By Jennifer Pak - BBC News, Kuala Lumpur
Those who believe that English is important for their children's future either send their kids to expensive private schools or to Singapore, where the government has been credited as being far-sighted for adopting the language of its former colonial master.
Nearly three-quarters of the population in Singapore are ethnic Chinese but English is the national language.
Many believe that this has helped the city state earn the title of being the easiest place to do business, by the World Bank.
However, the dominance of English is now being challenged by the rise of China in Singapore.
The Singapore Chinese Chamber Institute of Business has added Chinese classes for business use in recent years.
Students are being taught in Mandarin rather than the Hokkien dialect spoken by the older Chinese immigrants.
These courses have proved popular, ever since the government began providing subsidies for Singaporeans to learn Chinese in 2009 during the global financial crisis.
"The government pushed to provide them with an opportunity to upgrade themselves so as to prepare themselves for the economic upturn," says chamber spokesperson Alwyn Chia.
Some businesses are already desperate for Chinese speakers.
Lee Han Shih, who runs a multimedia company, says English is becoming less important to him financially because he is taking western clients to do business in China.
"So obviously you need to learn English but you also need to know Chinese," says Mr Lee.
As China's economic power grows, Mr Lee believes that Mandarin will overtake English. In fact, he has already been seeing hints of this.
"The decline of the English language probably follows the decline of the US dollar.
"If the renminbi is becoming the next reserve currency then you have to learn Chinese."
More and more, he says, places like Brazil and China are doing business in the renminbi, not the US dollar, so there is less of a need to use English.
Bilingualism
Indeed, China's clout is growing in South East Asia, becoming the region's top trading partner.
But to say that Mandarin will rival English is a "bit of a stretch", says Manoj Vohra, Asia director at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Even companies in China, who prefer to operate in Chinese, are looking for managers who speak both Mandarin and English if they want to expand abroad, he says.
"They tend to act as their bridges."
So the future of English is not a question of whether it will be overtaken by Mandarin, but whether it will co-exist with Chinese, says Vohra.
He believes bilingualism will triumph in South East Asia.
It is a sound economic argument, but in Vietnam's case, there is resistance to learning Mandarin.
The country may share a border with China, but the Vietnamese government's choice to not emphasise Mandarin is an emotional one, says leading economist Le Dang Doanh.
"All the streets in Vietnam are named according to generals and emperors that have been fighting against the Chinese invasion for 2000 years," he says.
Tensions flared up again last May over the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
Anti-Chinese sentiment means that young Vietnamese are choosing to embrace English - the language of a defeated enemy. Many families still bear the psychological scars from the Vietnam War with the United States.
Yet there is no animosity towards English because the founding father of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, made a clear distinction between the so-called American imperialists who were bombarding Vietnam and the American people, says Le Dang Doanh.
Many Vietnamese who have lost family members during the war are now studying in America, he says.
"We never forget any victim in the past but in order to industrialise and normalise a country, Vietnam needs to speak English."
The Vietnamese government has an ambitious goal to ensure all young people leaving school by 2020 will have a good grasp of the English language.
But it's not hard for young Vietnamese to accept English. For some, the language offers a sense of freedom in Vietnam, where the one-party communist state retains a tight grip on all media.
In a public square in central Hanoi, a group of young men are break-dancing to the pulsing beats of western hip hop. Ngoc Tu, 20, says he only listens to English music.
"The Ministry of Culture has banned a lot of [Vietnamese] songs and any cultural publications that refer to freedom or rebellion but... English songs are not censored."
It is debatable whether English or Mandarin will dominate in South East Asia in the future. There are arguments for both on the economic front.
But culturally, there is no dispute.
Even Mandarin language enthusiasts like Singaporean businessman Mr Lee, says that English will remain popular so long as Hollywood exists.
The success of movies such as Kung Fu Panda, an American production about a Chinese animal, has caused a lot of anxiety in China, he says.
There have been many cartoons in China about pandas before, but none had reached commercial success, says Mr Lee.
"The moment Kung Fu Panda hit the cinemas everybody watched it. They bought the merchandise and they learned English."
Taken from the BBC News web site.
We all know that the world has always been dominated by two big countries; USA and China. Unfortunately, only English that is known as the first international language. What about Mandarin? Well it may not used today, but we will see in the future. As you can see in many international public places, the second majority of language used is Mandarin. Moreover, China known as one of the biggest country for it’s industrial sector, technological production, and also it’s massive trading system. So if we pay attentions to most of the technology appearance, plastic goods appearance, and even in some clothing there were always been a notes or production sign that uses Mandarin language; and most of the time we see in so many products a quotation of “Made in China”. By that, we should realize that there is no doubt Mandarin language will take over the international language in the future.
ReplyDeleteThere is no doubt when it comes to the 2 main languages in the world, English and Mandarin is now a langugae that has dominated many parts of society. As written in the article above, English’s dominance is being challenged by the rise of China in the world. For example, the decline on the value of US dollars has been linked to the increase of the Mandarin language usage as the value of renminbi keeps going up. Although, this seems as a challenge for the English language, we must remember the power of media in the world like movies, books, music and most articles are still commonly distributed in English. Mandarin may be rising at an alarmingly fast pace in the world but so is English. I personally believe that English will still dominate as the most internationally used language and it’s position will not waver anytime soon. As Manoj Vohra once said, to say that Mandarin will rival English is a “bit of a stretch”.
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ReplyDeleteWhen I was at elementary school and junior high school I used to study mandarin. For me, the language is very hard to learn, because you need to study both the chinese characters, we called it “hanzi” and we also need to study the roman characters for chinese that we called “pinyin”. I never really get the hang of it, and now probably I already forgot most of the mandarin that I have learned. As for english, I have been studying it my whole life, from I was little until now. But, I think I mostly learned english from movies and video games. In my opinion, there should be only one international language, so people will focus on learning that language, in this case, I thought english should be our international language, because it is easier to learn in my opinion. But, I never said that I am against mandarin, maybe in the future it will also be our international language.
Wow, that is a very good way of thinking Francis. I am agreed about your opinon that we only need one international language so we can focus to learn it. But in the real world there is some people that don’t have this kind of acceptance and privilage to learn maybe that one of international language therefore we may need two of them. In my opinion, the international language should be determined by how much people actually using this language in the international parameter. Thus if majority of people using “A” language for example, but this “A” language is not used in any necessary International importance or benefit thus is not relevant as international language.
DeleteTherefore in my opinion two international languages are fine but it is not ready to be setted yet. I have two points, from the article itself we can know that many people in Vietnam did not have the kind of acceptance for English. The next one is the Mandarin itself is used in many of international business ocassion. This is already happening in South East Asia, therefore “billingualism” is common here. But for international language this kind of requirement does not fulfilled yet, thus we need to wait what will happen in the future of international language.
