The most studied World languages

Guesto   Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:13 am GMT
Great. So there might be more French speakers in the poorest, most violent, poverty and diseased ridden area in the world. Big whoop! French is still a colonial language in Africa, with no real connection to the heritage of it's people. For example: Most North Americans are of European decent and the majority speak English. Most people in Latin America are mixed Euro-native or all Euro decent and the majority speak Spanish or Port. While Africans are Africans and they have their own NATIVE languages that they learn first. The only true (major) area of rooted French language and culture outside Europe is Quebec.

<< In China, it should be:

1. English (a must)
2. German (useful)
3. French (useful & sounds beautiful)
4. Italian (less useful than French, but sounds beautiful too)
5. Spanish (not very useful, sounds less beautiful than Italian, Spanish is important only due to its popularity in USA) >>

English - Yes and makes the rest lest useful.
German - Useful dealing with some of Europe but it's overshadowed by English and most educated Germans speak English anyway.
French - Useful dealing with some of Europe and some of Africa. Yes it's beautiful.
Italian - What is "useful" about this language nowadays? But it's beautiful.
Spanish - Very useful in dealing with Latin America. Maybe less beautiful than Italian but more than most others.
huesped   Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:25 am GMT
<< Why do the Hispanics in this forum are against the Mandarin Chinese. Here's a proof that Mandarin Chinese is not only appreciated in Latin America but at present, it is now studied in Chile con gusto and Mexico and Venezuela will implement the same thing. It's inevitable. Isn't that delightful? >>

What is funny about this post is that it backfires. If more of Latin America starts to study Chinese, that means less students there will study French. English is the most popular followed by French, so if Chinese becomes more popular, that is actually bad news for French. Hell, all around the world the same thing could happen. English will continue to be popular while Chinese will come up and French will getted squeezed. Chinese is dangerous to French because outside of Europe it depends on it's status of the "second most studied language" to maintain any real importance.
mac   Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:33 am GMT
Might be true. If more Latin American students want to learn Chinese, which language would they drop for it, English or French? I'd say the obvious loser would be French in this case.
Guest   Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:51 am GMT
Guesto:
<Italian - What is "useful" about this language nowadays? But it's beautiful.
Spanish - Very useful in dealing with Latin America. Maybe less beautiful than Italian but more than most others.>
============================================
Re: I would like you to know one thing, I didn't talk about the status of USA or Latin America, I just told you the facts in CHINA, and I'm happy to see that, you admit that Italian sounds more beautiful than Spanish, but why do you think Italian would be useless and Spanish should be very important? As a matter of fact, within Europe, Italy has an advantage over Spain in many respects such as modern industry, fashion field (garment, leather, perfume, wine, cuisine, porcelain, & so on), and cultural atmosphere. If a man doesn't want to / can't go to Latin America, and if he won't live in a place which is full of Spanish descendants, I guess Spanish would be even less useful than Italian in that case. Because China is Neither Latin America nor USA. And only in Mainland China, the quantity of Italian companies or organizations is far more than Spanish ones. And the fashion products made in Italy have been everywhere throughout department stores in China, while Spanish ones usually play a secondary and puny role over there. It's only my personal opinion. Thanks!
Guest   Tue Feb 05, 2008 10:09 am GMT
Dont forget Brazil is practically a Spanish speaking country itself. I have used Spanish by for more when talking with Brazilians than actually native Spanish speakers.
Guesto   Tue Feb 05, 2008 10:19 am GMT
Ok, I should have mentioned that Italian is useful in some of Europe as well. Everything you said about its industry and culture is true. It's just that Italian often gets overshadowed by English, French and German in Europe so maybe i understated things. I guess my point was that if we are thinking useful languages internationally, then Italian generally not one of the first languages you'd think of.
Xie   Tue Feb 05, 2008 10:26 am GMT
>>In China, it should be:

1. English (a must)
2. German (useful)
3. French (useful & sounds beautiful)
4. Italian (less useful than French, but sounds beautiful too)
5. Spanish (not very useful, sounds less beautiful than Italian, Spanish is important only due to its popularity in USA)

How groundless.

I'm afraid you don't even know the reality of my country - you may not be able to read Chinese at all, you may not know where Japan and Korea are, etc.

