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Me too. And I bet you almost all of those immigrants are from it's neighbors. Most migration in your part of the world takes place with your neighbors, not the West. Just like in the West, most migration is from former colonies, and neighboring countries
If by Asia, you mean East Asia, like China, I honestly think the reason is because the language is intimidating. China and Japan both had the option of Romanizing their languages, but they chose not to, specifically so that it would deter outsiders and it has worked. It's a lot harder to learn the language and to assimilate into these countries. It makes these countries more exclusive. It works. English on the other hand has a simple alphabet and is taught all around the world, so outsiders have an advantage when entering English speaking and other European language-based cultures.
China doesn't really allow permanent residents or for foreigners to become Chinese nationals. Last I checked only about 2,000 foreigners lived in China as permanent residents. The rest are on work visas, tourist visas, or the newish S visas, which are basically extended tourist visas for Chinese national spouses. Chinese does have pinyin which is the romanization of their language, and Japanese has something similar. Japan also allows permanent residency and foreigners to become citizens, but it is difficult. Chinese pinyin is still relatively new, not much younger then simplified Chinese writing. My Chinese mother in law can not read or write in pinyin very well at all. English is widely spoken in the main cities (by younger generations) in China now. Even out in Henan province where I live part time it's surprising how many young people can speak at least a little English. I absolutely love China, but it is in no way an immigration country, but they continue to ease up their visa policies, so who knows what the future holds.
Me too. And I bet you almost all of those immigrants are from it's neighbors. Most migration in your part of the world takes place with your neighbors, not the West. Just like in the West, most migration is from former colonies, and neighboring countries
You can check the links I posted. In politics anything can happen, and their immigration policies could easily be reversed. But as of now they are allowing a decent amount of immigration.
I'm not sure why it matters where they come from. An immigrant is an immigrant. The top immigrants to S Korea are Chinese and Vietnamese. The top immigrant group to the US for the previous 50 years has been Mexico, and that shouldn't be shocking.
If by Asia, you mean East Asia, like China, I honestly think the reason is because the language is intimidating. China and Japan both had the option of Romanizing their languages, but they chose not to, specifically so that it would deter outsiders and it has worked. It's a lot harder to learn the language and to assimilate into these countries. It makes these countries more exclusive. It works. English on the other hand has a simple alphabet and is taught all around the world, so outsiders have an advantage when entering English speaking and other European language-based cultures.
You are being ridiculous, not to say way too western-centred.
China has its language for at least 4000 years. Why would it want to romanize it? Do you even know anything about the Chinese characters? They are not just alphebets like in Europeans languages, but carry parts that have meanings and show how ancient people understood objects, people and the world. It is the Chinese culture. You suggest they should change it so that it is easier for westerners to learn? There had been idiotic people including linguists who suggested that, fortunately nobody took it seriously.
for example, if I write 木, everyone Chinese will get the meaning within a split of a second. If I write "mu", they would have to guess for a long time and still not sure what that means, because there could be probably 28 different possibilities. Even when I include the tone, there can still be 7 or 8 possilities with vastly different and unrelated meanings depending on the context. The Chinese is extremely efficient because it is meaning-heavy, unlike western language. Studies show Italian and Spanish speakers would need to speak 50% faster than a Chinese person to express exactly the same idea (speed means the number of syllables per second).
It is not practical to romanize because every word has tones, which are indispensible for the meaning. Even the Chinese fully adopts roman alphabets, it will still be incredibly difficult to learn because you would need to remember each tone for each word nevertheless, and the grammar wouldn't change. Japanese for example has a much easier written system with fixed alphabets, but it is still one of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers (and to the Chinese too)
You are assuming an alphabet based language is simply easier, which is a very Euro-centric point of view. Have you thought about this: for 1.4 billion Chinese who don't have an alphabet and are not used to them, it is not easy at all? Also, try to learn Arabic and tell me an alphabetical language is easier to learn.
Sorry, the language of China and Japan don't circle around the need of Western people. If they want to come, learn the damn language. Do you know how much time the Asians spend learning English and how much they spend? If one can't learn well the Asian languages, that only means they are not seriuosly enough.
China doesn't need to change its language in order to be more "international". If it is important enough, peope will learn it regardless. Italian and Dutch are easy and I don't see so many people scrambling to take those language lessons.
You are being ridiculous, not to say way too western-centred.
China has its language for at least 4000 years. Why would it want to romanize it? Do you even know anything about the Chinese characters? They are not just alphebets like in Europeans languages, but carry parts that have meanings and show how ancient people understood objects, people and the world. It is the Chinese culture. You suggest they should change it so that it is easier for westerners to learn? There had been idiotic people including linguists who suggested that, fortunately nobody took it seriously.
for example, if I write 木, everyone Chinese will get the meaning within a split of a second. If I write "mu", they would have to guess for a long time and still not sure what that means, because there could be probably 28 different possibilities. Even when I include the tone, there can still be 7 or 8 possilities with vastly different and unrelated meanings depending on the context. The Chinese is extremely efficient because it is meaning-heavy, unlike western language. Studies show Italian and Spanish speakers would need to speak 50% faster than a Chinese person to express exactly the same idea (speed means the number of syllables per second).