After reading this article, I just realized the importance of learning Chinese. Back then, English was the power language, and everybody felt the need to learn English. But now, we can see that The Republic of China is growing so fast and starting to rule the world slowly. China have advanced in many main sector of the world, well, the biggest that we can see is the trade. We can say that China rule the main trades of the world. For the future, it’s definite that China will grow again and becoming more succesful. And when this time comes, we can say that the Chinese language is necessary. Later, who knows if Chinese language will become more important than English? When this time comes I think we need to get ready and learn Chinese, at least, we know and understand when Chinese people talk. Because learning is a process and education is a treasure for the future, so learning Chinese can be one of our future treasure too.
ReplyDeleteAs the world going dynamically, we need to expand our knowledge and we need to increase our standard. The basic rule to compete in a global era is we have to at least understand English. But to be better, we need to have more skill rather than just the basic stuff. Being a bilingual or even a polyglot gave us a lot of advantages. It can make our understanding about what we confront better. To analyze the market and to make a better business agreement. I recommend that people learn language not only it’s the future of the world but because we wanted to be better than other. It’s our special ability as a world thinking mangers and businessman. But sadly, our government not seeing this opportunity yet. Don’t even think about learning Chinese or any other language, for some people, who even lived in a big city, they barely learning English properly. This is a huge problem, we need to change our people mind so that we can compete in this global era. But luckily, most parents aware of this problem and put their sons and daughters to a private English course, but not all parents have enough money to pay that expensive tuition fee. I hope, we’re not falling too far behind and we still have a chance to catch up.
ReplyDeleteIf we talk about the world’s population, then yes, China is the most populated country. However, I fail to see the correlation on how this should make Mandarin become the international language. I believe an international language should be the one that can easily be learnt and understood by the people of the earth. If we take a closer look, English uses Latin alphabets whereas Mandarin uses Chinese characters. Many languages such as Bahasa Indonesia, French and Portuguese uses Latin alphabets just like English thus making it easier for a lot of people whose mother tongue is not English to learn this foreign language. Furthermore, up till now, English is still the language that is used most frequently. Take beauty products for example; beauty products come from different countries, although the instructions at the packaging are written in different languages, it is more often than not, you will find the same instructions translated into English as well. This shows that English is the most dominant language.
ReplyDeleteWith that being said, I am not against the use of Mandarin language – I personally think there should only be one international language and there is already one.
This topic about whether English or Mandarin is the language of the future is very interesting. English has been considered as a universal language for decades. People have realized the need to understand this language since years ago. For the last couple of years though, a lot of businesses require the job applicants to not just have a skill in English, but also Mandarin. This is not without a reason though, with China’s growth in the world of economy, there is no doubt that Mandarin will be widely used in the business world. However, will Mandarin replace English as a universal language. In my opinion, it’s very unlikely to happen. Why? Because from my own experience, Mandarin is a quite complicated language and is not easy to learn. Speaking, writing, and reading are all not an easy task with this language. As for speaking and reading, there are four main tones with different pitch level that needs to be mastered. And mispronouncing them would usually produce different meaning. For writing, it is even harder. First, there are two types of Chinese characters, the Traditional Chinese and the Simplified Chinese. Second, there are thousands of Chinese characters. Third, there are some rules when writing Chinese words. Thus, I think that it is impossible for every people on earth to be good at Mandarin. However, I do agree that Chinese will co-exist with English. Even though English will still be used as an everyday language for most citizen of earth.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that China has develop in many sectors including transportation and technology is truly undeniable. If we look closely, most products that we use in our daily life was made from China. Not many people realized it but Apple actually assembled their product in China and I do believe that China’s domination in the business sector is expanding remarkably. I actually learned Mandarin since I was in elementary up until I was in high school. For me personally, I do enjoy learning Mandarin and learning new languages was one of my biggest strength. Most people think that there is only one language in China but there are actually Mandarin Chinese, Simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Mandarin Chinese that are use by Taiwanese, Hokkien and many more, not to mention the different dialects that people use in different cities in China like we do here in Indonesia. In Mandarin there are the Chinese alphabet (the ones that look like pictures) called the Hanzi and the roman characters called Pinyin, alongside the Pinyin there’s Shengdiao that differentiate the meanings behind Pinyin. Shengdiao also determines how we read the Pinyin. All these years learning Mandarin, I still consider Mandarin the one of the hardest language to learn because it has more than 30.000 characters. Despite the fact that Mandarin is pretty hard to learn, there are lots of parents who send their children to China after getting their degree in order to learn Mandarin for business purposes. At the end of the day, I still believe that English will still be the dominant language but I do hope that there will be more people who learn Mandarin in the future not only for business purposes.
ReplyDeleteThis debate has been going on for years, and many people have different beliefs. Honestly, I am not 100% sure on which language will be used in the future. Everyone has their own opinions towards certain languages. In my biased perspective, I personally don’t like Mandarin. For me, it is just simply too hard. There are a number of words that are spelled the same and it’s supposed to be our job to identify which words means which. In my opinion, the English language, although it has its own set of difficulties, is significantly simpler than Mandarin. From an objective standpoint, China is already a huge financial powerhouse in the world economy. Future economists will eventually be forced to learn Mandarin in order to communicate fluently to Chinese companies. So, I think that, whether we like it or not, a section of the future society will have to learn Mandarin in order to cooperate with Chinese companies. On the other hand, I don’t think everyone will have to learn Mandarin, since the Chinese’s most prevalent global influence is only in the economic system.
ReplyDeleteEnglish and Mandarin have dominated the world as the language to communicate people. Is English or Mandarin will be the language of the future? Well we do believe that Chinese people has spread in every area of the world and has influence their environment especially in business. While, we know that English also makes people able to communicate to one another. In my opinion, both language still be the biggest language of communication. Mandarin will be more specific as the language of business while English is for the daily usage of international language. What I mean by business language is that Mandarin will be method of communication of business all around the world. People know China only as an ordinary country but indeed it is a “Sleeping Monster”. Fact that every toys, stuff and attributes are all made in China, do you realize it? Don’t you? China will make a big role in the world economy because of Its contribution to the world economy.
ReplyDeleteThe debate about English and Mandarin, and which one would be the most use language has been going for years already, in major part due to the fast growth of china and therefor becoming a key player on the international business and the large population of China. However I think English will remain the language use on an international level, one of the reasons is that English is relatively easier to learn than mandarin, mandarin has the problem of not having the same alphabet and a more complex pronunciation with four different tons, depending on how you pronounce a syllable it can mean something completely different, Also speaking English can still seen as a sign of a higher education and social class in many country, including china, where wealthy parents send their kids to International school to learn English. But I also believe that mandarin will have a greater influence in the future if the Chinese market keep growing.
