Chinese is the new English

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Lance Manion, Sep 29, 2014.

  1. Lance Manion

    Lance Manion New Member

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    Mandarin already has the most native speakers, and the number of non-native learners is increasing exponentially each year. Everyone knows the Chinese economy will shortly overtake the combined european and us economies. I think nobody doubts Mandarin will be the number one language in the world. I predict it will be the lingua franca by the middle of this century. Do you agree?
  2. Cainntear

    Cainntear Active Member VIP member

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    There's already an established lingua franca, and an installed infrastructure for teaching it. The Chinese are putting lots of time and money into English as part of their growth. There won't really be a need to learn Chinese....
  3. tastyonions

    tastyonions Member VIP member

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    GDP per capita is where it's at. China's is slightly more than 1/10 of the U.S.'s or Canada's. Whoops.

    One good measure of cultural force and economic success is where people choose to move to in order to start a new life. The total number of foreigners living in China was about 600,000 in 2011 (source). For comparison, about 1,000,000 people became "permanent residents" as foreign nationals in the U.S. in the past year alone. I'm betting a comparison with respect to citizenship applications would be way more lopsided (in favor of Anglophone countries), but I can look for figures on that one as well if you like.
  4. Cainntear

    Cainntear Active Member VIP member

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    Besides, China's growth relies on having poor people, and language can act as a powerful social stratifier. Having Chinese as the international language of business would remove it, and a lot of Chinese people would just go overseas to teach rather than accepting a crappy job in a factory.
  5. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    It's interesting that you brought this up:
    I read an article recently (in Thai, interestingly enough) that stated close to 40% of rich (net worth over 1.5M USD) Chinese have moved or plan to move themselves and their families overseas within the next 5 years. The strongest reason was better education and more opportunity for their kids. Highest percentage in the world, according to the article.
  6. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    Willy Brandt, the late former German Chancellor famously said, “If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, dann müssen sie Deutsch sprechen”. China is an export power house, so they seek to speak the language of their customers, or as pointed out above, the language of a country to which they would like to move. Still for business purposes it certainly behooves one to speak Mandarin if one is having products manufactured there, so as to not be dependent on interpreters. And of course for strategic purposes, it has long been an important language for those associated with the defense and foreign policy establishments of other countries.

    English has become the world's preferred first foreign language, but Mandarin could become its second, after regional preferences. The real tragedy of the failure of native English speaking countries to promote foreign language instruction from an early age is that failing to do dooms them to translations/interpretations which may or may not be accurate (perhaps intentionally so), and to having to understand the culture, etc. of other countries through the limited amounts of material that are actually translated (and it seems unlikely google translate will ever be adequate for professional and academic purposes even in the "easiest" languages).
  7. Henry

    Henry New Member

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    Exactly. It will take remarkable growth just for China to be as wealthy as Mexico on a per capita basis. It remains a very poor country and is significant primarily because of its large population.
  8. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    I think most westerners don't realize that the majority of the Chinese population, i.e. around 80% IIRC, which is mostly rural, has not come close to enjoying the capitalistic benefits the city dwellers do, and often live in near poverty[*]. And endemic corruption has to hurt more in poorer regions.

    If the current situation in Hong Kong turns into another Tianamen Square, I doubt it will help the popularity of Mandarin. (It would be ironic if it helped Cantonese though.)



    [*] I read widely about China but don't memorize sources, so my info/assumptions could be wrong or out of date.
  9. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    I'm sure you're right, but according to the world corruption index, China isn't nearly as corrupt as many other countries, and seems to be steadily improving.
  10. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    I'm familiar with that website though not with their methodology. And I bet a lot of their input has to come from a country's own citizens. Obviously the level of political freedom of expression is going to play a huge role there. Anti-corruption campaigns are a common feature of Chinese politics for the past couple decades, though how vigorously they are pursued is the question. The PRC government, or rather some factions within it, do want to address corruption. But they don't want to do it in a way that inflames or encourages public protests about corruption. I'll take brazen, unapologetic graft any day over hidden corruption with a veneer of public denial of same for political purposes.
  11. Wise owl chick

    Wise owl chick Active Member

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    Mandarin is the lingua franca of China and for exmaple Hong Kong and Taiwan, but it won't be the lingua franca in the other continents or all regions of Asia.

