Will Spanish and Chinese overcome English?
what? chinese mandarin is not a common language in china? hello! have you ever been to china? other than some remote parts of china, most people will know mandarin, at least 1 billion of the 1.3 billion chinese know mandarin and this is increasing everyday!
and stop avoiding my questions! unless you cannot defend them...
1. What proof do you have that a guy studies latin language faster than chinese?
a)Is your guy one who already knows a latin language? because if the guy already knows a latin langauge then definately he will learn another latin language faster, but if a guy does not already know a latin language then what proof do you have that he will learn a latin language faster?
b)Are you being biased since you are a native speaker of a latin language?
C)Are you telling me an African or Asian who does not know a single latin language will not study chinese faster thatn a latin language?
Please have some evidence!
2.When you claimed that chinese was difficult therefore it cannot become a world language, may I ask you why a difficult language like french became a language of dimplomacy in the 18th century?
3. last but not least what is your native language? because it may influence your view on chinese.
I have no problems with you giving criticism of chinese but I am just tired of people just making wild accusations about chinese and I wish to clarify some misconception(if any) about the chinese language.
"TongHui: don't get so enthusiastic, Chinese-Mandarin langauge is still not yet the common language even in its own country! I am a non-native speaking chinese, and I speak much better Mandarin more than most of the poeple in the city where I live...Can you say I am wrong in that?? I need an answer from you. "
This is very wrong. Most chinese can speak madarin, maybe with more or less local accent in remote villages but that is common in any other country too. Where do you live by the way?
"I did not say shortage of characters, I said shortage of words (which I mean sounds) "
I don't how to interpret your sentence here. Word is word and sound is sound, no way you can say they're the same. Word in chinese can be composed by different numbers of chinese characters. If you look in a chinese dictionary more carefully you will find dozens of words under each character. That literally make the vocabulary large enough to express any human ideas.
greg said:"last but not least what is your native language? because it may influence your view on chinese". Apperantly you are a language expert! presuming so, which of the languages menstioned down will have a negative influantial on my evaluation on chinese, if it was my native language?
1. Dutch
2. Indian
3. Greek
4. Arabic
5. Japaness
"most people will know mandarin, at least 1 billion of the 1.3 billion chinese know mandarin and this is increasing everyday!" ... Chinese Mandarin was forced on schools so that the 1.3 billion can communicate between each other. a survay was done shown that many people in china " in millions" were born, lived all thier lives and died within an area its borders does not excced 1 x 1 Km. are you telling me that the 1 billion who just started speaking Mandarin, and barely know what is happing in the nearby inhabitated area one kilkmeter way will have an impact in making the Mandarin a world wide language? Hello!
few years ago, finding someone who can speak english was a big deal. now parents are aware of the imoprtance of foreign languages (which is english nowadays). students at school started realizing the needs of english to get a better job. The number of employees speaking english in compaies is on the increase to make better communication with foriegn companies.So what I am seeing in the furture is more people in china who can speak english to cope with the out world, not vis virsa.
"That literally make the vocabulary large enough to express any human ideas"... again, i am not talking about the vocabulary, I am talking about shortage of sounds to make words. offcourse you can espress human ideas in chinese because the vocabulary is huge, but with limited sounds.
a simple sentece just come by my mind:
"now sit in your seat, then do your work"
This sentece will be said in chinese like this:
xianZAI ZUO ZAI nide ZUOwei, ZAI ZUO nide gongZUO
I had to repeat (ZAI-4) three times, and (ZUO-4) four times to say this sentence, and this is a very common sentence could be said often (correct me if I a wrong). are you tellming me this is not shortage of words.Hello! so much repeation of same sounds in short sentences, makes it more to difficult and confusing to learn and understand the language.
now it's very interesting.
First, you're literally wrong there're shortage of sounds in chinese. Sounds and the combinations of sounds are two different thing. Let's see a little fact here. There's 21 initials, 35 finals and 4 tones in chinese. The possible number of sounds in Chinese is 21*35*4=2940. And there're only 20 vowels and 20 consonants in English which makes the sounds' number of 20*20=400.
And now I know what you're going to say. Yes, english is different from chinese because in english people use more syllables than chinese to comprise a word so the number of 'combination' is much more. Now here comes the debatable point. You think english is easier to learn because there're more 'combination' of sounds which makes the meaning of separate word unique. But i can say english is harder to learn because there're way too many words to memorize than chinese. Chinese uses fewer words to express the same amount of meaning than english and no way you can say it's wrong. Whether it's easier to learn or not........well it depends on the individuals.
Second, the importance of a language is decided by the influence of the country. As china is becoming a more and more important political and economical role in the world, the chinese language will too. And the tide is already changing. More and more western people are learning chinese now, can't you see that?
As for your statement 'the 1 billion who just started speaking Mandarin, and barely know what is happing in the nearby inhabitated area one kilkmeter way', i think it's rather baseless and irrelevant.
Sorry I made a mistake about the number of vowels and consonants. It depends on the specific dialect I guess and so is chinese
so mike is afraid to disclose his native language, this seems suspicious, i wonder why...
You are also avoiding my questions for you, picking out only those where you can continue your attack on chinese. In case you "forgot":
1. What proof do you have that a guy studies latin language faster than chinese?
a)Is your guy one who already knows a latin language? because if the guy already knows a latin langauge then definately he will learn another latin language faster, but if a guy does not already know a latin language then what proof do you have that he will learn a latin language faster?
b)Are you being biased since you are a native speaker of a latin language?
C)Are you telling me an African or Asian who does not know a single latin language will not study chinese faster thatn a latin language?
Please have some evidence!
