Mandarin, English, Spanish and Hindi

At one time I was interested in learning Hindi, but the language has barely any literary value at all. All India sites for companies are in English, it is as if the Indians are trying to completely erase Hindi from the elite and replace it with English.

I was originally intersested in the -spoken- language when students in my class were able to speak to eachother from such varied countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. I learned that they were speaking in Hindustani but that the language is very much based on a dialectal continuum but bollywood movies seems to help standardize the language. But it is still not the lingua franca of the subcontinent, English is.

Any Chinese version never will be popular outside China, too ugly, too complex, impossible writing. BTW, who were the ones who called it "the devil's language" ?

>At one time I was interested in learning Hindi, but the language has barely any literary value at all. All India sites for companies are in English, it is as if the Indians are trying to completely erase Hindi from the elite and replace it with English.

I was originally intersested in the -spoken- language when students in my class were able to speak to eachother from such varied countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. I learned that they were speaking in Hindustani but that the language is very much based on a dialectal continuum but bollywood movies seems to help standardize the language. But it is still not the lingua franca of the subcontinent, English is. <

Excellent way of putting it Mcat. I couldn't of putit in better words.

That's the advantage India has over China. The fact they embrace English in everyday life. Even in Governmental departments official documents are either English or Hindi. I doubt the Hindi language would disappear and be replaced with English - Indians are typically nationalist (in a good way) to protect culture and their language. They just learn to embrace Western ideas with one hand and with the other hand hold onto Indian traditional.

I admire the Indian people for their acceptance of Western idea WHILE holding on to their identify.

Thankyou
Holly

PS:Mcat - Just because Indians are bi-ligual that shouldn't stop you learning Hindi.

Nostradamus

I won't try to rebuke your disparaging words, but I want to tell you that CHINA is all the time an huge dragon, historically it was so splendent and also it ever sank into morass, but now this powerful country comes to life, and earthlings will be surprised with the refulgent and increasing development of CHINA, now China's population is nearly 1300,000,000.
It would be almost impossible for a country with such enormous population to build such remarkable achievements, which else could???
The most great powerful world center(especially Economy), is now Europe and USA, and some poeple guess it will be Latin America world, but I believe, someday, CHINA will show its overpowering strength to the world.

Chinese,

Don't worry there would be also a minority who doesn't like a particular language - even English.

As you mention China is a dragon. I would agree with that. It is a sleeping dragon slowly waking up and getting stronger as each day passes. China has shown remarkable growth shadowing the traditional powerhouses of Asia - Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. Now China is an important player in the region is also on the international arena against the mega power houses of the European Union (EU) and the United States of America.

Thanks
Holly

HOLLY

I really appreciate your rational estimate of China, and I think since Hongkong and Macao successively came back to China's dominion as special districts, China's government has been making an effort to reoccupy Taiwan Province pacifically and with open arms, and in fact, one thing that Taiwan government ought to confess is that Taiwan is one part of China's domain historically, and Taiwanese is also spoken in Mainland of China, we call it Minnanese, some cities such as Amoy-XiaMen QuanZhou, ZhangZhou, all speak Minnanese as native language.

But TaiWan government always insists upon Taiwan's Independence, it's absolutely much too falsely and treasonablely, and it can Never be accepted by all the Chinese people, I believe someday, Taiwan will come back to China, just like Hongkong and Macao, and at that time China will be integrated and flourishing, I look forward to seeing it comes true!!!

Taiwan is an interesting case Chinese though my opinion on this matter would be unsuitable to discuss this moment.

My father visited Hong Kong pre-1997 and also post-1997 and surprise at the lack of changes he expected when the Chinese took control of the city from the British. He mention the continuing way of thinking Hong Hong people think - to expand, to trade and exchanging of ideas. With these three things in their mindset they have successfully developed a truly international city that many of us would envy in the West.

About Taiwan I think this is more than a 'domestic affair' between China and Taiwan but a international affair which concerns such parties such as the United States and Japan which is worried about the aftermath of Taiwan's democracy if China successfully aquire Taiwan just as it did with Hong Kong and Macau. My opinion this particular affair should be not of interest to the United States nor Japan but only between China and Taiwan.


< Taiwanese is also spoken in Mainland of China, we call it Minnanese, some cities such as Amoy-XiaMen QuanZhou, ZhangZhou, all speak Minnanese as native language.>

This confuses me as I talked to a couple of 'Taiwanese' friends who claim they speak ' Taiwanese' not 'Minnanese'. So I assume they would speaking of a different language or dialect. When I talked to my Chinese friends they would say the opposite. Til sometime later I realized this was not based on language differences but political opinion.

