sent the Russian army packing in the 60's, and lived to tell the tale.
BTW, I tried to look up that book and its author; it seems that it's part of a journal series, so I didn't have the book title, only the journal title. I think it's best to say that the 70's and 80's were a period of transition, so the foreign language situation varied around the country.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 09-25-2016 at 10:28 PM..
IMHO - the less we deal with that country, the better. I really am non a fan of NAFTA or China's Most Favored Nation Status OR TPP.
Basically you're right but China is not, I believe, part of TPP.
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