It is not practical to romanize because every word has tones, which are indispensible for the meaning. Even the Chinese fully adopts roman alphabets, it will still be incredibly difficult to learn because you would need to remember each tone for each word nevertheless, and the grammar wouldn't change. Japanese for example has a much easier written system with fixed alphabets, but it is still one of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers (and to the Chinese too)
You are assuming an alphabet based language is simply easier, which is a very Euro-centric point of view. Have you thought about this: for 1.4 billion Chinese who don't have an alphabet and are not used to them, it is not easy at all? Also, try to learn Arabic and tell me an alphabetical language is easier to learn.
Sorry, the language of China and Japan don't circle around the need of Western people. If they want to come, learn the damn language. Do you know how much time the Asians spend learning English and how much they spend? If one can't learn well the Asian languages, that only means they are not seriuosly enough.
China doesn't need to change its language in order to be more "international". If it is important enough, peope will learn it regardless. Italian and Dutch are easy and I don't see so many people scrambling to take those language lessons.
The hiragana in Japanese is useless like pinyin. It has a specific purpose, and that's to help native Japanese read Chinese characters that are not commonly used or difficult (depending on audience), and to conjugate verbs and adjectives.
Everything else is spot on. If a culture wants to romanize their language, then so be it. It's not impossible, Vietnamese did it. But, IMO, the rest of Asia shouldn't strive to be like Vietnamese, if they don't want to. But it's also not like Chinese is inherently tied to Chinese characters. It just happened that way. Spanish can adopt Chinese characters and be just fine. The indigenous languages of Central and South America can adopt Hangul (Korea actually tried this before on a very small scale) and it will work. It just needs tweaks to fit the non-native language, like how Japanese modified and simplified Chinese characters that works and makes sense to them. I believe every language in the world can use any written language in use today, it just needs tweaks
The hiragana in Japanese is useless like pinyin. It has a specific purpose, and that's to help native Japanese read Chinese characters that are not commonly used or difficult (depending on audience), and to conjugate verbs and adjectives.
Everything else is spot on. If a culture wants to romanize their language, then so be it. It's not impossible, Vietnamese did it. But, IMO, the rest of Asia shouldn't strive to be like Vietnamese, if they don't want to. But it's also not like Chinese is inherently tied to Chinese characters. It just happened that way. Spanish can adopt Chinese characters and be just fine. The indigenous languages of Central and South America can adopt Hangul (Korea actually tried this before on a very small scale) and it will work. It just needs tweaks to fit the non-native language, like how Japanese modified and simplified Chinese characters that works and makes sense to them. I believe every language in the world can use any written language in use today, it just needs tweaks
Hiragana is influenced by the Chinese cuture, just like most European languages originates from Latin. They are two different civilizations and it is stupid to ask one to change to be more like the other. They are not useless, but they ARE the alphabets for the Japanese. WHy are they useless while ABCD is not?
Pinyin is indeed kind of stupid and redundant. It only has the use for teach children about pronunciation, and often the system doesn't make sense. I really dont like it.
Suggesting the Chinese should get rid of their Chinese characters is like asking Europeans languages to get rid of their gender, tense and cases, because obviously, all these make it so hard for the Chinese to learn.
English may not have gender, but I would suggest that it should really standardized its pronunciation or spelling rules so that one should correspond to the other. You can't have 6 difference pronounciations for "ough". That's just crazy.
"If a culture wants to romanize their language, then so be it. It's not impossible, Vietnamese did it."
Vietnamese did not romanize their language based on the urge/need of their own culture. The Jesuit priests did it on behalf of them and the French popularized it during the colonial period.
As much as people hate Trump for his targeting of illegal immigrants. Go to Japan, it doesn't matter who, they expect all non-natives to get out of their country. Most Japanese politely ask you "How long will you be here?"
Because they automatically assumes a non-Japanese person to be there on a temporarily basis.
From 2003-2015 it went from basically 0% to 4%, and most of that was 2013-2015. The government is continuing to open up their immigration, with big changes in 2013 and then again in 2018.
The source for the numbers I gave. You can use google translate on the webpage as it's in Korean. 2750? ?? ?0?? ????, ??? ?? ???
China forced the citizens to have only one child per family (now 2). If the government allows a big influx of immigration, it sounds extremely unfair to Chinese people.
China forced the citizens to have only one child per family (now 2). If the government allows a big influx of immigration, it sounds extremely unfair to Chinese people.
Yup. Don't disagree. I do hope China eases up on permanent residency for foreigners who have resided in China for so many years, say 8+ years.
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