Thankyou
Holly

You can say all you want but there is no relation among economical power and expansion of a language worldwide otherwise German or Japanese for example would be very popular worldwide and they are not the same way that English, Spanish or French have been. Yourself have mentioned that the Chinese people today learn English, German, French and Spanish because China trades with countries that speak those languages. It's natural, the most interested here is the seller. So keep dreaming. Chinese never will be popular that much outside China.

Nostradamus,

What you mentioned is partly true and I feel on behalf of Chinese to answer this through the eyes of a Westerner.

You mentioned how Chinese learn languages to cope with foreign investors. Yes that is correct many Western firms have moved some/all of their production to the Chinese mainland. But you realize that foreign investors are different from firms wanting to open in Chinese.

Foreign investors are actually funding chinese companies. This is inturn has given the Chinese firms the potential to expand into the outer Chinese market and eventually the global market. Let me explain the reasons why most Chinese companies (large ones) have not entered the global market.

1) China has realized the technology and infrastructure needs to be built or updated to meet standards that are established in the West. Other factors such as the infrastructure investment is seen a necessity inorder to enter a particular market and to support the expanding companies. eg. China has started building new hydro powerstations to cope with the high demands from expanding firms and new companies entering the mainland.

2) As China is a recent player to the 'free market' system. Many countries especially Western nations are usually put off China's potential and are worried about destorying their local industry with cheaper Chinese goods. For the time been the Chinese are working hard with foreign goverments to create trading relationships. Once these agreements are final Chinese companies can enter the market.

You see Nostradamus the Chinese have many barriers entering the market. Once they are down Chinese firms could be a major force hence the reason to learn Chinese. It's not 'if it happens' but more of 'when it happens'.

The last post was by me.

"It's not 'if it happens' but more of 'when it happens'."

Holly I still really doubt it. Germany is one of the strongest economies of the world since decades ago to mention one but it doesn't mean that German language is a popular one due to that. The same could be said about Japan. The three languages are complex, Chinese more than all. I think English will reign for long long time to come.

We don't have to wait for the future to see that most manufacturers in any country will print for example the instructions of their products in some languages sometimes depending of the market where the product was destined to go. If it's America then probably English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. It would be insane to sell a product with only the native language printed on it or on its manual.

In other words, righ now I don't need to know German to buy a toy train or Japanese to buy a TV or Chinese to buy a computer.

So Chinese are smart people and never would depend on the knowledge of their language that potencial investors and markets could have. Nobody does it and much less if it's a very difficult language.

Nostradamus,

Valid points and excellent point of view.

<Holly I still really doubt it. Germany is one of the strongest economies of the world since decades ago to mention one but it doesn't mean that German language is a popular one due to that. The same could be said about Japan. The three languages are complex, Chinese more than all. I think English will reign for long long time to come. >

You are correct but I would like to comment on the business style the Chinese have against the Western style (including the Japanese) of 'adaption' to the local market it wishes to enter.

The Germans have realized the importance of eg. the English language to enter the United States and the Commonweath countries inorder to operate in these markets successfully. Most German countries such as Deutsche Bank would have local branches with native speakers to deal with it's English speaking customers. This is a form of a decentralized business structure which not only the Germans use but also other Western countries and also an increasing number for non-Western nations (Japan is a great example).

The Chinese on the other hand perfer to have it's own 'crew on the ground' reporting directly to Management which is typical of socialist countries which perfer a centralized system. This means by having it's Chinese staff located at branches around the world would obviously perfer Chinese as their main language (internally of course) while English is used with customers on the selling front. In other words most important business decisions would be dealt in Chinese.

<In other words, righ now I don't need to know German to buy a toy train or Japanese to buy a TV or Chinese to buy a computer. >

Of course it would be in the language of the market they are selling in. But in most cases people who wish to learn Chinese are interested in the business and economy aspect.

<So Chinese are smart people and never would depend on the knowledge of their language that potencial investors and markets could have. Nobody does it and much less if it's a very difficult language. >

Well it obviously when foreign investors enter a market ie. the Chinese or whatever,would know there would be a difference with the language of business and also the business style would be different from their own market. You can't just enter a market and expect them to speak English or is that just supporting the stereo type of the typical English speaker who can be stuffed to learn another langauge?

CHINA had been all through the heartland of entire Asia before the Opium War launched by between United Kingdom, and since then CHINA fatally got into calamitous situation, Civil Wars happened in quick succession and Chinese people went through with the cruel war against Japanese invaders, and much later, Culture's Revolution launched by a few VIP baddies caused a series of fearful retrogress in many respects.

Now China, a sleeping dragon, has again come to life, How great!!!

<< it's true that a lot of people think of USA as the Human's Paradise >>

I can recall the expression "The land of milk and honey." being used
to describe the USA. I have heard the expression "Worker's Paradise"
applied to the former Soviet Union.

I think most of U.S. movies are stupid and superficial... and that's alwayd been a major surprize to me that so many people admire Hollywood production.