    I don't know why the people never say that Arabic will be the new English, because many countries speak it, and mostly those are veyr rich ones. I would love to learn arabic, I like vyer much their architecture, history, culture and the arabs whom I know are very nice. They can understand all the other arabs, only the Moroccans are difficult to udnerstand, they have told me (Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis, Jordanians etc etc).
  12. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    Cantonese is the dominant language of Hong Kong and neighboring Guangdong Province, though of course lots of them speak Mandarin because its necessary and in school on the mainland, compulsory. And Taiwan has Mandarin mostly because the Nationalist (KMT) party imposed it there after retreating to Taiwan in 1949. Lots of the population speaks Fujianese or similar dialects, which are also spoken across the strait on the mainland.


    If it were not for oil and military conflict in the region, there would be even less interest in learning Arabic. One doesn't need to speak Arabic to buy oil and the educated rich elites seem to speak English and/or French. If you are really interested you could always try the FSI course for MSA (modern standard arabic) to see if you like it, though apparently it is not much use outside of news broadcasts and as a base for learning the dialects.
  13. Wise owl chick

    Wise owl chick Active Member

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    I said that mandarin is the LINGUA FRANCA of this places with the other "Chinese" , not which is the dominant language every day. English is the lingua franca of most of europe, but not spoken by most of europe in the countries or the dominant langauge of a country at all except Britain and Ireland.

    I haven't interest in oil, or military conflict. I would prefer to learn Saudi Arabic becasue all the Arabic people can understand this dialect, and it is a true language. When I've asked my friends about MSA they didn't understand what I meaned at all (Jordanian and Iraqui friends). They've said that for them, the clearest was saudi, also the most slowly spoken one. Moroccan is the most different one.
  14. Nobody

    Nobody Member

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    A number of Arabic-speaking countries are quite rich, but it's a different kind of wealth than that which you'd find in, say, the United States, or the United Kingdom, or so forth, and it's largely unaccompanied by the massive intellectual output that one finds in English. I'm not saying Arabic isn't worth learning -- I've considered learning it myself -- but given the status quo I can't imagine any development which could lead to it attaining to a level of global importance comparable to English. Even most Muslims don't bother to learn it in an actual linguistic capacity (there only a few hundred million Arabic speakers in the world, but over a billion Muslims). It's not really a contender absent some incredible Arab Renaissance of the sort that would change the world in presently unpredictable ways.

    I actually wouldn't be surprised to see China experience a serious crash. The national government keeps its balance sheets pretty clean, but both government-owned businesses and municipalities are saddled with substantial debt completely disproportionate to their ability to raise revenue, having used the borrowed money at least in part to engage in the kind of make-work projects which China used to justify its predictions of endless, fast economic expansion. I like China, it's language, its people, and its culture well enough, but I wouldn't hold my breath here.
    Wise owl chick likes this.
  15. Wise owl chick

    Wise owl chick Active Member

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    Yes, the intellectual output is completely different and inexistant in comparison. If the world didn't use oil then the wealth would disappear also I suppose. but anyway, many Arabic speaking countries are not wealthy at all, the Maghreb of course and now Syria, and more.

    I haven't visited those countries, maybe I wouldn't like it because of the male domination. but some Arabic countries are ok for the ladies and girls, for example, one of my Dad's colleagues is Jordanian and she is international lawyer.

    Yesterday I have told two of my Arabic friends that I want to learn Arabic but they said to not do this haha. They said that it is much too difficult. ( I'm belgian but with my parents in London since some weeks, we have moved). One Arabic friend said that when he write he make some grammatical mistakes in Arabic although it's his native language. he has a degree, therefore this isn't because of no education.

    I'm not Muslim, but I find the Arabic people who I've met nice, kind and also funny. and the Arabic architecture is so beautiful, I love it. But I think that you are absolutely right that it will not be the new English. The new English will be the global version of english, a mixture of everything but english's base.
  16. Lance Manion

    Lance Manion New Member

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    I don't want to sound trollish, but it will dominate, my friend. There are more than a billion people in China, and they are on an upward swing. You are wise to be learning Chinese. It's too hard for me though.
  17. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    Why? If you have time and motivation you can do it. Do you lack one of those?

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