Foreign Languages in China

Sven   Sat Aug 11, 2007 3:13 pm GMT
I know that in China you don´t study languages, but you organize the Olympic Games, and you are starting to study languages hard. That ís true?
mac   Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:18 pm GMT
To my knowledge a lot of high school students are studying English. I'm in Japan now and when I visited China I was amazed at how many more people (in big cities) would randomly approach me and want to speak English.
Zuikis   Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:58 pm GMT
They may study English at schools but they do not meet a single foreigner in their lives. How then they will apply their knowledhe of English they supposedly acquired at schools? This is the same situation a sit was in USSR - everybody studied a foreign language at schools (mostly English) but almost nobody could speak it... What a waist of time and energy...
Xie Z.A.   Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:16 am GMT
The reality of language programs in schools/colleges notwithstanding, Chinese students do study languages. To my disappointment, there are only a few universities capable of producing graduates majoring in different languages. My wild guess is... that about 90 % of the universities don't teach languages other than English, and few do speak English well for reasons mentioned. The minority would be the elites... the few universities specializing in foreign languages provide a variety of programs, teaching languages ranging from Japanese, European even to African. However, compared to the size of the population and country, foreign language education is still extremely limited.
Xie Z.A.   Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:19 am GMT
Whereas in Hong Kong... well, the general standard of English is better (with a much smaller sample size), but still, perhaps like millions of ESL learners around the globe, most of us (and I) are always complaining about how ineffective English education is, and few have the motivation to learn English for various reasons.... well, simply, very few people are encouraged to learn happily; they are forced to.

Sadly, almost no one at my place cares about other languages, possibly except Japanese.
Guest   Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:20 am GMT
Zuikis, why you single out USSR? In almost any country, only few students out of all those who study a language at school make it to knowing it fluently. The few foreign language departments in USSR were very competitive and so only the best made it.
Xie Z.A.   Mon Aug 13, 2007 2:27 am GMT
<<when I visited China I was amazed at how many more people (in big cities) would randomly approach me and want to speak English.>>

Sure. Many mainland Chinese people are crazy about learning English. The foreign language section of bookstores are flooded with all kinds of courses, ranging from news English, TV English, English songs, textbooks to word-reciting books... well, the presence of tons of English textbooks at least shows they have the will to learn the language... on the contrary, people at my place tend to be easily contented, and for business reasons, very few English books are published, not to say good ones...

For the purpose of Olympics, there ARE campaigns encouraging learning other languages too, such as Japanese, but this is little known... yet, I'm sure that the demand for "smaller" languages is slowly rising now, since more people are seeking fortunes by learning some *more* languages.
François   Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:32 am GMT
You need to study also French, one of the most important world languages.
Babel   Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:41 am GMT
Yes. But if they become free and prosperous they can split in several countries like the U.S.S.R.

Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Yunnan, Guangdong and other territories will be independent. That´s a high price.
Sven   Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:36 pm GMT
What about German, French and Spanish? Do you study other languages, apart from English?
Xie Z.A.   Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:54 pm GMT
I'm afraid that moderators have to close this thread for obvious reasons.

<<What about German, French and Spanish? Do you study other languages, apart from English?>>

If you are referring to Chinese universities, sure. French is the hottest for reasons similar to Japanese. German is also very popular because a lot of science students want to make fortunes by studying sciences in Germany. Both choices are also studied by some arts students.

Spanish is not a traditional choice. It's on a slow rise, though.

If you are referring to people like me, no. There are two official languages in Hong Kong, but only English is "official" in universities. A lot of parents of school kids are, therefore, struggling to let their children studying schools that only use English. As an ex-colony, very few people really care about other languages, especially after the handover... even the influence of English is declining now.
Guest   Fri Sep 14, 2007 12:48 pm GMT
They may study English at schools but they do not meet a single foreigner in their lives. How then they will apply their knowledhe of English they supposedly acquired at schools? This is the same situation a sit was in USSR - everybody studied a foreign language at schools (mostly English) but almost nobody could speak it... What a waist of time and energy...
Guest   Fri Sep 14, 2007 10:32 pm GMT
How is it a waste of time and engergy?

Most people don't use Maths, Biology, History etc either after the school, so is it a waste of time and energy?
Tainan boy   Sat Sep 15, 2007 2:54 am GMT
If Taiwan is counted:

Many male Taiwanese students don't like to learn any foreign languages because learn;ing foreign languages means "unemployment" for males.

Besides, many Americans and people from another English speaking countriescome to Taiwan to "rob" Taiwanese people's job opportunities. For example: They come to Taiwan to be English teachers. But obviously many Taiwanese students like "students from "Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages"(http://www.wtuc.edu.tw) are fluent in English and even better than English native speakers but the students from that college have always complained that Americans or people from other English-speaking countries have robbed their job opportunity and they regret learning English.

Sometimes they may make a joke:"Learning Russian is better than learning English" because Russian language graduates can easily get a job in Taiwan but English language graduates must suffer from the long-term unemployment for their job opportunities being robbed from English speaking countries.

Now, Taiwanese ppl have the strong mood of anti-USA and anti-English speakers because thoese ppl from English speaking countries come to Taiwan to rob their job opportunities.
K. T.   Sat Sep 15, 2007 3:50 am GMT
Tainan boy,

What would you like us to do? Honestly, you sound upset, but I am not Dr. Phil, that E harmony guy, or Miss Manners.

I won't come over and steal your job, how about that? Why don't you use your English as a secondary skill for another talent you may have?

Calm down and think about that, okay.