ReplyDeleteThe Controversial between english and mandarin as international language became popular as nowadays many people tend to know and use mandarin as their daily conversation supported with the advance economy in china so that people like to use mandarin while doing their business. And also the population of chinese people is increasing year by year. I am not saying that it is impossible for mandarin to replace english as the international language, but i think that it will be hard to replace english because english is more widely known by people, has been worldwide since long ago, and also the most easiest language to learn. But who knows? It is also possible that in the future mandarin will become more popular than english. As a person who are aware of that situation, i think that the best solution is mastering english while also learning mandarin, because learning a lot of things won’t make you lose anything.
ReplyDeleteThe article talks about whether Mandarin will dominate English in this modern era. I agree with the statement given by Manoj Vohra, Asia director at the Economist Intelligence Unit, that said “the future of English is not a question of whether it will be overtaken by Mandarin, but whether it will co-exist with Chinese.” We now live in intensified competition era between US and China. As we all know, China’s economy is expanding and growing year by year. This also means their language (mandarin) is starting to become more acknowledged. But it is most likely not that Mandarin will over-thrown English, because learning mandarin is not as easy as learning English in my opinion. However, bilingualism in South East Asia is unavoidable. Lots of school in put Mandarin language studies in their curriculum, even in Indonesia. And it is always a “plus” if we understand both Languages-English and Mandarin-as many companies now seek bilingual employees.
ReplyDeleteThis topic is quite interesting. I believe that it is not impossible for Mandarin to be the international language in the future since a lot of Asian countries uses Chinese (mandarin) as their main or secondary language. In fact, Chinese has a greater number of speakers than English. I think it’s because Chinese people are mostly not interested to learn any other language. They prefer hiring someone who speaks both Chinese and English to be the negotiator for the international trading activities.
ReplyDeleteBut despite the facts that Mandarin has a big potential of being the international language in the future, I personally think that people will still use English because Mandarin is quite hard to learn. English uses the common alphabet while Mandarin uses both “Pinyin” and “Hanzi”. There’s also some specific tone to pronounce each word, which is very important to differentiate the meaning. For example : the word 妈(mā) from 妈妈(māmā)(which means “mother”) and the word 马(Mǎ)(which means “horse”). It's the same “Ma”, but if you’re not careful with the pronunciation, you could turn your “mother” into a “horse”. But although it’s kind of complicated, I think learning Mandarin could also be useful in the future.
Just like what the article mentioned, will English stays at its position or will it be replaced by Mandarin? Honestly, I don’t have any interest about this. With respect, I don’t really care which one is which. But what I do care is the benefits of learning new languages and increasing awareness and knowledge (even it’s only the basics) of other medium to communicate. China, or for some people also known as The Sleeping Giant, has now becoming one of they playmakers on the world’s economy. Quoting: “Lee Han Shih, who runs a multimedia company, says English is becoming less important to him financially because he is taking western clients to do business in China.” from the article, this shows that many Westerners are actually conducting business with Chinese partners and automatically made Mandarin to become more important and frequently used. If one day Tanzania become the world’s economic center, then it is possible that Swahili will become more popular. What I am trying to express here is that there are no disadvantages of learning new languages. It is possible that one language will win the favor of another, so why don’t we take one step ahead by learning languages.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that both English and Mandarin language dominate many parts of society. English has been used by most parts of the world, but the use of Mandarin has been increasing significantly, especially in the business sector. Many students have been taught Mandarin language, including me. I learned Mandarin from elementary until my first year of high school. For me, it was hard to learn the language since we should study both their Chinese and Roman characters. Learning Chinese character was a challenge for me because I wasn’t familiar with it since it has uncommon characters if we compare it with English or Bahasa Indonesia. Personally, Mandarin is a very hard language to learn, although I believe there might be a possibility where Mandarin may also be the international language in the future, or even exceed the numbers of the use of English and become the only international language society use, due to its increase in the importance of Mandarin especially in economy sector.
ReplyDeleteWe all know that english is the most used language all over the world, if we go back and look and the history, English is used as the most common language because of one thing, colonialization. Back then there were a lot of countries that were occupied by the great Britain for decades or even centuries. That’s why English is the most used language in the world. As of china, nowadays they have a very large and profitable industrial sector, and the fact that most of the people who do business there don’t speak English well and they have a big fanaticsm towards their language is the reason why mandarin is growing very rapidly. Foreigners who want to earn profit and do business there must adapt to the culture and the society there, and thus making it a must to speak and understand mandarin. The economic upturn that has been going on for a few decades contributes mostly to the growth of mandarin language all over the world. I personally think that English will still be the most used and known language in the world, that is because, a lot of media still uses english as their publication language, but that doesn’t take off the idea that mandarin is growing very fast and soon will be used all over the world, and if that does happen, I hope that we are not too late to learn mandarin.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, according to that article, all of the facts are true and has a big probability to change our international language to be the Chinese language in the future. If we see from the economic growth between China and America, based on the fact, China will surpass the US economy shortly from 2018 until 2024, this statement comes from raw GDP which is 4 times greater than China by its population with a large number of smart and hard-working people. Before, we know that America has larger economic growth than China moreover in pre-1978, Chinese reform would have failed. So, that’s why China can catch up the economic growth recently. Just see from the economic growth, we can suppose that the economics of China has a big probability to dominate the economics global in the future. It means that the international language will be changed into the Chinese language because China will be the head of economics in the world. I can make that summary because when we see in the past, the dominating factors why the English language could be the international language is the cause of their evolving in economics. Thus, I think the Chinese language will be replaced in the future as an international language.
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Growing up, my parents always told me the importance of being able to speak English fluently in order to prepare me for my future. I have this mindset that being able to speak English will allow me to work at the big companies and earn a higher wage than those who are monolingual. However, last week I attended a conference from Harvard University and realized that the world is actually shifting and that the future in which Chinese companies are going to dominate the global market is near. Due to their firewall which blocks access to Google, Youtube, and other websites; Chinese companies made their own version. Ever heard of Baidu which is a Chinese version of Google, or Youku which is a Chinese version of Youtube? These Chinese versions are able to capture the Chinese market without any competitor, which is an advantage due to the large Chinese population. I can assure that within a few years, they may expand and can actually outperform the current companies since they have a fixed market in China. Aside from that, many Chinese companies are rising and starting to acquire many firms around the world. This means that in the long run, we may conduct business with the Chinese, and wouldn’t it be great if we are able to understand their language?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, yes, both english and mandarin will rule the world as the most dominant languages in the world. English is already be the international language. If we go to an overseas country, and we cannot using their language, we usually use english as medium. Why english be the international language of the world, based on what i read, one of the reason is because england invaded so many country in the past. Than, england forced the people of the country that were invaded to talk with english. It naturally became the public language of the country that were invaded by england. From this invasion, many nations are using english as their daily language. The other reason is, some developed countries such as USA, Canada, and UK are using english. It became the criterion of all countries to make english as international language. Same with mandarin, China nowadays is on its way to become world central market. We can see in our daily life that many products are made by China. Everything is made in China, from toys, shoes, electronic devices, etc. It made China the central of the market in this world. So, people have to learn mandarin kf they want to make transaction in this world central market, which is China, as a medium to comunicate with chinese people.
