French VS German, which is the winner of European Union?

Yoshimi   Tue Jun 20, 2006 6:27 am GMT
See Title Please.
Yoshimi   Tue Jun 20, 2006 6:36 am GMT
Spanish is absolutely the big winner in Latin America and US.

What about the language winner in European Union? (except English)
Yoshimi   Tue Jun 20, 2006 7:04 am GMT
I think that Germany should has access to join the European Union soon. Because German is always the secondly important language in Europe.
greg   Tue Jun 20, 2006 7:38 am GMT
Yoshimi : l'Allemagne fait partie de l'UE — c'est même (pour sa partie occidentale) un membre fondateur des premières communautés européennes...
Candy   Tue Jun 20, 2006 8:13 am GMT
Yoshimi: what do you mean, Germany should join the European Union soon?? As greg pointed out, Germany was one of the founder members!!

And I don't understand what you mean by 'winner'. Are you asking which is the more widely spoken language in the EU? German has more native speakers than French (within the EU) but French is widely learnt and spoken, too. Why is this a question of 'winning' and 'losing'?
Yoshimi   Tue Jun 20, 2006 8:26 am GMT
OH, I'm terriblely sorry for my silly mistake!

I should say that "Permanent Member State Of the UN Security Council, instead of European Union, Sorry, again.
a.p.a.m.   Tue Jun 20, 2006 9:18 pm GMT
German. Germany has the most powerful economy in Europe.
viri amaoro   Tue Jun 20, 2006 9:22 pm GMT
The winner of the European Union is, for the time being, English.
But I hope that will change some day with the adoption of Esperanto or some other neutral language.
Yoshimi   Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:09 am GMT
Everybody, I said "EXCEPT ENGLISH", my topic doesn't include English!
kawaii   Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:23 am GMT
I think it is french which will be the last winner since most European countries once adopted French as secondly spoken language from 16th to 18th. History always repeat itself.
Sander   Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:37 am GMT
Yes I'm sure Mexico will turn back to Aztec soon. (Yes I'm mocking you and your argumentation)
Sander   Wed Jul 19, 2006 4:05 pm GMT
will you give me a nice rimming yoshimi
LAA   Wed Jul 19, 2006 4:43 pm GMT
There is no such thing as an "Aztec" language. The language the Mexica spoke was Nahuatl.

But I agree with Sander in that Kawaii's theory is definitely wrong.

English is the lingua Franca of the world. Because of the British Empire's, and now America's preponderance over the world, English is the world's dominant language in business, travel, and diplomacy.

But, I think the EU will eventually try to distance itself from the U.S., as it sees the U.S.'s role on the international scene decline, and be superceded by China and other emerging powers. There is a growing divide between the EU and the U.S. More than likely, the EU will try to align with one of the new rising starts, while the U.K, alienated from Continental Europe, because of its close affiliation with the U.S., will remain somewhat of an outsider.

So, unless China's economy implodes on itself, which it might, because it is based on a precarious financial system, Europe will choose a language other than English for diplomatic communication, etc. German and French, I would say are the most dominant languages on the continent, especially considering that the EU is basically run by this powerful Franco-German alliance. The EU will probably emerge as a bi-lingual entity, similar to what Belgium and Switzerland currently have.
greg   Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:03 pm GMT
LAA : « So, unless China's economy implodes on itself, which it might, because it is based on a precarious financial system (...) ».

Mais, M. l'Économiste distingué, comme c'est la Chine qui finance (en partie) les États-Unis (qui — en passant — absorbent 75 % de la dette mondiale —> bravo la solidité financière...), il y a fort à parier que l'économie états-unienne en pâtira doublement.
LAA   Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:35 pm GMT
America has such a large trade deficit, not because it is incapable of competing, and lacks enough exports, but because its major trading partners in Europe and Japan lag behind its robust rate of economic growth since post 1995, and thus, as nations, have smaller purchasing power compared to the United States.

China deliberately buys up American treasury debt so that it can deflate the value of its own currency against the dollar, thereby giving its industry an advantage over American domestic firms, and boosting China's export industry.

This type of policy is stupid, and it is merely a rehash of the outdated economic theory of mercantilism, which believed that the measure of a nation's wealth was determined soley by their store of gold bullion, so that indefinite, and large trade surpluses were always desired.

Adam Smith and modern economists have since proved that theory wrong.

If China's economy was to suddenly implode, due to the fact that their financial system is a mess (the state loans out free cash at little to no interest to any speculative firm, no matter how illegitemate they are along with other problems), yes, the U.S. would be hurt by it.

America is not being hurt by our current trading relationship with China, as many laymen would expect. We have a large trade deficit with them, as their consumers have yet to gain the purchasing power required to by an equivalent amount of American export goods, but our exports are on the rise, and growing tremendously every year. The majority of our exports to China come in the form of industrial equipment, hi-tech goods, and agricultural goods. But imports are also beneficial to an economy, contrary to what many might think. China's cheap consumer goods allow us to focus on industries which our economy is more efficient in, thereby increasing the total production of wealth in our economy. We have a trade deficit with China in terms of goods and services, so that there is a net leak of wealth from this country. That wealth returns to us however in the form of Chinese investment in our country. They take all of the wealth from their trade surplus with us, and re-invest their savings in the U.S., thus depressing long term interest rates, and creating a higher level of investment in the U.S., which leads to higher productivity rates, and faster economic growth. So you see, everything has a way of equalizing itself in trade.