There is not a second World language

Well, it is interesting the different feeling in some countries about the second most important World language.


A Chinese can answer Japanese, a Japanese will answer Chinese, an American probably Spanish, and a Danish can answer German. All of them are right, because everybody feel a different language as second.


The problem is that THERE IS NOT A SECOND WORLD LANGUAGE, at least clearly. At this moment Chinese, Spanish, French, and German can have the second place in 2050. Perhaps the winner will be Chinese, but we need to wait a little.


So, do not worry about that, be happy and study languages!

Chinese (either Mandarin or Cantonese) will never become a second world language in the future.

Eh? Naze desu ka?

Yes, there is no clear second winner as of now, but in the future, maybe.

I don't think it will be German or French because German is overshadowed by English in science and business and French is overshadowed by English in diplomacy and popular culture. However they will remain important in Europe like Japanese is in Asia. Spanish depends on the growth of Latin America, but will probably continue as mainly an important western hemisphere language. China may have a chance at being number 2 but it depends on how prosperous it is in the future, especially in the field of science and technology.

For those of you, who are saying Mandarin will become the 2nd world language, you are ignoring common sense and reality. The reality is 60% of Chinese primary students are enrolled in an English class and that number grows by the day. In contrast, merely a hand full of American students study Chinese. An other thing to take into count is, the vast majority of the world speaks a European language or at least an Indo-European one, using an alphabet, usually the Latin one. China acknowledges it's ridiculously complex writing system and doesn't expect foreigners to learn it. It's a matter of practicality, really.

That's a good point about writting system JLK. The Latin alphabet is much more practical, especially in this day in age. You can find the alphabet used all over the world, in most any field. While the presence of Chinese characters will probably never catch on in this manner, simply because they are to complex and take to much time to learn.

Now here is a question. If the China would every endorse the use of pinyin in as an official alternative to characters, would that encourage more people to learn Chinese? I'm thinking about studying Chinese, but honestly, I don't want to live in China or be a Chinese expert or anything, so all I'm really interested in is speaking.

too complex, too much time...

Chinese writing is beautiful, meaningful, ancient and still very cool.

Did you give up on Kanji, mac?

Chinese grammar is very easy, but there are still the tones which some people have trouble learning (foreign learners), so I don't think pinyin is the answer or alternative.

English is the most important language for non-natives to learn, then it's a toss-up for the other languages. Natives of English should probably learn another language, but that language depends on a lot of factors.

In the US, it should probably be French or Spanish. Live near French-speaking Canada? Choose French. Have contact with Spanish speakers?
Learn Spanish.

After that, any language you need or want to learn is probably a good choice. That is probably the same idea the OP is expressing.

Neither mandarin nor cantonese could be written legibly in Latin alphabet pattern, mainly because it has four (at least) or even more tones through the pronunciation, and sometimes it also has various pronunciation inflexions which are kind of different from the written form, while Chinese being spoken in daily conversation, without current Chinese writing system, it would be of great difficulties for foreign learners to master Chinese language, perhaps not much easier than learning writing system hard. If you were also Chinese people, probably you wouldn't say that Latin Alphabet may be more suitable for foreigners to learn Chines than current Chinese characters. Thanks!

<<Chinese writing is beautiful, meaningful, ancient and still very cool. >>

True. But people who learn 'international languages' out of necessity inorder to comunicate with people around the world do not care about 'beauty' or 'cool' only about communication. Maybe language-buffs will enjoy it but your everyday person who's profession is not related to but relies on language will not enjoy it and will find ways around it. In the end people will end up using translators more rather than wasting so much time learning it.

>>An other thing to take into count is, the vast majority of the world speaks a European language or at least an Indo-European one, using an alphabet, usually the Latin one. China acknowledges it's ridiculously complex writing system and doesn't expect foreigners to learn it. It's a matter of practicality, really.

No, it should be: "I" acknowledge everything above.

And even so, it still wouldn't change the fact that many non-Anglophones, despite years of study, cannot really reach fluency. This is not like much of the strongholds of Spanish and French, in places where people speak the language NATIVELY rather than as a permanent second language. What I say isn't exactly about status, though...

I don't think the topic is a problem to speak of. Few people, as one of my usual generalizations (you may argue), would ever really reach the stage of complete fluency and appreciate the literature, culture...whatever constituent parts of the English language. That is to say, the importance of second language learners may vary in different regions. Peoples living near (but not in) Anglophone countries may be more motivated to learn English better (and you may suspect certain peoples speak English [non-natively] better than some others).