ReplyDeleteEnglish and Mandarin is, without a doubt, the two most popular languages in the world. But when it comes to the question of which language will dominate the global market, everyone has their opinions. Some might say English because English is the most well-known among the languages, other would say Mandarin because it’s the popular and also most spoken. When doing business in Asia, having the ability to communicate with the Chinese is crucial. That's when Mandarin steps in. China is a global superpower, and plays a vital role in the global market economy. And with China being the most populated nation in the world, it’s only natural that hey speak Mandarin. So the Mandarin language is important for conducting business, but English is just as, if not more, important. Many consider English to be the international language, not only because it’s taught in almost every school known, but also because of the popularity of western media and entertainment. So despite Mandarin being the most spoken language in the world, English is still the most well-known. So in conclusion, both English and Mandarin may co-exist as the two international languages necessary for international relations.
ReplyDeleteThe English language became a widely spoken language because of the British Empire’s position during the war and Mandarin is rising because of the growing economical stance of China. I think English will still be a more accepted language by virtue of Mandarin is more likely only to be required in business matters while English still dominate in everyday conversation and entertainment matters. China may rise as a superpower entity in economics, however, the wide-ranging dynamics of society may not be conquered by the economic dominance of a single party. In contrast, the United Kingdom and the United States of America are still the main actors in the usage of the English language as they are major powers in media. So, I do not think the likelihood of Mandarin become the language dominator in most spectrums is high, it is possible but in my opinion, it is unlikely and may take many years.
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ReplyDeleteEnglish has been used by people to communicate with others who do not share the same first language, for a very long time. It is used as a so called “Lingua Franca”. I don’t think Mandarin will ever make English unnecessary, but like Manoj Vohra, I think that in the future these languages might coexist. I believe this will happen sooner in Asia than it will in Europe. In Europe our economy is less dependent from China than I think is the case here in Asia. Instead of learning Mandarin we’re forced to learn English, German and French, since our neighbour countries and biggest trading partners speak one of these languages. Nevertheless, even in Amsterdam I noticed that more and more high schools offer their students to learn Mandarin instead of French or German, yet I am still talking about small amounts. To answer the question “Is English or Mandarin the language of the future?” I believe the answer is English and Mandarin are the languages of the future.
It is a fact that English has dominated the world as the language for society to communicate. We all know, even in Indonesia, we use English as one of the subject in national exam. Which means, generally English has become one of the requirement for people to continue their study to a higher stage. We also know that a lot of schools have given their students a chance to study English, some are even have English as mandatory subject. But what about Mandarin? It is one of the biggest language in the world, considering China is the most populated country. We can’t deny that Mandarin is becoming more popular. Some private school here even have Mandarin as a mandatory subject. I personally think, China’s development in economic power might be the reason behind this. Mandarin become economically important as more people try to expand their businesses in China. In my opinion, although Mandarin’s popularity is rising up, it still won’t take over English’s popularity. I’m not saying that Mandarin is less important. Both languages are as important, the more we learn about other language, the bigger our connection. It would be more beneficial if we can speak to others without the use of translator, we could actually understand what they are saying. The problem is for people who already have either English or Mandarin as their second language. Learning two languages could be a difficult task to do, let alone three or more. It is our own awareness to choose whether to keep up with the world or get left behind.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe that both English and Mandarin are important. I have been studying and learning English my whole life, and it definitely has take me to places. I clearly wouldn't be an IUP student, if I hadn’t learned English. When I was in Junior High School, Mandarin was a mandatory class, and it was clearly everyone’s least favorite class. Me, on the other hand, was very excited to learn Mandarin knowing that it would be a plus point for me to be able to speak it. The reason why my previous school made Mandarin as a mandatory class was because it would prepare their students to face global changes. If ever later on Mandarin would be the International language, at least their students would be equipped with the basics of Mandarin and therefore could face this change rather easily. We know for a fact that Mandarin is a common language and is spoken by a large number of the population, therefore there’s the possibility of it being the International language. Whether or not later on Mandarin would be titled as International language, I believe that there is no disadvantage of learning it ahead of time.
ReplyDeleteI personally think that there is nothing wrong with having 2 main languages in the future. I had been studying both English and Chinese from my primary till my high school years. I found both of these languages to be complex and each have their own challenges. If we would see the article from an economic perspective, it is still a debatable topic. Lately, China and USA are having what we call “trade war”. US gave China a $50 billion tariff for Chinese goods. These two countries are in the top 3 of countries with strongest economy and there is nothing wrong with us preparing ourselves by studying their language. Studying language will never be useless because there are around 6500 languages in this world. Who knows our main language in the future might be Spanish or maybe African. It is better for us to study as much language as possible and prepare ourselves before it’s too late to adapt.
ReplyDeleteLong time ago, long before China become one of the country that have one of the strongest economy and an expanding market around the world, people won't even think about learning mandarin—considering how difficult mandarin is—everyone only learn English as their second language because English is use as the international language. But right now, there are many businessmen seeking business in China, or with Chinese. and therefore mandarin language becoming important in the business context. There are also corporates looking for Mandarin speaking employee. Mandarin is an important language? Yes. But that doesn’t mean that Mandarin could be the main language. In my opinion, English will still has it place, today’s entertainment industry and pop culture reference are mainly from the U.S and U.K; in global context English will still be the the world’s language. Well, I think the important thing is that you comprehend basic Mandarin to socialize and talk about business, but you don’t have to be very fluent in it.
