It’s probably time to learn Chinese
medium.com
medium.com
Mandarin is a great language to learn in as much as Japanese,French and German are. Japan has long had a strong economy and exports a large number of goods,same with France and Germany except their colonial past and EU leadership positions makes their languages profitable to learn.
China wants to influence the world and be the dominant super power. however,much like Japan and Korea,they are not interested in expanding their cultural reach. Westerners wanted everyone to dress like them,speak like them and act like them -- the "civilized" way. Sharing your culture eventually leads to immigration and the cultural influence of others impacting yours. Their ambition is purely for the success and prosperity of their own people,not a "manifest destiny" conquest and as such I strongly suspect they have little desire to force others to speak mandarin.
What I'm trying to say is that while Mandarin has good ROI if you learn it,even 50 years from now it will likely still be comparable to learning French,German,Arabic and similar languages,and even then only if you deal with international trade and relations (or read tech/science publications -- seen some great write ups from Korean and Japanese security researchers FYI).
Mandarin should not be thought of a replacement for english but rather a complement. I can see a future where people speak both languages for academia and international relations.
The case with japanese is a great one tho! Japan is way more advanced and still a huge place to learn about, and although it has less population, its way more relatable and maybe even more practical.
Just that they're all from the same country mostly. Going by raw numbers isn't a good metric here. Something like "number of countries or cultures where you can communicate with the average person using that language" would be a better fit, and this is where English will probably still be king for a long time.
Even japan doesnt speak english very well: when I was there almost nobody spoke well enough for a conversation. And japan is obsessed with english as well!
My experience regarding English in Asia was similar to yours. Actually I feel like China is doing slightly better regarding English. The average college student there is able to have simple conversation. In Japan, most struggled to express the most basic things. Obviously, outside of these circles you're completely lost in both counties. Except this odd experience in one McDonald's in Beijing where they had one lady on staff that spoke perfect English. I don't know if China is putting more emphasis on teaching English, or it's because more Chinese students spend time abroad (not just in absolute numbers obviously).
[0]https://www.livescience.com/40247-ashkenazi-jews-have-europe...
Sure, as a regular boring American 9-5er you won't need it but if you want something more from life you better learn a language and Mandarin is objectively going to be the most useful.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. It's the language with the most speakers, maybe? It's the one you think would give the greatest money-making advantage? There are many other ways you could decide which is most useful, e.g. language spoken in the most countries, but 'objectively most useful' depends on a lot of unmentioned things (Useful for what?) and seems a fairly meaningless phrase to me.
Of course, many countries are encouraging English learning, and I think a lot of former French colonies are interested in moving towards English, but after English (59 countries), there is French (29), Arabic (26), Spanish (20), and Portuguese (9). Some of my best friends are "Arabic" speakers, and they're from the heart of the land (Saudi Arabia) and tell me there is not a single "Arabic" language that all nations can entirely mutually understand, so I'm convinced of the validity of that one entirely. Spanish and Portuguese nations definitely have mutual intelligibility and seem very steadfast in maintaining their languages.
I would agree with your general point for sure that an unflinching statement like "Mandarin is objectively going to be the most useful" is more of a flimsy limb, given more information and taking looks from additional perspectives.
If I had to bet my life on a language being the "most useful" going forward, I'm putting my hide on English. I think if Mandarin being most useful were true, it would already be an unquestionable statement today. Not sure how an already mostly-risen power like China has one of it's two languages (and not the one spoken in Hong Kong) become "more useful" tomorrow than it is today, and it's not an especially useful language right now outside of China. I wouldn't even venture to say it's #2 by many metrics.
China and it's official language, Mandarin, have a lot of hype about domination and influence, considering it's a relatively insular culture. Flat statements on the Mandarin topic are tough to swallow. My guess is outside of government interactions, Chinese business will place Chinese management and even Chinese workers in their enterprises, if at all possible[0]. They won't need John Doe to speak Mandarin, nor will that person really even be desirable. Those people are learning English and they prefer their own.
