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Many people from the US can barely speak English, let alone be able to write it.
Well, if they can survive and thrive here in the USA without acquiring those skills, or seeing any benefit in doing so, ... Then all I can say is more power to them. However, in my personal circumstances, I find having skills (communications included) is beneficial to having more options in life.
I'm thinking when China becomes more powerful, more foreigners will live and work in China.
Then the topic would be "Why Americans suck at Chinese", "Why Caucasians have weak language capability"...
I'm thinking when China becomes more powerful, more foreigners will live and work in China.
Then the topic would be "Why Americans suck at Chinese", "Why Caucasians have weak language capability"...
Caucasians specifically Europeans do not have weak language capability. Most Europeans are multilinguals, imagine they learn many foreign languages in school. Some of them can speak 4-6 foreign languages. My husband can speak French, Spanish and English aside from his native language and he can sometimes understsnd Italian. But Chinese is different. It seems like a very difficult language. I think it will take a long long long time before Chinese becomes a global language like English. I also think that more and more upper class Chinese will be able to learn English that there will be no need for foreigners to learn Chinese any more.
I'm thinking when China becomes more powerful, more foreigners will live and work in China.
Then the topic would be "Why Americans suck at Chinese", "Why Caucasians have weak language capability"...
The topic is a lot more restrictive than that--it was about why people have difficulty speaking a language even after years of learning the subject and not why expats working in another country can't speak the native language well. These are two very different things. In reference to the first scenario, the scenario shown in this topic, I think it's highly unlikely that there will be years of mandatory Mandarin education in the US for everyone as it's likely that second language acquisition will remain a selection of whatever choices the local school district offers and with Spanish continuing to be the most popular foreign language learned for a long while to come (given its incredible usefulness domestically, with our immediate neighbors, and with a variety of markets in the Americas and in Spain). Unfortunately second language education is usually for a fairly short number of years in the US, and in a similar situation for Japanese and Korean speakers of English, there is usually limited necessity to use and improve that knowledge.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 07-02-2013 at 10:46 AM..
Caucasians specifically Europeans do not have weak language capability. Most Europeans are multilinguals, imagine they learn many foreign languages in school. Some of them can speak 4-6 foreign languages. My husband can speak French, Spanish and English aside from his native language and he can sometimes understsnd Italian. But Chinese is different. It seems like a very difficult language. I think it will take a long long long time before Chinese becomes a global language like English. I also think that more and more upper class Chinese will be able to learn English that there will be no need for foreigners to learn Chinese any more.
Well, most of the European languages are fairly closely related and share a lot of features. You can go way out there and learn something like Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian or Basque and you'll see where things get difficult.
Mandarin probably will become the most useful language based in East/Southeast Asia though--there is a certain special "in" from speaking the language of your trade partners and not everyone you'll want to do business with or simply get to know will be fluent in English. In addition to that, it's the only East Asian/Southeast Asian language that has the backing of a major well-funded program for spreading the language (the Confucius Institute) which is in line with Instituto Cervantes, Alliance Francaise, or the Goethe-Institut
From my point of view I can say that, They are dependent on themselves in all sectors. THey don't depend on others(western). It may be the reason. They take English carelessly.....
I'm thinking when China becomes more powerful, more foreigners will live and work in China.
Then the topic would be "Why Americans suck at Chinese", "Why Caucasians have weak language capability"...
That's already occurring in Japan. Many foreigners come here to Japan and they generally need to study Japanese. Surprisingly, many are actually quite good.
However, when I was in Korea, many foreigners didn't know any Korean, and had little intention to.
I'm not sure how expats are doing in China. But, I've heard that very few foreigners bother at all with Cantonese. They just stick with English there. Seems like Beijing attracts quite a few interested in Mandarin though. I get the impression that Shanghai attracts more 'uninterested in learning Chinese' types, as it's not considered as 'pure' as Beijing dialect.
But, throughout all of this, I'd definitely say there are tons and tons of Americans and Europeans throughout Asia, who aren't learning much Thai, Chinese, Korean, Khmer, or wherever it is in Asia that they've been living in for decades already.
Caucasians specifically Europeans do not have weak language capability. Most Europeans are multilinguals, imagine they learn many foreign languages in school. Some of them can speak 4-6 foreign languages. My husband can speak French, Spanish and English aside from his native language and he can sometimes understsnd Italian. But Chinese is different.
Definitely different.
Actually I learned a little bit of Portuguese while living in Brazil, and pretty much everything I learned in Portuguese, I quickly transferred right into Spanish.
Than, while watching some Italian World Cup, I realized that by just being very familiar with basic Portuguese and basic Spanish, I was very surprised that I could pick up some Italian.
In short, I think it would be quite shocking if there was a European who knew a Latin language, and was completely unable to pick up a second Latin language. They are just way too similar, to not pick up from each other.
But, Asian languages, really have no shared basis...you really have to study every detail of it, from ground zero.
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