ReplyDeleteI think it's mostly a matter of location. The last few hundred years English has dominated the western world and has become the most popular language used in everyday life. Even schools in nations of non English speaking population have set English as the mandatory second language to learn. And although English is still the most used language we can't simply ignore the rising popularity of the Mandarin Language. I think it stems from the fact that the Chinese economy has skyrocketed throughout the last few decades. And since so many Chinese workers and human resources are immigrating to the west their language will be so much more beneficial when working with them as opposed to English which although is taught mandatorily in east Asian countries it, many students don't have the proficiency found in students in Europe. So it comes down to the company that you're working for and the amount of foreign workers currently employed within that company.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the English language will hold on even against the prevalent Mandarin whose presence and endeavor to rival English might have simply been a bit overestimated by quite a number of people. Although today’s economies demand the population of the Earth to be more equipped with the necessary skills and attributes to be able to compete, and where the mastery of Mandarin language might often be part of those necessary requirements to stay on top, Mandarin being one of the toughest languages to learn is sadly a fact that almost no one overlooks. Knowing that the language depends not only on the tone we use to pronounce the words, it also consists of thousands of characters for one to beg to live for a couple more years just to have the highest proficiency of the language. In my opinion, I would like to believe that there would never have to come a time where Mandarin would replace English as the language of the future, just because that would spell the biggest natural selection in human history where those who aren’t competent enough to at least master Mandarin would be eliminated from the market due to their inability to compete against those who are. Lastly, even if Mandarin did turn out to be the victor, there would be a high probability that English might just snatch the position back for one main reason, which is having to master Mandarin as one of the common official qualifications to find a place in the market would result to only a very few number of employees being employed each time. As the trend continued, firms would eventually be forced to come knocking on the doors of the people they once rejected merely for that one almost-impossible requirement.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-hardest-languages-to-learn-2014-5/?IR=T
DeleteI’ve been forced to learn Chinese ever since I entered an international school. I started learning Chinese when I was in grade 5 and ended it at the end of grade 10 which means I was forced to learn for 6 years. At first, I liked the language but personally it was just too hard as the letters were not Latin-based which demotivated me from learning the language further. Chinese is indeed an important language nowadays for doing business with many Chinese and Chinese-oriented partners as China is an increasingly potential country to do business with. Even if China has dominated many economies, I personally think the Chinese language wouldn’t triumph over English for two reasons. First, Chinese is very difficult to read, speak and write, even more for people who have English as their first language. Second, some countries just do not want to learn other countries’ languages as they are already proud of their own, not shading anyone here. However, for Chinese and English to coexist with each other is a possible outcome in the future to me as both languages are important in doing business with all kinds of people around the world.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I wrote this comment not to insult the Chinese language or the people because I have Chinese blood within myself so I know what I’m talking about 😊
One thing we need to know is how English can become an international language. In the past, the British Empire was a kingdom that had vast colonies throughout the world. Every time they conquered a region they also automatically brought English as their communication tool.
ReplyDeleteThen if we compare with China, we realize that almost every corner of the country, there must be Chinese people. Besides that Mandarin is also the official language used at the United Nations which includes Arabic; Chinese; English; French; Russian; Spanish.
But in my opinion, I think Mandarin will be the INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE JUST FOR BUSINESS. Based on data from World Bank, China ranked second with a GDP approximately about 10,360,105 million USD in 2014 after the USA. It is a great accomplishment for China. In addition , we know that there are a lot of products that spread throughout the world with the label “Made in China”. Eventually I believe that in the future Mandarin will be used as a communication tools with businessman from china.
The factor why Mandarin won't be a second international language is because of culture. Britain has a large and long history, they almost became the biggest empire of this planet. Basically the language is related to habits and habits is a culture. Britain colonized a country for many years. While China has never had influence like England. So if the culture taught by China is not as wide as England, It will be difficult to make Mandarin into an international language.
Here's my opinion, I've learned mandarin in my junior high and my teacher always said to us that you will really need it in the future. Yes it's undoubted china has become the biggest economic power in the world and somehow it will influence how the business run, furthermore you'll have to learn Mandarin in order to keep up with the world. But i don't think it will easily take over English as the first international language since English already used for many social media and other entertaining purposes, for me to learn something you should "love it" first so you can easily master it and I can't find any interesting thing in China despite its power of being the biggest economic country so, I guess it will take a long way for mandarin to take over the international language.
ReplyDeleteI learned Mandarin when I was in elementary, junior high, and the first year of senior high. So I learned this language for 10 years and yet, I still can’t speak Mandarin. I do know numbers, family members and pronouns but other than that I am completely clueless. And in elementary and junior high I went to a school where most of the students have Chinese blood, and it was hard to keep up with them during Mandarin lessons since some of them use this language in their daily lives. I did hear about how Mandarin is going to be an important language in the future, and I can see how it is possible. China is the most populated country in the world, and a lot of Asian countries are dominated with Chinese people. But Mandarin is a really difficult language. Writing, pronouncing, and reading Mandarin is way more complicated when compared to English. English is the number one language in the world. Even if people don’t speak English as their first language, most probably they understand a few words and can speak this language at least a little. It might be hard for people if they don’t understand English at all because it is basically used everywhere. For example, products that aren’t produced in an English speaking country most likely have English words on it as a translation. This shows how English language has dominated the world. And for Mandarin to replace English as the number one language in the world might not be too likely to happen.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same about what Mr Vohra belived that bilingualism will triumph in South East Asia. Because, South East Asia has a lot of developing countries. Sometimes abroad networking is needed, and language become one of the essential things to be learned. English has become an International Language by far. It is written on this article, “English will remain popular so long as Hollywood exists.” I’m not disagreed about this point, but I think, Hollywood is just one of the ways of English spread. In fact, I think what really affect the spread of English as an International Language is the population who speaks English as their mother tounge. But, it does not mean that other languages couldn’t have the chance to be another international language since the population of some areas are thriving and also the quality of human resources. Countries in this world keep trying to make the best out of the best outcomes of every issue. So, let’s wait and see!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Manoj Vohra who said that Mandarin would rival English is a stretch. No doubts that yes, there are a rising need for those that understand Mandarin but English would still be needed as it still acts as a bridge for other nationalities. However, will Mandarin speakers dominate in the South East Asia area? Possibly. Why I say possibly is due to the fact that there is a trend in hiring Mandarin or Chinese speakers for business purposes. Businesses that are looking to expand their turf to China needs to at least have a mediator that speaks both the countries’ language is and Chinese. Nonetheless, these mediators still need to know English, as they will be used more often than Chinese. English is still the more popular language as every country is implementing it in their school curriculum. There is, however, a chance that Chinese will be implemented when the need of Chinese interpreters and the language itself, increase.
ReplyDeleteI think it is true, that we do need to learn the Mandarin language, because seeing Asia’s market in this past few years, China has control of most of the sector in the Asian market. Meanwhile, the working landscape is globalizing in a sense that, the competition in the job market will go global. Therefore, learning the Mandarin language is no longer a benefit, but a necessity, because we (The generation Z), will be needed to communicate with Chinese people as they grow more influential within the Asian business world. However, I still believe that this condition will take a great amount of time as the English language is still more favourably used. Therefore, in the end I am still not too sure whether the Mandarin language will grow even more relevant or not in the future, so I won’t be learning the Mandarin language either. Because from past experience in my High school, the Mandarin writings and pronunciations is really difficult to learn.