[0]https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/06/absolute-fraud-...
Not as many stories about people jumping out of factory windows to end their lives in Africa. There are many hidden gems in Africa as well with perfect climates and cultures that have little to no thievery or need for distrust. These things aren't well-known or stereotypical because Africa is dismissed outright so quickly by so many without further investigation, but it's true anyway.
In 50 years, I think this will remain true and Africa becomes even more desirable yet than China. If you want to work, or want your less fortunate children to work at Foxconn pumping out iPhones with management practices that westerners cannot even imagine at this point in their history, China may be an option if they'd even welcome you. Of course everyone assumes they'll be the boss at the desk browsing HN or scrolling through Facebook during the workday instead, generally enjoying the good life.
Africa. This isn't even a contest.
(Except for your own benefit.)
Mandarin + English is not a very distinctive skillset: you're competing with millions of native Chinese who also speak English, plus millions of Chinese diaspora who learn Mandarin as a second language from a young age either through their parents or in a Chinese school.
Also, "fun point" 1 in the article is wrong. Chinese is hard. The hardest parts (for me) are memorizing characters and understanding colloquial speech (colloquial speech is very informal and different from written Chinese). Remembering tones is also hard for me, and some people also have trouble pronouncing tones and consonants (but I got that part pretty easily).
As an aside, why do I learn Mandarin, then? A few reasons:
- I think it's intellectually stimulating.
- I have a personal goal of learning a foreign language and I think Mandarin is one of the best to learn.
- It allows you to travel and experience Taiwan and China in a way that you otherwise couldn't.
- I might live abroad in Taiwan or China some day.
- Maybe I'm completely wrong and it will actually be economically valuable to me in some significant way in the future. It has been valuable in some ways since my company partners with Taiwanese and Chinese companies and I've used the language in to help me navigate business trips and also (very) occasionally for technical communication. But I think I could have been almost equally successful without knowing any Chinese.
A nice trick I learnt is, don't spend too much time on the grammar section (if they still have it). It is incredibly hard and you will struggle to find native speakers that can explain the concepts to you. Instead randomly select answers and use the saved time on other parts.
China/Vietnam have higher proportion of people with absolute pitch.
It has to do with the number of phonemes in a language.
There is also a genetic aspect of it. Mandarin speakers will have higher IQ than normal population.
All of that effort is admirable and intellectually interesting but if you have no one to regularly speak with when you leave China, it's not a good use of time and effort. Unless one never wants to return to their home country, or marries a native.
He's right about French. It's probably my favorite language, I lived and worked in France for some time. You will generally not be encouraged and will definitely not be welcomed as one of them, ever. It's a very pervasive attitude. I vowed to learn no more of their language. Which is not a problem, I'd have to really go out of my way to find someone I wanted to speak with anyway.
Outside of special cases, the only language that I've identified as a no brainer for an American or Brit is Spanish. Both of us have very good reasons, and plenty of people to regularly speak with. They're also very open and welcoming people, at least Latin Americans. Over the next 30 years there will be a rising power from Latin America as well, most likely Mexico. A nation that will soon overtake its mother country's GDP, and is predicted by some, including George Friedman, to be challenging the US for North American leadership by the year 2100. Mexico in particular is China's anti-matter. If anything happens to detail their progress, Mexico benefits tremendously. They've always competed to supply the US market.
Ultimately none of that matters, you still need daily interaction with a language to maintain it. It's key and for many of us, that would be difficult with Mandarin. I'm with him though on the value and interest otherwise, but long-term, thinking decades or even just years out, an inpractical choice for most native English speakers.
I study French, German and Russian at Uni. I am completely with you. As much as I love the French language, I will not keep up my knowledge of it after graduation. I've rarely had a positive experience of real french use, compared to almost every time with Russians and Germans.