2.When you claimed that chinese was difficult therefore it cannot become a world language, may I ask you why a difficult language like french became a language of dimplomacy in the 18th century?
3.<are you telling me that the 1 billion who just started speaking Mandarin, and barely know what is happing in the nearby inhabitated area one kilkmeter way will have an impact in making the Mandarin a world wide language?>
how can you make such baseless claim? even if you got it from somewhere is it reliable? I really dont think that 1 billion chinese just started learning mandarin! Mandarin was already one of the most used language even before mandarin was made the official language and taught throughout the country!
4. <xianZAI ZUO ZAI nide ZUOwei, ZAI ZUO nide gongZUO >
I am sorry, this is broken mandarin. It should be " li ke zuo zai ni de wei zi shang gong zuo." There are many ways to say this and your way of saying is very akward! You cannot directly translate english into chinese, so some words have to be changed or it will sound weird.
greg: just not to give you the chance of accusing my judgment on chinese language based on my native langauge the moment you hear it from me, so I wanted first to here from you which language could have an influance, then tell you my nationaltiy. since you did not do so, then we will have to keep our discusion despite knowing, or not, our native language... sorry, but this is they way how I deal with experts like you.
Lu: you are making a good point here, but let me correct you. the first time I worte here I said I want to share my own immagination of how the chinese language was develop (which I was accused later for being bashing). I said that although there are more letters in chinese (which I meant there should be combinations more than in any other language), but the people at the time did not creat enought sounds, or words or combinations. limited sounds, developed the four tones in Mandarin to have more words from same combinations...(again this is my own immaginations and not bashing)
your point of the difficulty of memorizing more words is correct I think only in ealry stages of learning a language. I've been in China for four years.I studied chinese the first year. it was easy in the beging to memorize words because there were few -exactly like what you siad. but the more I advanced in the language, I found my self still going around same words, like Zai, Huo, he, guan, Zuo... Now if i listen to songs, I hear same words, if I listen to political news, also hear same words, put together in a different way, makes me understand nothing. The tone things makes chinese even harder. I am quite sure there are only very very few chinese learners who can spell correctly and separet between the following:
LiangWan: two dishes
LiangWan: 20,000
or
ShuiJiao: sleep
ShuiJiao: dumplings
Back to you greg: I could have used "Li Ke" in my sentence, but I wouldn't say it in my city in china, because I never heard the people here using this word between each other. so if my language is Broken, then the language of the 1 billion you are counting on, is also broken!
I see what makes you think that chinese is difficult. And I know other native english speakers who have the same problem. Yes, it's the tones.
In chinese people use tones to separate different meaning of words which doesn't exsist in English.
LiangWan: two dishes Wan is third tone here
LiangWan: 20,000 here the 'wan' is fourth tone
or
ShuiJiao: sleep shui4 jiao4
ShuiJiao: dumplings shui3 jiao3
So you see the confusion is actualy not there and we also can read the context to figure out the meaning. My advice is that you pay much more attenton to the tones than the pronunciation itself. When you master the usage of tones then you became a master of chinese language.
Chinese and Spanish will not overcome English based on the following reason:
Chinese is too difficult, especially regarding to writing system. It would be a popular language in east and south-east Asia since there are many overseas Chinsese in south-eastern Aisa. For the same reason, spanish will never have enough influence beyond Americas. As for Asia, I would say spanish have little influence.
>>Chinese is too difficult, especially regarding to writing system.<<
A universally accepted romanized version would overcome that shortcoming. I don't find the spoken aspect difficult or have any trouble being understood.
>>A universally accepted romanized version would overcome that shortcoming. I don't find the spoken aspect difficult or have any trouble being understood.<<
Do you think people can smoothly communicate by Pinyin, what if it comes to written materails? Still in Pinyin? Chinese themselves would never accept Chinese documents written in Pinyin.
If you do not want to tell me your native language then fine. However you still have not answered my questions:
1. What proof do you have that a guy studies latin language faster than chinese?
a)Is your guy one who already knows a latin language? because if the guy already knows a latin langauge then definately he will learn another latin language faster, but if a guy does not already know a latin language then what proof do you have that he will learn a latin language faster?
b)Are you being biased since you are a native speaker of a latin language?
C)Are you telling me an African or Asian who does not know a single latin language will not study chinese faster thatn a latin language?
Please have some evidence!
2.When you claimed that chinese was difficult therefore it cannot become a world language, may I ask you why a difficult language like french became a language of dimplomacy in the 18th century?
3.<are you telling me that the 1 billion who just started speaking Mandarin, and barely know what is happing in the nearby inhabitated area one kilkmeter way will have an impact in making the Mandarin a world wide language?>
how can you make such baseless claim? even if you got it from somewhere is it reliable? I really dont think that 1 billion chinese just started learning mandarin! Mandarin was already one of the most used language even before mandarin was made the official language and taught throughout the country!
Lu: Bye the way, I speak chinese fluently, and I do spell the tones very perfectly...I am master already (in pronouncing, but not writing or reading, or vocabulary wise). I am giving these examples from my long experience hearing other chinese learners doing many mistakes in the tones, even after years of staying in China.
Today I was talking with a a chinese man in his mid forty and living in a city around 150 kms from Beijing. He told me that Mandarin was not taught at schools in his days. is that true?
greg: you said: >>Mandarin was already one of the most used language even before mandarin was made the official language and taught throughout the country!<< it seems you've never been beyon Beijing or Shanghai. go further and you will withdraw your statment.
Mandarin and pinyin both were developed in 1950s. And they started to spread through the country since early 1960. But when the 10 years of cultural revolution began at 1966 the spreading was halted, so it's possible that he didn't have a chance to learn mandarin in elementary school. After the cultural revolution mandarin was teached everywhere.