ReplyDeleteThe argument that learning Mandarin is “essential” for the future rests on the assumption that China will be the country of the future and that their language will be the language of international business. I must disagree with this assumption, as I think (or rather, believe) that English would still reign as the language of the world due to the sheer amount of English speakers and the difficulty to reverse the habit of many countries of the world of using English as an essential second language. Learning Mandarin is exceptionally difficult for foreigners, as we must memorize all the “tones” they use and the Hanzi characters. Even native speakers say it is impossible for them to memorize all the 50,000 characters used in their language. Moreover, the usage of Mandarin nowadays is mostly limited to China and its satellite states; meaning English still has the most utility as a second language.
ReplyDeleteAs we all know the most dominating languange in use is English . It is used universally in the bussiness world and in the world of education. In many countries english has even been made a compulsory languange to learn as a second languange aside from each country’s native languange. It has been made as a universal languange as it is a relatively easy languange to learn as english is a languange which adapts. Lots of the words in english originated from other languages. There are also lots of countries who use english from the very beginning such as UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore which can be one of the reason why the english language is very dominant. As times passes by people starts using mandarin as a mean for communicating especially for bussiness transactions. Eventhough English is the international language currently i believe that the mandarin languange will have a place as a languange for bussiness purposes. I believe so as there are lots of bussinessman who are willing to propose partnership with chinese businessman as the cost of production in china is low compared to other countries. Furthermore, the chinese population is one of the largest in the world and thay have been migrating to all over the word. In conclusion i believe that both english and mandarin should both be used and considered as international language.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, my family taught me that English has been a very important language to learn. But what they didn’t tell me was Mandarin is a language that I need to learn too. Today we can see how China is the second most influential country in the world. This trend will gradually get higher year over year and to be part of it, we must know the language they used. However, in Indonesia the perception of Chinese itself is not very acceptable. Rumors said many foreign workers from China take strategist position that make a lot of Indonesian jobless. They also have a terrible relationship with Chinese Indonesian people during reformation in 1998. In result, there are not many Mandarin courses as the English one. But I believe in the next couple years people will change their view and start considering Mandarin as important as English because now there are always Chinese people in every city in the world.
ReplyDeleteI don’t personally think that mastery of a language should be rested upon future business affairs between nations. The statement that Mandarin will overtake English in the future might actually come into realization, considering the ever growing economic power of People’s Republic of China, especially to those regions that have been directly affected by China’s foreign trade policy, and those are the regions in which China lays in the proximity of their borders. But we have to take into account as well the complexity of Mandarin compared to English. In the field of economy itself, the Chinese may have their own word for equilibrium, and many other words in relation to economics. And with no offence intended, the complexity of Mandarin spreads even into the tones of pronunciation, there’s a good chance that you may mistake one word for the other because you don’t correctly match the tone. If the change is happening abruptly, that will put a strain in the communication in business affairs. Even if China is on par against their Western counterpart, the United States, English has been the international tongue for much longer than Mandarin. Even if at one point in the future where China has successfully establish an economical hegemony over, say, most of Asia, the mastery of Mandarin must not prevail to that of English. Mastery of both must be preserved when possible.
ReplyDeleteWell, I can't see English being pushed aside despite the fact that I trust that Chinese or mandarin language will turn out to be progressively essential. China is the enlivening worldwide monster and the intensity of the not so distant future. Consequently, for those needing an edge in what this all methods, I am persuaded that any who take the inconvenience to learn Mandarin (for instance) will have recently that. In Chinese culture, things like affableness, regard, status, face and standing are essential alongside observations, for example, differentials between those seen to attempt and those not. I need to state I adore it. It is the right time for a change, means that we require an alternate worldview to the clear western abuse no matter what thing. Having said this, I don't know there is a real' China Model' which could be connected, notwithstanding, I am tired of the Western mastery show.
ReplyDeleteMy mother is one of the people that believe in order to be successful in the future. She believed that an individual has to master at least one more language other than English. She has always remind me that English will no longer be the language used in the future, especially in the world of business. I personally am interested in learning other foreign language so I suggested native languages like French. But my mother was so sure that mandarin is the next language of the future. So with little motivation I followed my mom’s suggestion and that is to take a mandarin course. I have to say, learning a foreign language in my teenage years was a big mistake. If I had wanted to learn mandarin or any other foreign language, it is better if I would have learned it during my early ages of childhood. At this period, I, as a kid, tend to absorb materials from a learning process. I guess that’s one of the reason I am pretty fluent in speaking English. It’s because I learned it when I was younger. So it was very difficult to me to be able to memorize all the mandarin words. I can’t even apply it in my daily life. I do believe that mandarin could be the next primary language, but I would still hold on to my English language ability.
ReplyDeleteEnglish is a language that can be used to communicate with foreigners, that is why English is very important. And people still use it to communicate with each other to do businesses. The Chinese economy is predicted that it will overtake the world economy. China is the most populous country on earth. This can be concluded that the mandarin language is widely used on earth. And when you are doing business such as making a deal or negotiating with your Chinese business partner, and you use their own native language means that you are showing respect to them. I do believe that Mandarin language might be the language of the future, but I also don’t deny that English will finally vanish, eventually. I still think that Mandarin language can’t overcome English language as the international language. In my opinion, we live in a globalization era and it won’t be enough for us if we only speak our native language. That is why I am interested to learn Mandarin language.
ReplyDeleteM Hassya S - Thursday Class
ReplyDeleteWhen we look at the world's economy at our current time, it is inevitable that we recognize the two main players which are China and the United States. It is clear for that reason that if we were to do business it is crucial for us to master their medium of communication. To say that Mandarin is the "language of the future" for me is a little bit too far. While we cannot disregard the fact that Chinese influence is spreading and intensifying in Asia, many also try to limit their sphere of influence. And because of that it may also limit the amount of people who want to learn Mandarin. Another factor that might hinder the progression of Mandarin as a replacement of the English language is the amount of effort required to master it. There are a lot of characters to remember and also to write in it is very difficult. Because each stroke has a meaning and it requires special attention when writing each character. Pronunciation in Mandarin might also decrease the chance of taking over the English language, this is because linguistically it is very different from other commonly spoken languages. In conclusion, it might take a long time and a variety of efforts for Mandarin to be on par or overtake the English language as an international medium for communicating.
In my opinion, this case has a high plausibility rate to happen in the future. But, as an international language, English surely is more dominating than Mandarin. There are still a lot of movies, songs, and other form of entertainment that is understood and loved globally that uses English. In the other hand, as said in the article, Mandarin has become more and more powerful each day. This follows the growth of the renminbi as it affects businesses. Nowadays, there are more people trading with Chinese companies than ever. This is why I agree to the second opinion in this article that these two languages would have a chance to be used side by side. In a world that has English as its international language and Mandarin as the “business language”, I believe that the two said languages have equal power to be the most prominent language in the world.
