Do they learn French in China?

io   Wed Jan 13, 2010 5:33 am GMT
I tried googling this but mostly got articles about the French Indochina.... Would appreciate is someone would answer.
oh no   Wed Jan 13, 2010 10:49 am GMT
Ask Shuimo -- apparently he's trying to learn French now.
Visitor   Wed Jan 13, 2010 12:05 pm GMT
Vietnam :
A French-speaking elite

While Vietnam’s elite speaks French, its civil servants and business community adopted English in 1994, the year of the country’s incorporation in ASEAN1. Once the main language, French has now become a second foreign language. Although French is still widely taught, it is being caught up by Mandarin, Japanese and even German, and its popularity is waning. 400,000 Vietnamese currently speak French but they represent an essentially ageing population. The younger generation of Vietnamese, for its part, is turning to English-language cultures.

Some 100,000 pupils at all levels, i.e. 4.5% of the total, are learning French. At the beginning of the eighties, they were 10 times more. While the importance of French is diminishing in secondary schools, its status is more stable at the level of higher education. In 1992, the Aupelf-Uref2 and the Vietnamese Ministry of Education set up more than 500 bilingual classes, enabling 14,500 young children to learn French. The aim is to arrive, by 2006, at a proportion of 10% of students graduating from secondary school with French as their main language. Doctors, chemists, engineers, senior civil servants, lawyers and journalists all communicate in French. A number of newspapers such as Saigon Eco, Courrier du Vietnam... are published in French and every day Vietnamese TV broadcasts a news bulletin in French. It would seem, then, that while a French-speaking elite is establishing itself, the attitude of the Vietnamese towards French is still conditioned by the French-speaking companies locating in the region.

At the Hanoi Summit, six major French-language projects for cultural cooperation were launched in the Vietnamese capital, including the National Museum of Ethnography, a French and French-language bookshop and a 900 seat cinema dedicated to the screening of French and French-language films in the original version.

Eric de Lavarène
Journalist with Asie Magazine
1. The Association of South-East Asian Nations was founded in 1967 to promote regional economic cooperation. There are nine member countries: Burma, Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
2. Association of universities based partially or entirely on the French language.


Laos :
A successful cohabitation?

Between 1975 and 1989, Laos withdrew into seclusion. During those years, French was able to maintain its influence, despite the clear losses in popularity in Cambodia and Vietnam. The resumption of French, Swiss and Canadian cooperation in early 1990 provided a strong boost to the teaching of French at Vientiane (where the French Cultural Centre is located) as well as in the more accessible provinces.

Today, some 240,000 people are learning French (35% of students and pupils) and the setting-up of bilingual classes at the primary level is currently under review. Most of the senior civil servants are French-speaking and the Laotian population remains favourably disposed towards French. While the north of the country is entirely under the influence of Chinese, the centre and south are divided between French and English. French is the language of choice for medicine, law and administration while English predominates in trade and finance
E. de L.


Cambodia :
French rapidly losing ground

Of the 13,000 students enrolled at Phnom Penh universities in 1997, more than half, i.e. 7,000, are learning French. Financed by the Cultural Centre or the Aupelf-Uref, the courses are provided by 25 French-speaking lecturers, whose work also involves handing over the relay to Khmer professors. The secondary level has 200,000 pupils learning French. Up until 1975, French was the first foreign language taught in the kingdom; by the end of the eighties, it had totally disappeared. With the opening, in 1990, of the Alliance française* and the implementation of cooperation ventures with various establishments, the teaching of French was given a new lease on life, even if it is still outpaced by English and Chinese. Each year, several dozen students are sent to France to pursue their studies.

France is also present in the tourist sector, where courses have been set up at Phnom Penh University and at the Royal Administration School, which holds seminars in French. For its part, the Cultural Centre attracts some 6,000 Cambodian students and trainee teachers and is also present at Siemreap, Kompong Cham and Sihanoukville. The French-language media are relatively well established in Phnom Penh, with programmes broadcast on the national TV channel, a daily newspaper Cambodge soir and a monthly magazine Cambodge nouveau. RFI and TV5 are also picked up in Cambodia. Most of the country’s elite, in particular lawyers, artists, academics and doctors, speak French.
E. de L.

