what foreign languages do Chinese and Japanese students lear

fobn   Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:52 am GMT
n?
nbof   Sat Sep 12, 2009 6:38 am GMT
English?
yen   Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:03 pm GMT
English, pretty much. Although non-Mandarin-speaking Chinese students have to learn Mandarin first and foremost. After that, Korean, Japanese (in China), Mandarin (in Japan), and sometimes French or German, but these come in pretty far behind English.
Guessst   Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:25 pm GMT
Vissssitor   Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:37 pm GMT
Guest   Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:39 pm GMT
En ese link no pone en ningun momento que el francés sea la segunda lengua más enseñada.
Zhong Wen   Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:41 pm GMT
In China, English>Japanese>Korean>French=German=Spanish>Russian
English,Japanese and Korean are most learned.
Han Yu   Mon Sep 14, 2009 10:35 am GMT
In my humble opinion, as follows,

1. English (the lingua franca)
2. Japanese (most useful in Asia)
3. French (noble, prestige)
4. Italian (melodic, prestige)
5. German (cool, prestige)
6. Spanish (widely spoken, slightly harsh and noisy, though)
7. Russian (ever hugely popular in China, but already in significant decline)
8. Korean (not music to my ears, but Korea is the closest neighbor of China)
9. Other languages.
A more original name   Mon Sep 14, 2009 11:23 am GMT
China is perhaps one of the last countries where Spanish is not widely studied as in USA, France, Germany, UK, India or Japan.

The tendency of slight decline of French or German is not yet important in China, as it is in the same European Union, Japan, India or USA.

Perhaps, the tendencies come several years later in China.

It is also amazing the important number of students of Japanese, and in lesser degree of Korean.
iTune   Mon Sep 14, 2009 12:01 pm GMT
A more original name
>>>It is also amazing the important number of students of Japanese, and in lesser degree of Korean.<<<

As everybody knows, there are a large number of "Chinese people of Korean descent" (while there's No Chinese people of Japanese descent), they generally speak Korean as native language and Mandarin as a skill, almost every Job positions (especially high positions) of Korean companies are taken up by those Chinese-Koreans. Furthermore, the salary level of Korean companies is usually lower than that of Japanese companies, so if you were a Chinese man, you wouldn't try to compete with Chinese-Koreans for a position which people should speak Korean fluently but can get less salary (compared with Japanese companies). And most of all, Korean sounds much worse than Japanese, this is the main reason why I don't want to learn Korean.
iTune   Mon Sep 14, 2009 12:06 pm GMT
What I said above, is to explain the status of Mainland China, instead of a global review.
Xie   Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:10 pm GMT
>>China is perhaps one of the last countries where Spanish is not widely studied as in USA, France, Germany, UK, India or Japan.

The tendency of slight decline of French or German is not yet important in China, as it is in the same European Union, Japan, India or USA. <<

If Spain and its Hispanic counterparts can convince me with what Germany offers - InterCity Express, Gymnasium, Langenscheidt, all the nice scenic spots everywhere, high-quality food, tourism, etc, I could abandon German tomorrow.

But the fact is they can't. For me, "Spanish" among Chinese students is simply a fad, hugely inflated fad, even more so than Chinese elsewhere. Not even the Chinese degree holders can get a job so easily, who cares about the foreign students? At least within a decade, my country won't let you foreigners in anyway - in terms of immigrant laws which don't exist at all.

Few people learn Chinese, and many of us Chinese don't learn Spanish, and we're all doing fine. We don't need those.
Xie   Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:22 pm GMT
Like in Hong Kong, the competition now is:

1) English (but at university it's taken for granted that everybody knows English, otherwise they can't study at all)
2) Japanese, as usual
3) French and Spanish
4) German
5) Korean

German classes are also expanding, but simply not as vigorous as French and Spanish. But come on, what I think is, they guys don't really know the reality. I know it's our freedom to choose anything out of these for pure fun, yeah, I agree. But among us we usually look for a language with "future", so that we have economic gains. (i.e. job hunting, language-related things)

But this fad always goes like that. There have been years of fads about Japanese, but few people really get money out of Japanese, and the market is rather saturated as we know. And Japan isn't doing well either.

And French and Spanish? First, I'm personally not so confident about France as a whole, much less than Germany as an economy/a tourist spot, etc. Second, most people simply stop at level 1. Third, yeah, France is OK in terms of business with us, but who knows about Spanish? They don't even have anything comparable to French/German in Hong Kong. French and German had their roots in Hong Kong for 2 or 3 decades already until now, but Spanish has practically nothing.

And as a student, I can think of studying opportunities. Again, compared to France and Germany, Spain offers very little. You don't see the name of Spain anywhere in economic indexes/academic indexes where France and Germany appear very prominently, although the US, the UK, China, etc, certainly overshadow them by far. Spain just isn't there! The language garden would be more colorful with Spanish as well, but it just doesn't qualify for it.

I have nothing against Spanish. I'd love to learn it if I'm fluent in French (well, I'm not American or something, so French is more natural for me as the first Romance language). But the fact is, for most Chinese to take an academic route/career route WITH languages, and without a special regional interest, more of them would go for French/German than Spanish, although Spanish too is taking over the market of both nowadays.

If you take Chinese for example, you'd understand. 30 years have passed after my country has finally decided to rebuild its economy after decades of civil war. But so what with Chinese? Among other languages, Chinese, just like Korean among Korean Chinese, is too populous for you to compete. You can mostly just do for companies of your country. Most Chinese can work properly with other Chinese anyway, so they don't need you. What's worse, unlike many Anglophones, many Chinese are also multilingual in some ways...
French&Spanish   Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:46 pm GMT
Xie, I think that you are wrong with French and Spanish.

These languages are very important and very spoken in a lot of countries. That is the reason to be both official or at least used in all the World organizations.

You make a simple scheme:

Spanish-Spain
French-France

If you speak Spanish your company has some 500 million of potential customers. You can not focus on one country. It is spoken in Mexico, USA, Spain, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Panama, Cuba, Peru, Bolivia, etc

The same with French. It is spoken in France, Belgium, French Canada, French Switzerland, North Africa, Black Africa, Haiti, etc. You can not focus only on France. Your company has over 200 million of potential customers.

Besides, a lot of people from other countries can speak French or Spanish, because they are studied around the World. For example, if you work in an Export Department, a person from Italy, Germany, Brazil or Greece can speak Spanish or French.

In short, almost all people in Export Departments, Travel agencies or international organizations speak English and Spanish or English and French.

We can say, at least in theory, that English, Spanish and French are really the 3 World languages yet.
Yoko   Tue Sep 15, 2009 12:28 am GMT
To Chinese posters: what is considered to be a major destination for Chinese emigrants? What country is the land of opportunity?

Also, I have heard that Chinese students aren't allowed to have sex with the locals of the countries in which they are studying under Chinese means. Is that true?!