ReplyDeleteIn the past decades, China’s economy has been growing rapidly and China’s influence has been spreading dramatically across the globe. The main issue is there are a good number of Chinese national who could not English, even though they are doing international business. Ever since the bloom of the Chinese economy, Chinese companies has been spreading their wing through the great frontier of the known world, having their presence in even the least developed places. Due to this nature of the current world status, In my opinion the use of mandarin will play a crucial role within the international commerce, and the role will definitely extend outside the commerce sector as the Chinese influence grow. But the reality that mandarin is developing to be ever more important does not mean we should abandon English all at once. But this is an opportunity for us all to gain more value within our self by mastering the command of both tongue.
ReplyDeleteDespite being the international language, English is not the most used language in this world. There are more people that can speak mandarin compared to the people that can speak English. However, as mentioned English is the language that people use to communicate between each other when they are from different countries. Can Mandarin takeover as the international language in the future? I believe so. There is a chance that mandarin will be the international language since it is the most used language. The problem with mandarin being the future language is that it is going to be hard for some people to shift especially in school. Students that already learned English will have to adjust to it. Personally, I do not mind learning mandarin because being able to speak more than 2 languages is very interesting. In mandarin, their alphabet is not like our normal alphabet. Their alphabet is called Hanzi which looked very different and I really want to learn about it
ReplyDeleteThis article about either English or Mandarin is the language for the future is extremely fascinating. English has been considered as a universal language or dialect for a long length of time. People have understood the need to comprehend this language since years ago. However, for the most recent few years, a great number of organizations require the ability of the candidates to have an expertise in English, as well as Mandarin. This isn't without a reason however, with China's development in the economic world, many people believe that Mandarin will be used in the business world. If it does, then the role of universal language will change from English to Mandarin. I believe that in the future people will use Mandarin more than before because I have learned Mandarin before and it is a very difficult and almost impossible to learn and understand. I think it is difficult to learn and understand because Mandarin is so different from the language that I am using, which are English and Bahasa. The difference are not only in the pronunciation of a word but also the alphabet and numbers. In Mandarin there are different types of pronunciation, which is the tone to pronounce the word. The complicated thing about Mandarin is that if we say a word in a type of tone, it will become a different meaning if we say it in another tone. The writing is more difficult and complicated than the pronunciation of a word because there are rules on how to write Mandarin and also the number of Chinese words are uncountable. I think that it is not possible that people will change their language from English to Mandarin. But I do believe that in the future, more people will speak Mandarin than before but also still use English as their main language.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this articles, I just realise that Mandarin Language is important these days. As you all may know, Chinese businesses are growing rapidly these past years, countries all around the world buy some goods and services from them. Of course, when you master Mandarin Language it will give you benefit to deal some business with the China. It seems like with the rise of China’s international influence it will make the Mandarin Language to be taught in the classroom in foreign countries. But at the same time, learning Mandarin Language is not easy. Mandarin Language is a complicated language and takes time to learn, for example Mandarin Language has a writing system that is much more difficult for adult learners to master. In the other hand, even though Mandarin Language may become the language of the future but it won’t overtake English Language. Because after all these times, people are used with English as the universal language as in English Language is accepted universally and even though the grammars are seems difficult to learn but it is much more easier to learn than learning Mandarin Language.
ReplyDeleteThe beginning of the article said that there’s a possibility of Mandarin taking over English as the international language. I really don’t think so. English is already titled as the universal language despite being the second most used language in the world. Even though a lot of people speak Mandarin, most of them live in China, where it has the biggest population in the world, so it doesn’t really spoken worldwide. In Indonesia, even though there’s many schools giving their students mandatory Mandarin classes, they still use English when doing international relations. Western cultures, media and entertainments are also popular in many places in the world, from their music to their movies, making people learn the English language as they enjoy those things. I agree with the statement that said “The future of English is not a question of whether it will be overtaken by Mandarin, but whether it will co-exist with Chinese” since the growth of Mandarin language is increasing rapidly, but it will never replace English as the international language.
ReplyDeleteIt is no surprise that English is considered to be the world language and if you already master it, well communicating with a foreign person won’t be that much of a problem. But what about Mandarin language? I mean currently about twenty percent of the world population, or over one billion people, speak in some form of Chinese language and one of it is Mandarin. So, what gives? What made Mandarin language to be so big? I think one of the reasons why it happened is because how much of a big influence they gave to the economic world. One of the examples that I could think of is when they establish a cooperative relationship with another country, the other party has to learn Mandarin language. I know it’s a bit of a stretch but in this modern world, I think there is an unspoken rule that we have to learn more than two language to be able to survive. The first one is your mother language, the second one is English, and another language either for economic purpose or for educational purpose.
ReplyDeleteEnglish and Chinese have been the 2 main languages in the world. However, I do believe that English would stay as the first or main international language. One of the reasons is because Chinese is a really complicated language to learn. I’ve studied Chinese for 14 years, but still, I can’t really speak Chinese. Also, Chinese has accents or pinyin. So, if you use the incorrect tone when you speak Chinese, the meaning could be very different than what you meant. Another reason is because English is used as the first language in a lot of countries. Such as America, Australia, Canada, and many others. A lot of countries also have English as a mandatory course in their education system. Therefore, it would be really hard for Chinese to overtake English as the first or main international language, even though Chinese is also used a lot in many parts of the world. However, I do believe it would be really beneficial if we learn Chinese, since it can be an asset for us, especially if we’re trying to apply for a job.
ReplyDeleteI believed that there is no doubt English will be the language of the future, but, for the Chinese languange, im skeptical. China may be the country with highest population, and. it may also be one of the fastest growing country in terms of economy, but there is a reason why Chinese language wont be used globally. And the reason for that is entertainment. China lacks entertainment on a world wide scale therefore making it harder for the language itself to be used globally. Yes, because of the growth of economy, parents may encourage their children to learn Chinese, but so far there isn’t any reason for the future generation to want to learn the language by themselves. I believed that power of a country does not neccesarily mean that their language will be used globally. One of the example of this is the Spanish language. Spanish empire used to be one of the empire that spreads their language during the colonialization era, but after that most countries that uses Spanish are just the countries that was once colonized by them, another example of that is the Soviet Union. So the conclusion is power isn’t the only main reason why language is used on a worldwide scale.