* The Alliance française became the French Cultural Centre in 1994.

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/france_159/label-france_2554/label-france-issues_2555/label-france-no.-30_4398/feature-francophonie-in-asia_4517/tour-of-asia-french-speaking-countries_7349.html
Shuimo   Wed Jan 13, 2010 1:46 pm GMT
io Wed Jan 13, 2010 5:33 am GMT
I tried googling this but mostly got articles about the French Indochina.... Would appreciate is someone would answer.

oh no Wed Jan 13, 2010 10:49 am GMT
Ask Shuimo -- apparently he's trying to learn French now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

hahhaha, If you ask Shuimo, I am surely yr man who can give you the most truthful on-the-ground information on this!:-)

French is surely studied in China!

Just like in any other non-English-speaking country, French just can't compare with English in learner number and learning popularity!

It is far far from popular as a foreign language!

Here in China, Japanese and Korean are the second most popular foreign lanuages for obvious reasons! Japan and South Korea are our close neighbors, and used to come under China's suzerainty!

Besides close trading ties, both Japan and Korea's pop cultures are well-received among Chinese youngsters, though Shuimo never touch their cultural products which I despize as nothing but shoddy-made mental garbage!

French, I must say, isn't of any special commercial currency or value to the Chinese! After all, Frech-speaking countries are mostly backward, poverty-striken third world countries! People really find little motivation to learn an unnecessarily complicated silly language with headache-causing gender-distinction nouns and bewildering verb conjugations!

BTW: a French-knowing friend of Shuimo's once told me that there are about 2oooo registered learners of French in college in China, that tells you the place of French in the Chinese linguistic market! ^_^
-Sp-   Wed Jan 13, 2010 1:52 pm GMT
<< io Wed Jan 13, 2010 5:33 am GMT
I tried googling this but mostly got articles about the French Indochina.... Would appreciate is someone would answer.

oh no Wed Jan 13, 2010 10:49 am GMT
Ask Shuimo -- apparently he's trying to learn French now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

hahhaha, If you ask Shuimo, I am surely yr man who can give you the most truthful on-the-ground information on this!:-)

French is surely studied in China!

Just like in any other non-English-speaking country, French just can't compare with English in learner number and learning popularity!

It is far far from popular as a foreign language!

Here in China, Japanese and Korean are the second most popular foreign lanuages for obvious reasons! Japan and South Korea are our close neighbors, and used to come under China's suzerainty!

Besides close trading ties, both Japan and Korea's pop cultures are well-received among Chinese youngsters, though Shuimo never touch their cultural products which I despize as nothing but shoddy-made mental garbage!

French, I must say, isn't of any special commercial currency or value to the Chinese! After all, Frech-speaking countries are mostly backward, poverty-striken third world countries! People really find little motivation to learn an unnecessarily complicated silly language with headache-causing gender-distinction nouns and bewildering verb conjugations!

BTW: a French-knowing friend of Shuimo's once told me that there are about 2oooo registered learners of French in college in China, that tells you the place of French in the Chinese linguistic market! ^_^ >>

Do you think we're gullible enough that you're Shuimo? You're Guest and as usual you're using Shuimo's username to attack the French language again.

You're the same person who used Shin-ruo's username.
Guest   Wed Jan 13, 2010 10:26 pm GMT
No, the man who writes above is really Shuimo, or at least another person.

Red Echelon says that nowadays, French is not only less important than Spanish or English, is even less important than Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, etc

The situation is another one: if Shuimo, Guest, Red Echelon, Laura, etc say that French language is in free fall, perhaps we are right.
GIOVANI   Wed Jan 13, 2010 10:36 pm GMT
Minus another 100,000 French speakers...
Visitor   Wed Jan 13, 2010 11:27 pm GMT
OK, all right. I admit that my language is in free fall. The decline of French language is getting me nervous but I feel that at least my language will be in the top 100 if we promote it enough.

What do you think about?
wo shi wo   Thu Jan 14, 2010 3:48 am GMT
<<<<<<<Hispanic pop cultures are well-received among Chinese youngsters>>>>>>>>>>>>>>???????????