China's most important languages are those of its strongest neighbours (Russian, Japanese, Korean) and strongest countries (English [Anglophone], French [Francophone], German [Germany], etc).
Guest   Tue Feb 05, 2008 10:40 am GMT
Xie: <I'm afraid you don't even know the reality of my country - you may not be able to read Chinese at all, you may not know where Japan and Korea are, etc.>


我是道地的中國人。
日本語も少し話せます。
한국말도 좀 할 줄 알아요。

We talked about the importance of languages only base on what the list ranked (European languages), probably by an European or American, I didn't rank them from the viewpoint of Chinese people. Certainly, Japanese is very important for Chinese people, it's just second to English for us, but I don't think Korean is an important one, if Japanese being included, the list should be as follows:

1, English
2, Japanese
3, German
4, French
5, Italian
6, Spanish
Xie   Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:20 am GMT
>>We talked about the importance of languages only base on what the list ranked (European languages)

I'm certainly not mistaken. The scope of discussion isn't really limited to European things.

Both Japan and Korea are some of the largest trading partners of China, just after the US. Germany and, if you do care, Hong Kong are also important.

I personally also don't think Korean is in any way important, but for obvious geographical reasons, Italian and Spanish presence is almost nil in China... and not even French. French isn't the exact language of science like German for the Chinese science students. It's just, rather, diplomatic. I think you can get my point.
Xie   Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:28 am GMT
What I say is of course my own POV, but I'm also trying to describe the situation. Korean has been rather popular in China. Perhaps for some other reasons, namely cultural and geographical, it's quite natural that French and German are actually less known - there's a lack of films, food, etc. There are less visible motivators (if I may call) of learning the latter two.

Popular as they might still be, in real terms Chinese universities would be offering more Japanese and Korean classes than French and German. If you do care about a ranking, then they all should be on the top of the list.

That's not my own statistics. I just speak from a general Chinese perspective. How "others" think isn't really very important. They may know what the Chinese are learning, but I don't think it can reflect the real situation that accurately.

*And I also think Spanish might be more popular than Italian.
Guest   Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:48 am GMT
Do Mandarin speakers learn Cantonese or only the other way around?
Guest   Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:07 pm GMT
To Mr. Xie,

1, Russian: Have you ever got to know any of Russian companies/organizations in Hongkong or Mainland? The answer would be "NO". Because Russia has become weakly although things seem to be getting better in recent years. Advanced military weapons such as missilery & atomic bombs would be unable to keep Russia away from poverty & depression. And Russian doesn't sounds very euphonically to my ears.

2, Korean: First, it doesn't sounds beautiful at all, even much worse than Russian, when I heard it, I always got a bad headache and feel uncomfortably for its pronunciation and mouth shapes. Yes, there're a lot of Korean companies in China, I admit, but I don't Korean is of great help for finding a good job, because the good positions are usually possessed by ChaoXianZu(朝鮮族). In fact, Korean has a long way to go, if it really dreams of catching up with Japan in the future.

3, Italian & Spanish: Frankly speaking, they both sound very beautiful if compared with other languages, but I still think Italian would be more helpful in China (not mention USA or Latin America), and especially Italian has got graceful and melodical pronunciation, can't you feel a little of that? And the reasons Why I love Italian were explaind clearly in above parts.

4, French & German: some people often said that, many of Germans can speak English well enough to communicate with those who can't speak German, so they don't need to learn German at all, but I think this kind of idea is not correct, at least, a little extremely. I consider German even more important than French, especially for commercial terms, science, technology, & some other respects. But French hasn't declined to such an extent as people exaggerated, perhaps also due to its beautiful pronunciation and great heritage.
Guest   Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:16 pm GMT
<Do Mandarin speakers learn Cantonese or only the other way around?>

Re:

1, Cantonese people can speak Mandarin, but not very well, because the pronunciation was deeply affected by their native language, Cantonese.

2, Some of Mandarin speaker also learn to speak Cantonese, certainly, they usually can't speak it as well as Cantonese, but the learners who learn Cantonese were, have been, and will be much less than those Cantonese who learn Mandarin and speak it to Mandarin-speakers in daily life.
Xie   Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:47 pm GMT
I shall start with something "un"-personal first. I shall consider disregarding messages of multiple users with the same name. This is dreadfully confusing. Please do identity yourself with another name.

In response to Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:07 pm GMT,

1. "Objective" factors aside, that's not objective enough to speak of your own feeling.

2. Ditto.

3. Ditto.

4. Finally, I shall agree.

Well, then I can see you really are the right person (among the multiple users with the same name). Why? Because I see your subjective comments, something "typical" of the people - you should know what I mean, and I'm, too, being subjective here, because I'm addressing you. That something doesn't sound nice to you doesn't necessarily sound bad to others and doesn't necessarily affect its status worldwide, and SOUNDS have nothing to do with STATUS.

Please do remember that, when you post, you aren't just speaking of "your own experiences" or "your own feelings". It isn't really nice to post sweeping comments.
Guest   Tue Feb 05, 2008 1:15 pm GMT
Why would Italian be more useful than Spanish in China? That is nonsense. China's relationship with Latin America is much more important in economic terms than that with Italy, a medium sized country in Europe.