ReplyDeleteI have never learn Chinese language in my whole life, but I know well enough, from movies and advertisements, that Chinese language is a very complicated language. In my head, what they say always sound the same. I am in no way of judging nor do I have anything against the Chinese ethnic and language, I'm simply just stating my opinion that learning the Chinese language wouldn't be as easy as it is for us learning English. Even us asians couldn't keep up learning it, imagine how hard it would be for the americans or any other ethnics to learn the Chinese language. Of course since China is the second most powerful country in the world, and is now aiming to take over the world economy, it's pretty substantial for us to learn the Chinese language in order to keep up with what's going on the the economic world. Do I think Chinese language is important? Yes, especially in the business world. But do I think that Chinese would defeat English as an international language? No, I don't.
ReplyDeleteIn the modern business world, US status of being the leading country or the superpower has been threatened by an emerging superpower country, China. China is the most populated country in the world and with the economic stability they had, in the next 10 or 15 years they will overtake US as the global economic leading power. The Chinese people tend to use their own language rather than learning English, so automatically learning Mandarin will be very useful if we want to succeed in the future. My father always told me that even now, Mandarin has been used by his co-workers and he told me to learn Mandarin as soon as possible because otherwise I will not be able to catch up with others. China's economic growth has significantly shows that they will become the next superpower so what should we do as the future workers is to adapt into the situation and learn Mandarin in order to succeed.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that the Chinese language has a fair chance of co-exist with English language in the near future, considering china’s rise in power over the world economy. Nowadays, English isn’t so important as it was 10 years ago. Because right now English is so widespread that it is not as necessary. Since understanding English is basically a necessity these days, having a 3rd language can give you an edge in the society. Each language has its owns stereotype. For example, people learn Chinese because they are one of the most likely to control today’s econoy. Hence, we will likely meet Chinese pople when doing business abroad. Another example of this stereotype is French. People that can speak French are considered the world, because today’s most influential designer and artist actually came from France. You are not considered a designer when you don’t have a store in Paris. English is slowly getting matched with other language.
ReplyDeleteThough English is the international language, there are people who would like to study mandarin due to business purpose. Right now people who live in non – English speaker country is encouraged to be able to speak English. For example, India as the most populated country is also as the most English speaker country in the world although English is not their national language. Most The people in India is forced to learn English for career and education purpose. But watching the economic growth of the china that is surprisingly keeps increasing, it makes us think that china could be the supreme country in the future other than America. And it is known that Chinese people are live around the world and they tend to keep using mandarin in their community wherever they are and it would be interesting if we know mandarin and have a link to their community. From that, perhaps English and mandarin will be the international language in the future
ReplyDeleteI really believe that in the near future Mandarin will be a standard of international language along with English itself, why?. Because maybe America is now the strongest country in the world or you can say a superpower country but we are forgetting something really important here. China which is the world’s most country is now emerging from the depth looking to replaced America as the strongest country in the world. From here we can see why it is possible for Mandarin to be the international language of the future. That is why right now we can see a lot of people try to offer Mandarin courses. So I strongly suggest to those who haven’t started learning Mandarin to start now because after reading this article I regret not taking my Mandarin courses seriously when I was little. So to sum up I really believe that China will be the strongest country in the world and Mandarin will be the second international language. - Dimas Aditya Permana
ReplyDeleteI think Mandarin will be an international language along with English, especially on South East Asia country. We can see that from a lot of school in Indonesia or in Yogyakarta that teach their student Mandarin. Also, a lot of parents do the same, and they teach their children talk in Mandarin, if they can’t speak Mandarin they will sent their kids to learn how to speak Mandarin. There are a lot of product produce at China, that means China have strong power on economy. So when we can speak Mandarin, it will make us easier to communicate with other people, especially when we have business with Chinese company, and maybe we can have a good deal with them. It is become common when we can speak English, maybe because the government put English on our curriculum, but when we can speak three language people will give us a plus point for us, especially Mandarin. But I think Mandarin will not be an international language in the near future, consider how hard it is for foreigners to learn Mandarin.
ReplyDeleteEnglish and Chinese language are two of the most-spoken language in the world, due to the market and economy domination by the US and China. Comparing the amount of speakers around the world, Mandarin speakers are a lot more than the English speakers. That is because the native speakers of Mandarin is dominated by native Chinese, which is a lot. A lot of people say that English is hard to learn and hard to understand. The fact is learning English is far easier than learning Mandarin. Mandarin is very complicated to learn. As far as i know, in speaking Mandarin, you must pay attention to your dialect when you speak and talk to somebody, because if you’re using the different dialect in pronouncing the words, the meaning will be different also. Writing in Mandarin is also not easy to learn, as they were using the different type of symbols to write a word in Mandarin. English in the other hand, are easier to understand and learn, as they were using a conventional alphabet to write a word or sentence. English will still be the universal language in the world, but also Mandarin speakers will increase because China’s industrial and business sector is one of the biggest one in the world, and they should understand Mandarin to do businesses in the future.
ReplyDeleteAlthough both English and Mandarin are now two of the most-spoken language in the world, I think English will still be the world’s language in the future. One of the main reason is of course because English is much more easier to learn than Mandarin. I learned Mandarin when I was in junior high, and in my opinion, Mandarin is a very complicated language and may take some time to master it. Just like the other languages, first of all we have to start learning its alphabet and its pronunciation. In Mandarin, we call it pinyin. Pinyin, which some people call the “Chinese alphabet”, is a way to symbolize Mandarin pronunciations using the twenty six letter English alphabet. Not only pinyin and their pronunciations, we also have to learn Mandarin tones. There are four different tones in Mandarin, and one ‘non-tone’ tone. Actually it is not that hard to understand the tones and how they work, but it can be difficult getting comfortable while using them.
ReplyDeleteAs long as I life, I know that English is the international language that could be spoken worldwide. The fact that English is the first international language, I was taught to learn English since I was kid. As time goes by, I learn the fact that the most-spoken language in the world is not only English but also Mandarin. This fact is not really surprising since we all know that China is always dominating in many parts of society. USA and China is a big country that already been dominating the world. We could see many China products in every part of the world. Its very common nowadays to find many Mandarin language in a lot of public spaces. In my opinion, the first international language will still remain English and Mandarin will be the second international language. English is a lot more easier to learn rather than Mandarin, because in English we don't have to learn how to write the alphabet. Even though Mandarin is not being the first international language, but I believe that Mandarin will be used commonly as a language to do business and partnership around the world.
ReplyDeleteFor me personally I have a doubt that mandarin will be the future language. Even these days China dominated in technology, industrial sector, and many more. The reasons why china can’t be the future language because most people in the world are studying English language than Chinese language because English language is international communication language or lingua franca. Many people also think that learning a Chinese language is too difficult, even when Chinese grammar is much simpler than any other language, Chinese has a tone and writing system that is more difficult for adult learners to master. It is the Chinese character that make the foreign learners suffer the most, because most of the languages, especially the European languages, are based on alphabets, which is dramatically different from Chinese characters. But it is still unclear if Chinese will become universally used as English or even will replace English in the future.
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