First, I know you are not Shuimo.

Second, In which part of China you live????????? 你在中国的什么地方?你应该不是中国人吧。谁说法国流行文化在中国有那么多受众?
Wo shi wo   Thu Jan 14, 2010 3:58 am GMT
At least change the characters when you do a copy paste.

hahhahahahahaha

<<<<<<<Hispanic pop cultures are well-received among Chinese youngsters>>>>>>>>>>>>>>??????????? Nobody said that above.

法国人真的白痴。
+Fr+   Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:19 am GMT
French as a foreign language is the second most frequently taught language in the world after English. IN CHINA HAS ALSO BECOME THE SECOND MOST DEMANDED FOREIGN LANGUAGE. French is considered to be the language of diplomacy and culture due to its glorious past and its rich culture. France is the world's major tourist destination (75 million tourists a year). France is the most visited destination in the world. Paris is considered one of the "global cities".

http://nelanguage.com/french.html

Chine: Les Chances du Francais (The Fortunes of the French Language in China).

Examines the current situation in China surrounding the teaching of French as a Foreign Language. After the decline of French teaching subsequent to the Cultural Revolution, the language returned to favor around 1970. Chinese students are infatuated with French; many study it as a first or second foreign language. Additionally, French literature has enormous prestige in China. (CK)

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ518148&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ518148

delectric
Diglot

Senior Member

China

Joined 1735 days ago

502 posts - 6 votes

Speaks: English*, Mandarin
Studies: German


Every English major student in China must eventually take a second language after English. It seems that French is the most popular language, then Japanese and lastly Russian.

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1220&PN=1&TPN=2

Top 6 Most Popular Foreign Language Teachers in China

Japanese Teacher
There is a growing number of Chinese people learning Japanese, the main reasons are, first, Japanese culture is welcome in China; second, Japanese is regarded as an useful language in business and society contact; the third reason is due to Chinese neighbourhood in geography with Japan. We may learn from the above that Chinese people learning Japanese is mainly because of the benefit in business. And you must be very popular too in China schools if you are a foreign teacher teaching Japanese.

Korean Teacher
There has been a hot period of recent two years of Chinese people’s Korean training, dates from 2004 when it was difficult to get the visa to Japan for study, many people change their studying abroad destination from Japan to Korea whose aspects are quite like Japan’s; the second reason is larger number of Korean investment enterprises’ flooding in China, causing the scarcity of Korean talents, as a result, Korean teachers may surely enjoy a big market in China.

French Teacher
French is a very romantic language, but this is not the reason it is called “ the language of love”. In linguistics, “romance”, “romantic” and “love” have no relationship. French is Latin, and it has many things in common with English, even some of the same word spelling with its only difference in their pronunciation. French is always regarded as the most melodious language in the world, it is the official lauguage of France, Canada, Belgium and Swiss, etc. The major French learners are young students and white-collar workers for their interest and working and studying abroad needs and you are sure to be in good grace in the students if you are a French teacher in China.

German Teacher
German is the Germanic branch of Indo-European, enjoying 120,000,000 speakers in the world. It is the official language of Germany, Auatria and Swiss as the key language of EU and new East-Europe economics. The Chinese people are learning German out of their needs on jobs though they often communicate with their German colleagues in English, but it may shorten their distances between them when they communicate in German. You may feel happy for this if you are a German teacher, right?

Spanish Teacher
Spanish is one of the 6 major working languages in UN, also the official language of 20 Latin America countries and regions including Spain, Argentina and Morocco, etc. You have to spend almost one year to teach a Chinese Spanish beginner to the basic communication in Spanish. Currently, most Spanish learners are learning out of studying abroad and working needs.

Italian Teacher
Italian is quite similar to Spanish, it is one of the Latin of Indo-European. Chinese are learning Italian out of the needs of economics and trade and work, other reasons are that some of them have to catch up the language for travelling. You will be congratulated if you are an Italian teacher, as you may surely earn so much money in China.

http://top.at0086.com/China-Job-Center/Top-6-Most-Popular-Foreign-Language-Teachers-in-China.html