What about the Chinese, for example? It may be too big a population to speak of, but I often suspect those in bigger cities *might* have an advantage and be more motivated, and those in mountainous areas *might* often be (justly) discounted. Chinese children in those rigid areas do learn English, but if you want to join the volunteers to help them (for they are really poor), you must speak Mandarin.

So, however English is, you should know your own ambitions. There's simply no single language that *can* be so dominant. Latin may have killed almost every other neighboring language (except something like Basque), but English won't. Some people may be pessimistic about language study in general (like: seeing that more people, and among many peoples alike, are learning English only and discount others), but I think learning MORE would be increasingly common rather than exceptional. Centuries ago, people might know LESS languages (see the Chinese, they were "monolingual"); but now, we can learn one first (like English), and we are often tempted to learn MORE. It's not like our predecessors who could not travel (a lot) and use the Internet and English...

<< Chinese writing is beautiful, meaningful, ancient and still very cool.

Did you give up on Kanji, mac?

Chinese grammar is very easy, but there are still the tones which some people have trouble learning (foreign learners), so I don't think pinyin is the answer or alternative. >>

- Yes it is. But that will only take it so far in today's world.

- Haven't really started yet, but I don't think I will have the time anyways. I'm anno longer an undergrad student so any studying will be on my own away from other priorities.

- That's what I hear about the grammar too. I'm a little wary of the tones though. I think the presence of Chinese will increase, but the difficulties with the writing system and tonal aspect may turn off or simply intimidate many students from learning it. Although I totally respect anyone who learns Chinese. I just doubt it will catch on as a clear number 2 language or anything like that.

Remember that languages which are considered "easy" or not "too" difficult to learn are the most popular, in part for that reason alone.

<<True. But people who learn 'international languages' out of necessity inorder to comunicate with people around the world do not care about 'beauty' or 'cool' only about communication. Maybe language-buffs will enjoy it but your everyday person who's profession is not related to but relies on language will not enjoy it and will find ways around it. In the end people will end up using translators more rather than wasting so much time learning it.>>

Yes that's true. I'd bet even a large portion of Chinese people wouldn't be so sad to see their characters replaced by a more practical system. Don't try and tell me everyone cares about tradition, if they did there wouldn't be a McDonalds on every corner.

>>Yes that's true. I'd bet even a large portion of Chinese people wouldn't be so sad to see their characters replaced by a more practical system. Don't try and tell me everyone cares about tradition, if they did there wouldn't be a McDonalds on every corner.

It seems like the existence of characters has led to very interesting discussions. Chinese users (like me; those who know them natively) and (a very few) learners tend to support characters, but those who say they don't (have the time to/aren't interested to) learn characters are often against them.

Some Chinese people (not here, elsewhere, in "native" forums, I mean, where everyone is Chinese) tend to support characters for their own sake simply because it's part of their culture. There has been very groundless speculation (among Chinese writers) that "foreigners wouldn't in general want to preserve characters because characters aren't theirs and even beginners would only want to learn the simplified characters [much to the dismay of lovers and supporters of the traditional] because all they want is 'fast food', i.e. just to learn the language for communication, while disregarding the cultural treasure of (traditional) Chinese characters." This is an image of certain foreign people (and learners) from a Chinese perspective.

Another Chinese perspective I'd like to present to you is how some Chinese people view the characters in regard to "foreign" discussions - and here, "foreign" often means Western countries (mainly Anglophone, not Russia, not many others...). Some of us tend to take the view that, perhaps because they can only read discussions in English, a typical generalization might be to take the Anglophone (and very often American) view as representative of the "whole" Western world. (Making generalizations, as one of my own generalizations, is quite a common practice among *some* of us; it might be a result of human nature - among some Chinese) So, they think natives of the Latin script (actually, more often called as the "English script"; people often disregard other Latin-script languages and call Latin letters THE "English letters") would often feel baffled by their characters and, very often, these natives would just want to have characters done away with.

I'd say the "difficulty" of characters, while being rather a practical problem even for the enthusiastic learner (not to mention people who don't like them), is just yet another example of "perceived hell-like difficulties". It seems, yes, convenient for us Chinese to generalize such opinions as a typical American perspective, because we think "they might be typical people who don't actually have to and thus want to learn something as 'hard' as Chinese". It seems like characters could be as formidable as case declensions or verb conjugations or genders or click sounds or a different script (anything other than the Latin script).... but then, yes, while I agree things could be rather alien in your own eyes (Latin letters even for many of us Chinese [we call them chicken guts], and Chinese characters for many of you non-Chinese), they are often too much like convenient excuses of NOT learning something.