February 16, 2004

• Chinese is one of the most beautiful languages of the planet, written or spoken.
• Also, in learning to write Chinese characters you have essentially learned to write Japanese. At least as I understand it (from talking to a Japanese woman last night), traditional Japanese characters were introduced from China and have the same meanings in Chinese and Japanese.
• But if you don't speak Spanish, how will you address the pool boy? Oh, I forgot. Give it another 20 years of companies shifting everything to China, and you'll need Chinese to be the pool boy. (I kid because I love...)
• I sincerely doubt that chinese will every be taught as a second language in this country (US), at least to very many. I mean, how many people here have ever mastered a second language--not counting expats, immigrants or people from bilingual families? It's hard enough to get students to take Spanish or French, fer Chrissake. I have dabbled in Chinese and can tell you that it is *very* hard. Good luck to 'em, though!!
• Chinese (or Mandarin) may be good for people in international business, but Spanish is the most useful day-to-day here in the US--I use it at work.
• tracicle: While the form of the words in kanji (which makes up only a fraction of the Japanese language) is the same as that of Chinese, the meanings can differ by quite a bit. The phrase Daijoubu means "safe" or "all right" in Japanese (as in "I'm not hurt, I'm all right"), whereas in Chinese the three words mean "Big" and "Husband" or "Big Man". Chinese is hard to learn, not least because of the tones. There is also no such spoken language called Chinese. One learns to speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Teochew, Shanghainese, Hakka etc... which all have their own phrases and even words that never show up in Mandarin. Being a speaker of Mandarin and Teochew with only a passing knowledge in Cantonese, I have been totally floored by Cantonese magazines and comic books.
• I'm sorry. I screwed up there with the tags thing.
• I took german the most useless language ever. I am an idiot. A friend of mine tried to take chinese in college and dropped out. The amount of effort required is far different. The chinese classes tend to take about twice as much time as any spanish class. They also have far more work as you are doing things like learning the tones and how to write all the characters.
• Alnedra, you didn't screw up the tags -- give it a few hours and they'll be working. Thanks for the explanation of kanji. I guess I got the oversimplified version. :) Oh, and CellarFloor, I studied German for six years. Hardly had a chance to use it, but it's prepared me for learning snippets of multiple other languages (Italian, Spanish, a tiny bit of Serbian). You also gain a new insight into other cultures, and even how other cultures view your own. Learning any language at all is worthwhile and I wholeheartedly recommend making at least one year of a foreign language compulsory everywhere. I did use my German two years ago on a day trip to Zurich -- but was rather embarrassed when the locals a) spoke a dialect/had local terms I didn't understand and b) insisted on speaking English to me no matter how hard I tried to speak in German.
• Alnedra: you are very right that the different "dialects" of Chinese are really mutually unintelligible related languages, which the PRC government likes to call one language. When classical Chinese was used as the primary written language, it formed a lingua franca not unlike Latin in medieval and early modern Europe, but since the adoption of modern written Chinese I guess this is gone, though I had thought that within the PRC the schools were promoting the use of Beijing dialect Mandarin heavily. I think they are all beautiful, though I like the sound of Beijing accent Mandarin best (it's what I'm used to and I like the R's). I took beginner's Mandarin in university, and the main thing I remember how to say is "wo shi jianadaren" - "I am Canadian." I know it will come in useful if I ever need to sell mediocre beer in China. Tracicle: Japanese also has two syllabaries, known as katakana and hiragana, which supplement/work with the kanji. And I really sympathise with your German experience - I had the same problem in Quebec city when we went as eager Anglophone students wanting to practice our French. The best among us, who had spent years in French immersion, goes up to the counter in the store and says "Combien ca?" And the woman tells her, "Oh, you don't have to speak French dear, we speak English." It's never easy to tell what languages would be the most useful - my graduate program requires that I learn French or German and another European language, but the most useful for me (other than English, which is the primary language I work in) would have been Latin. Actually, if there were a group promoting Latin as the lingua franca of the world, I would join it.* Though the choice is biased towards south-western Europe, no individual country (other than the Vatican) would be specifically favoured - and it's far easier to learn than any living language. It's deadness makes it super regular, and no one ever complains about your lack of a native accent. *Sure, and someone is going to google and give me a link to one.
• [Prepare for total derail, fasten seatbelts, etc.] So, jb, do you think Latin should be treated like spoken Italian or spoken Spanish? I don't know much about it but I understand these are the two main schools of thought on spoken Latin. I've always wanted to learn Latin as well.
