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China has been going through a cultural/industrial revolution as big as the one led by Chairman Mao. They've become the world's leading factory of many consumer and industrial goods. In the process however, the workers and citizens have paid the price in horrible working conditions and environmental damage.
It's only a matter of time before the masses are fed up with the pollution and increased deaths from cancer and other diseases caused by exposure to chemicals. They will demand more regulation of industry that increases costs and makes Chinese goods less affordable to the rest of the world.
Then they'll become more post-industrial like the US, Japan and western Europe and another area of the world will rise up. Sadly the cycle has repeated because there is always another area of the world hungry for jobs and wealth at any cost.
Learning any language is great, especially for Americans who are way behind the rest of the world in being bilingual. If someone did become fluent in speaking and reading Mandarin, that would be a valuable asset in some jobs. But the odds of an American becoming better at it than a native Chinese speaker who is also fluent in English are very, very small.
1) Some think (and possibly rightly so) that the Chinese will take over the world some day (while one doesn't 'have' to speak Chinese in many countries right now, the Chinese already 'own' those countries). Or even if that doesn't happen, people who speak English natively and have also managed to learn a fair bit of Chinese (difficult though that may be) could find employment in many areas of commerce, trade, etc. The Chinese kids are learning English too - so why not learn their language - you may find yourself competing some day with them for jobs even in an English speaking country.
2) Learning a language, any language, is a 'learning to learn' situation at worst. So .. why not?
3) This isn't new. My aunt who died in her 90s 3 decades ago now taught herself Chinese .. just for fun and to keep her mind agile.
IMO kids brought up in a bilingual education environment with English + intensive East Asian Language (Chinese, Korean, English) are usually the smartest, especially in Math.
Why? Plain simple. Look at the result of PISA test over the years. The top 5 countries with students that score the highest points in all three tests (math, reading ,science) are always from students in Japan, South Korea, and Chinese-speaking communities (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore or Taiwan).
Though such phenomenon is partly as a result of their education systems, it may be also likely related to the bilingual education that these countries adopt: teaching kids two entirely different languages may help develop the brain and improve their learning ability.
If you go on Youtube, you can find plenty of foreign nationals singing almost perfect Chinese songs. Some even can handle Mandarin as well as Cantonese. Learning a language needs immersion. If you stay in that place for 2 years and force yourself to communicate in local language, you can be quite fluent.
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.
You realize of course there are people out there who want to do hard things *because* they are hard, right? That was me and learning Russian.
In my experience anyway, only MENSA level people can learn Russian successfully starting as an adult. Probably the same for Mandarin.
I am thinking about starting in on Mandarin after 20+ years of Russian study. "To infinity! And beyond!"
Beyond that, at least with the Russian, in country I get *much* better treatment because I have obviously not only made an effort, but have as Churchill put it "not just done my best, but done what was necessary" and can carry on a decent conversation in Russian. Very likely the same in China.
IMO kids brought up in a bilingual education environment with English + intensive East Asian Language (Chinese, Korean, English) are usually the smartest, especially in Math.
Why? Plain simple. Look at the result of PISA test over the years. The top 5 countries with students that score the highest points in all three tests (math, reading ,science) are always from students in Japan, South Korea, and Chinese-speaking communities (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore or Taiwan).
Though such phenomenon is partly as a result of their education systems, it may be also likely related to the bilingual education that these countries adopt: teaching kids two entirely different languages may help develop the brain and improve their learning ability.
A flaw in your theory is that most Japanese and Korean students are not, in fact, brought up in a "bilingual education environment" and I don't believe most mainland Chinese are, either.
Most Japanese kids start English in 5th grade, at which point they are already ahead of Western kids in math and science.
A flaw in your theory is that most Japanese and Korean students are not, in fact, brought up in a "bilingual education environment" and I don't believe most mainland Chinese are, either.
Most Japanese kids start English in 5th grade, at which point they are already ahead of Western kids in math and science.
The PISA test is for student at age 15 from 60+ developed countries. The Japanese students have already learnt English for 5 years when they take the test.
I noticed that a language like Chinese seems to have an effect on math ability because of the math numeracy that is built into the language. Chinese has only 9 number names 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 then it goes to 10-1, etc. Also, the base ten is easily built in.
English number names over 10 don't as clearly label place value, and number words for the teens, such as 17, reverse the order of the ones and "teens," making it easy for children to confuse, say, 17 with 71, the research shows. When doing multi-digit addition and subtraction, children working with English number names have a harder time understanding that two-digit numbers are made up of tens and ones, making it more difficult to avoid errors.
Also, music and math are related, so tonal languages which have an advantage in music also seem to have an advantage in math.
About 30 years ago, I have a niece that took 4 years of Chinese Languages through High School. She was a natural at it, and could speak it as well as she could English (White ethnic group). Here senior year of high school, went to a big job fair for college students. Saw an older Chinese gentleman at one booth and greeted him in Chinese. He was at a booth for one of the most prestigious employers in this country. They had a long conversation in Chinese.
He recommended to some of the top brass from that company, that they hire this girl to work for them. End result of that conversation they hired her, and gave her a full ride scholarship to go to college along with income to live on, and she has worked for them every since. She has been to China numerous times, going over with trade delegations, etc., and even been loaned out to U.S. government for special delegations to China. When not in China, she works at their headquarters and does the communication with China as needed.
She would tell you, that learning Chinese for her, was a way to a top executive salary, and job security that most people will never have in life. Her employer makes sure she is happy and pay her enough no one can steal her away from them.
Voila! Don't discourage people from learning Chinese, OP. It can open doors. And even if it doesn't, it's just plain fun, enriching, and very useful for anyone who wants to travel to China or Taiwan.
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