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Comment by ssong | Hacker News Reader

For what it's worth, English is a mandatory subject for students in China. It's hard to predict what the political and economic climate will be like a few decades from now, but I'm pretty sure the number of Mandarin speakers will increase and Asia will still be a major influence on global economics.

I'm not sure if I agree with this decision given the circumstances of this particular school district, but I won't be surprised if we start to see other schools strongly encouraging Mandarin studies.

Let's not jump too quickly to politics. Mandarin is a language, and will be spoken by the Chinese regardless of politics. It is also spoken in many places outside of mainland China.

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> English is a mandatory subject for students in China

Few of them learn it well enough using their rote methods to be of much use though. It's good to learn english as it is currently the lingua franca of the world. In europe German teens talk to their Swedish friends in English, just as Italians talk to the Croatians in English. It's used universally for communication.

I wonder though - are all English classes in China taught by american government representatives whose salaries are paid for by the United States? Do they also introduce American values as part of the classes?

I noticed the article said the classes, throughout the future, will be free to the schools because the Chinese Government (which is as we know run by the Communist Party) is paying for them and the teachers are being sent from mainland China.

Nothing seems odd about that to you?

I know, I know. I must be some "conspiracy nut" just to be asking whether the Chinese Communist Party completely financing and sending trained and educated Chinese Communist Party members to the US to teach poor american children to speak Chinese and understand modern Chinese perspectives defined by their government in order to "prepare for 2050" is a strange thing. It's safe to disregard these "crackpot ideas", right? Or is it.

Sending Chinese teachers to America to school children in Mandarin is just as suspect as America sending most of its manufacturing to China.

> Nothing seems odd about that to you?

No. Many governments have or have had programs to spread understanding of their language, including paying for teachers at times, as well as paying for radio stations, TV channels, web sites.

Some of these are or have been blocked by various countries at various times because they didn't like the political views espoused, sure, so it's not like one should assume that there are never political motives (and that goes for all "sides" - the US has done this as much as everyone else).

But it is also important for commerce, diplomacy etc. to ensure a good supply of people with an understanding of language, and "seeding" interest for later language studies by introducing it earlier is a good solution.

> I know, I know. I must be some "conspiracy nut" just to be asking whether the Chinese Communist Party completely financing and sending trained and educated Chinese Communist Party members to the US to teach poor american children to speak Chinese and understand modern Chinese perspectives defined by their government in order to "prepare for 2050" is a strange thing. It's safe to disregard these "crackpot ideas", right? Or is it.

Do you for a second believe that the curriculum won't be read by someone in these schools prior to use? Someone who is pretty much guaranteed to hold viewpoints sufficiently far from any devout supporter of the Chinese regime to react quickly to blatant misrepresentations?

It's not like these teachers will be let free on a class with no follow up. I very much doubt the Chinese regime is interested in risking their promotion of Chinese language and culture by adding controversial political content. Not least because ideology has long been a secondary priority for the Chinese leadership after economic growth.

What do they care if American school children agree with their policies? What they do care about is that American school children grow up to be useful when Chinese companies want to do business with American companies and need people who understand both languages and cultures.

Chinese language teachers in china aren't very political (actually most Chinese are not very political), I suspect the Confucius institute teachers are rather typically similar. American English teachers (not paid for by the USA government,as or more numerous) are much more politic in contrast, trust me, we are indoctrinating more then they are. Disclaimer: not all English teachers here in china are American.

>It is also spoken in many places outside of mainland China.

Mandarin will definitely be a widely spoken language. But having studied some Mandarin in college, an average American doesn't have enough opportunities to interact with Mandarin speakers to make it a useful day to day skill.

And it's much harder to learn (for a native English speaker) than Spanish (or French or German). Given equivalent instruction the average student learning Spanish will be significantly further along.

Stop whining. Start learning.

Do you think that they (Chinese) don't have similar barrier when learning English? Do I have enough opportunities to interact with Japanese? No. But I'm still learning it.

"Not enough opportunities to interact with [language]" is poor's man excuse to not learn it at all.

Yes, the average student in China encounters far more English speaking/writing than the average student America encounters Mandarin.

Do you speak Hindi? Russian? Why not these too? Are you too busy just learning Japanese?

The average student in the World encounters far more written English than average American student of any other language (in written form). And people outside of countries with English used on day to day basis don't encounter enough English to properly use it in spoken form.

I'm not too busy just learning Japanese (as a matter of fact I'm also learning German and Russian and I still have some free time).

I think you mean "poor man's."

If you have a passion to learn a language, lack of opportunity is just an excuse. If you're choosing a policy for forcing kids to learn a language against their will, lack of opportunity is a significant factor that should be considered. English is compulsory in Japan too, which makes the average Japanese citizen the best example of compulsion without opportunity equating to a lot of wasted effort for very little return.

You're right. Note taken.

English is pretty much compulsory in entire world. And the same can be said in Poland - almost everyone learns English in school (often for 9 years) and only 30-50% of those people can use it in its written form (and situation is far worse when it comes to spoken form).

A word of advice. Stop and think about your tone before you write.

To answer your post:

This has nothing to do with excuses or perceived difficulty. It has everything to do with cost benefit analysis. When forcing a group of students to learn a language, usefulness vs difficulty is a valid concern.

The State Department estimates that it takes only around 600 hours of classroom instruction to learn Spanish, but 2200 hours for Mandarin (for a native English speaker). They also recommend that half of the hours learning Mandarin occur in country.

30 minutes a day for 13 years of school won't provide enough instruction for these kids to become proficient, but it could provide enough to become proficient in 2 category 1 languages.

I did stop and thought about the tone. There were more comments (quite) similar to yours, so it was more at random that reply was to your comment.

Usefulness? Ability to communicate with more than 1.7 * 10^9 people is not enough for you? Also once you know Mandarin learning Japanese is much simpler.

... for simplicity I will assume 364 days/year 0.5 * 364 * 13 = 182 * 13 = 2356, which is more than those 2200.

It is generally advised to learn language in place where it is being used on day to day basis, no matter what language you are using.

>... for simplicity I will assume 364 days/year 0.5 * 364 * 13 = 182 * 13 = 2356, which is more than those 2200

In Most of places in the United States kids only go to school for 180 days per year.

>Usefulness? Ability to communicate with more than 1.7 * 10^9 people is not enough for you?

Where did you get 1.7 billion from, that's way too high.

Usefulness is relative. If I can communicate with a billion people on the other side of the world, is that more useful than being able to communicate with a few hundred million people whom I'm much more likely to contact?

>It is generally advised to learn language in place where it is being used on day to day basis, no matter what language you are using.

Yes, it makes it easier for all languages. But for category III languages, it is nearly impossible to become proficient without spending time in country.

>Also once you know Mandarin learning Japanese is much simpler.

Apart from a bit of the writing system, Chinese and Japanese are not similar. They are from 2 completely different language families. They are more distantly related than English and Russian.

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