Not to mention comments about other French speaking people, "la petite Belge", other diminishing comments. I've never seen such a superiority/inferiority complex, and I've seen some seriously challenged compatriots in my own country. I do have many friends in France who are exceptions, very open individuals, and love the countryside. These memories remind me of my time in Moscow, a Portuguese kid was there, and told me that I was working in the "wrong country" (France). The French guy there, who had previously told me "France was BS", and was in Russia mostly to shmooze with Russian women, perked up and asked "do you know where I am from?", suddenly defensive of the homeland. Maybe I'm too critical of the French, I don't know, I want to always be objective for sure, but I noticed the majority of other European nationalities tended to agree or already hold views that I was building up to with my experiences. Unlike the original blogger of this article, I'm not afraid of appearing insensitive or blunt, as long as it's an objective reality with some merit. Always some truth behind stereotypes (where there's smoke, there's fire!), positive and negative for all of us.
Ultimately though, the proof of my feelings are in the results, my speaking French is admiration and a favor for their culture and civilization. Like you. It didn't really open up any doors for me. I was brought to France to work with little knowledge in French. I don't have to do it, it was me being a curious, good person, extending an olive branch. I will speak English in France if I want to now. I'm not sour (I have no reason to be), but given what I know, I won't feed into further glorification. Any time spent on language will be spent on improving my Spanish instead, which has opened up a much larger world for me. Useful vacation, retirement and remote work spots are more accessible around the world, and a shocking number of people in the US speak it. It's nice to be able to listen in!
I am happy I learned Chinese, however I wished I had done it for the right reasons. i.e to do something intellectually interesting.
Professionally, your time is way better invested in learning a tech skill, developing a business or expanding your network. Those are the thing that you can leverage.
Chinese language abilities? Not so much. Apart from the exaggerated congratulations of chinese speakers after they hear you speaking 2 words of Chinese, it wont provide you much business wise. Remember that if for any position chinese language is important, they will just hire a local, never a foreigner...
If you live in heavily populated Asian communities, there are a lot of business oppurtunities, specifically in Mandarin. For instance, a law firm specialized in one ethnicity. You'll find a lot of well off wealthy Chinese clients coming overseas starting businesses in America. Controversally, if you do any overseas importing, you'll have a larger selection of manufacturers to work with if you speak Mandarin.
I don't speak Mandarin all that well though, granted I speak Cantonese and studied 3 years of Japanese. I do agree that your time is better spent learning a tech skill though.
For that very reason, Chinese doesn't have the potential or practicality to become a default language.
Of course, things have changed over the years, but if anything they’ve changed toward a much more homogeneous world and I argue that learning any form of Chinese to be potentially less useful than forty years ago. If you don’t do business in China, what need is there to learn Chinese? And if you do business there, well duh, you might want to learn some of the local language like you would anywhere else.
And, since cultural aspects inform the language, it pretty much depends on what you want to say, whether the machine can translate it or not. Hence, machine translation is missing a large part of the reason to learn another language, and I don't even subscribe to the sapir-whorff hypothesis.
The insight I gained from learning to speak Japanese. -> Chinese characters are hard. So I'd very much prefer a language learning system that focused entirely on spoken Chinese rather than written Chinese.
Meteoric national growth curves don’t continue; and the closed nature of these societies tends to mean they get hamstrung by unpredictable things in the future. No one can say why China’s growth will slow (and it already is slowing dramatically), but we can say for sure that it will be because of a lack of willingness to change.
Learning Chinese will be a worthwhile activity for leading Western businesspeople when the Communist Party is abolished or faces strong open competition for power.
China's system of government is arguably more engineered and less chaotic than what we have here in the US, and it has the potential to continue to guide the country on a continued upward economic trajectory. Granted, the US system provides more competition for people and ideas in government, and China's risks getting stuck on bad people or ideas.
I think the US and the rest of the West should be looking to China for ideas on how to better govern and promote economic growth. But the ideas we borrow need to be re-implemented in a democratic way instead of the authoritarian way seen in China.