• At this point I think that a standard second language for native English speaker anywhere is kind of silly. English is pretty much the default second language for most of the rest of the world so really to only reason for an native English speaker to learn another language would be to specialize in some region or live outside of an English speaking country. I work at an International company in Japan and end up dealing with folks all over Asia and Europe on a daily basis. I use Japanese in my own office but it's English for everywhere else. If I was doing the same work in the States I don't think anything other that English would be helpful. Maybe it's just my Job and all the companies I deal with on a regular basis, but it seems to me that most modern International companies are all over the place. It's just not practical for one person to know English, Chinese, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, etc. Outside of cultural exchange, I don't see a real practical reason for English speaker to even learn another language much less worry about which one should be standard. Chinese is very hard to learn. From what I understand it usually takes a year just to get the pronunciation. And even if you would up dealing with Chinese folks in the real world they'd most likely speak English. American's are probably better off with Spanish just because it's easy and a romance language, so it's a good starting point for other western European languages. Except for dialectic forms of Chinese, learning Mandarin isn't going to help you learn any other languages. Folks in the PRoC use a simplified set of characters that are different from what the folks in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan use, so the argument for reading is a little weak, I think.
• Ahem: to only reason = the only reason
• tracicle: see, the beauty is that no one is right! :) As long as we don't use that god-forsaken English pronunciation. It's what my prof insisted on, but can you even picture Caesar saying "Weni, widi, wiki?" Unless he was really into group written encyclopedias, of course. Church latin would be a good way to go - they have an established system for adding new words when necessary, and it's so easy to sound profound pronouncing the words in those sonorous syllables. mexican: We probably all appreciate what you mean about English becoming a de facto lingua franca*, but we anglophones don't want to remain the butt of all the polylinguals' jokes. Chinese is hard to learn - but it can be done. I know an archeologist who began working in China 4 or 5 years ago without any background, and now speaks Chinese. He had to do a lot of studying, but it was important to him, even if his work was prehistoric. The pronunciation was the hardest thing for me - but reading was much easier. And writing the characters much much more fun than any simple letters could be. *isn't it funny how those two phrases are clearly not English? And yet, I can't think of English equivalents, or even where the phrases are from. It's the borrowing that is the best strength of English
• I've sung too many masses to hear Latin any way other than Church. Returned to Latin briefly a couple of years ago, and ran headlong into this "new"fangled "wiki" pronunciation -- my brain is still spinning. I wouldn't consider anybody's German wasted time -- I certainly don't regret mine. It's a language for Kunst und Kultur, not chattin'. Seems to me that different Anglophone communities would find different default second languages appropriate. Down there in the Antipodes, Mandarin could be very practical. In the USA, over half of our hemisphere works in Spanish, so Spanish continues to be the right backup. And in England they're free to learn Old Icelandic, or Gael, or whatever.... /no, I don't speak Spanish myself
• mexican: Actually, picking up extra languages is in no way stupid for an English speaker. Other than the simple issue of manners when visiting another country, there are plenty of places where people don't routinely learn English, and where you'll miss out on a lot if you don't. For one thing, in the world of France and her former and present colonies (such as New Caledonia and Vietnam), French is either the primary or standard second language. Sure, if I go to the Phillipines or Northern Europe I can pretty much rely on encountering good English. Paris? Noumea? You'll typically get, at best, functional business English, and little to no conversational language. Likewise chunks of Africa. (And outside of Noumea, there's precious little English spoken - why would French farmers or Kanaks bother?) goetter: In the Antipodes, we'd have a mix. We would want at least two streams of Chinese (the principle language of South-East Asian Chinese is not the language of the mainland); French for current/former French colonies; Spanish for South America (with whom both NZ and Aussie do signifcant trade and diplomacy); and Japanese, as another trading partner.
• *language for Kunst und Kultur* Don't forget the Kaffee! (And don't mention the Krieg!)
• (Perky, attractive woman): Hey, you got your Krieg in my Spieler! (Rugged, handsome man): And you got your Spieler in my Krieg! (Together, in unison): Two great tastes that go great together!
• Learning Latin was fun, even though my French teacher hid his laughter at my "Germanic" pronunciation. Omnia Gallia diwisa est... But the bonus from studying Latin was the ability to sort out the origin of English words to some extent. There were those that came from romance languages and those that came from someplace else. And to realize that "persevere", for example, meant to "follow through" without looking it up was a small rush. And that sort of experience led me to the fun of finding the origins of other English words. Satisfaction of curiosity is a lovely thing. And, of course, knowing Latin makes it easier to learn other romance languages. Except for Spanish verbs - it's my impression that they have no regular ones. A Curious, George! question: I took a beginning German course when I was young and foolish. Neither of us liked the other, but I came away with the impression that the Germans took Latin declensions. cases, and the like and imposed them on a relatively simple language, then got really into complication and went kind of haywire. Were the original Germanic languages that complicated?
• path: Have a look at the Germanic Old English and compare to modern English, which had a healthy infusion of French and Latin via the conquest. English has evolved from more complicated (in terms of grammar) to less complicated. We lost gender and some tenses, for starters.
• rodgerd: I'm curious as to what tenses we've lost -- are you talking about modern German or Germanic?
• Modern English versus Old English, which is germanic. Old English had (depending on dialect; they were quite different) genders and multiple past tenses, and a future tense. Incidentally, in one form of Old English, I was amused to disover (while helping my wife rote learn it) that "ho" was the appropriate term for some permutation of referring to members of the female sex.
• Well, so was "hussy". It just meant housewife, long time ago. And screw was just a twisting motion.
• Thanks, rodgerd. I had imagined that the Roman conquests had that impact on German.