Is German NOT important "in Asia"?
Yes, it is!
It has been overtaken by Japanese,surely.
Scientifically , Japan has won Germany and has turned to be the third enonomic market of the world.(Where is Germany? It has been isolated since she joined in EU and her language is only important in Europe, not "Asia"
In Asia, more students choose to study Japanese instead of German....
I'm a native Chinese man, I think that, German is still very important in Asia, especially in China and Japan, German is the most popular foreign langauge just besides English in Japan, and German is also the third important language after English and Japanese in China, so, Could we say that German is not important any more? No! German is very important, although it's really behind English and Japanese in China. This is the personal viewpoint from a Chinese man.
I don't know the detailed status of Europe or US, but I'm so sure that German is the 3rd important language in ASIA, after English and Japanese, but French and Spanish are both inessential or helpless, at least in China.
German ranks third behind English and French both in Japan and China.
Maybe German ranks 3rd behind English and French in Japan, but German does rank 3rd behind English and Japanese in China. French is perhaps the 4th language, and Spanish, the 5th probably.
In Korea, German is the third widely learned foreign language other than English.
The most popular second foreign language is Chinese followed by Japanese, German and French.
However, German is getting less popular these days and Spanish is getting popular instead of German.
Still, German is more important than Italian or Portuguese here in Korea.
We have to reckon with many problems, when we make a choice among important languages, yes, Spanish is a comparatively popular language in recent years in Asian countries, such as China, Japan, and Korea, but it doesn't mean that Spanish is increasingly getting more important or helpful than German or French, for example, one of my friends studies Spanish for over 4 years at the University, but since he graduated, he still hasn't got a correlative job which can bring his major (Spanish) into good play. By contraries, another friend, who studies German well, got a very good job in German company and work there as an engineer. We can't only say that former person (studies Spanish) have little capabilities, acqierement, or wisdom, and maybe we could give a reasonable factor which deeply affected his career, that's CHOICE, an advisable and impersonal choice. This is just my personal viewpoint.
German is the most important language in Continental Europe. Don't deny.
German is not important in Asia.
English is the most studied foreign language, and the second is Chinese.
Japanese, Spanish, French and German are minority foreign languages, and all of them are weaker than English and Chinese.
So, Spanish, French and German are fighting to be 3rd in all of these countries (after English and Chinese). The current trend is an increase of Spanish, a stagnation of French and a decrease of German.
Franco Sun Jul 08, 2007 11:38 am GMT
Es posible andar por las calles de Tokio hablando español solamente.
Guest Sun Jul 08, 2007 5:59 pm GMT
Of course it is possible, but nobody will understand you
LOL!
I did find some Spanish speakers in Tokyo, more than German speakers. I also found French speakers.
"I did find some Spanish speakers in Tokyo, more than German speakers. I also found French speakers."
LOL, of course...*irony*
German is, at least, more important than Spanish in Asia, it's very truly.
I watched a documentary program way back in the late 1980's about French and Japanese teams working together that had something with oceanography or deep sea explorations.
At first, I expected that their common language would be English. But to my surprise, all the individuals that belong to the Japanese team spoke French very well to facilitate communication between them. I think those people studied French for the sake of the project becasue they knew that the French team had a lot to offer.
1, English (Necessary)
2, German (Very Useful)
3, French (Important)
4, Spanish (Negligible)