Because the business of manufacturing nearly everything has been deferred to China, it seems to me that there must be some great opportunities in store for those who learn to communicate in the Chinese language. Corporations large and small have already taken hold of this thinking and I believe that companies wishing to thrive in a true global sense are duty bound to maintain staff fluent in English, Spanish, Chinese, and a host of other languages. Gone are the days when speaking English was the "responsibility" of foreign corporations wishing to do business with us. If we want to keep pace, we need to drop our attitude of superiority and realize that the world of business has some staggering new rules.
I'm not doing a promotion here. I'm merely examining the current business conditions and investigating some options. When considering the fact that one out of five people on this planet speaks some form of Chinese dialect, doesn't it make good sense that we should be interested in communicating with them? Perhaps they don't understand that we don't want lead in our children's toys. Wouldn't you like to explain that to them?
Major American corporations have been actively pursuing the task of having the Chinese language taught to a cross-section of their executives. Those individuals then prove to be so valuable that they are sometimes enticed into higher profile positions with other companies. This seems especially true in the fields of finance, world media, and communications.
When pursuing higher education, do give special consideration to foreign languages. You can never go wrong by increasing your ability to communicate. In light of the fact that the global economy is here, it's only prudent for more of us to make ourselves fit to exploit that obvious truth. I know you've heard it too many times already but the old adage still holds true: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-18-2007 @ 12:50PM
Jalarmo said...
There is no such thing as "The Chinese Language."
So American.
11-18-2007 @ 3:25PM
ally kendall said...
Firstly, that's a rather bigotted comment, and I find it disgusting, prima facie. Evidently you despise people on the basis of their nation of origin. Secondly, although there are simplified versus traditional Chinese character sets, and very few literate people can easily use them interchangably, most can with a great degree of utility decipher either, and they largely overlap. Thirdly, I don't see anyone complaining about the unitary identification of the English language, or German, or French, although each has multiple mutually incomprehensible dialects. There's nothing fundamentally ignorant or bigotted about using "Chinese" in the default sense to refer to Putonghua. It's what English speakers expect and understand the word to mean in a general context where it is used to refer to a language. The fact that Cantonese, or Hakka, or Min are Chinese languages does not mean they have equal claim to being identified as Chinese, the language. Minority languages are, after all, minority languages.
11-18-2007 @ 1:12PM
william lindblad said...
I don't know about this idea!!
Mandarin has 480 characters as opposed to a 26 letter alphabet. Spoken and written Chinese are two different things with infinte variations.
11-18-2007 @ 3:12PM
ally kendall said...
While Chinese orthography is admittedly more complex than Latin, with that complexity comes great depth and beauty, as well as a certain kind of concision of thought that is well worth the cost of cultivation. There are really three overwhelming premier languages in the modern era: English, Chinese, and Spanish, in that order of interest for purposes of global commerce and current general literacy. Chinese has this additional advantage for the learner: It opens the door to other related languages, specifically to Japanese, by overcoming the bulk of the Kanji hurdle.
11-18-2007 @ 4:09PM
william lindblad said...
Dear ally:
I have nothing against any language or dialects, it's a matter of simplicity. That's why Americans study Japanese and Japanese study English. There is always a need to communicate and even the earliest explorers usually had someone aboard for this purpose. For the record, Latin, although considered dead, had three variants. Church, that is still used, Roman and Ancient Roman, both dead. Roman had a simple structure and you got the meaning via sentence structure. Ancient Latin was written, it was the business language. Now, if you can read linear A or know how to add/subtract in Latin numerals - you have something.
11-18-2007 @ 4:29PM
Brian said...
Your last comment sounds promotional to me
I find chinese unredemptively non-euphonic and would hold fast to English remaining the language of commerce for that reason alone.
That very complexity and depth of the language may not be as concise as you think but rather an impediment as I have heard that it becomes a moving target of meanings adding to the complexity of negotiations.
11-18-2007 @ 11:28PM
Eric O said...
Great post! I think you meant "Business Chinese", as many of the executive programs are tailored precisely for business.
Unfortunately, such programs miss the point of how to do business in China.
12-02-2007 @ 1:30PM
danny said...
The Chinese population makes up 23% of the world population. It means that more than 2 billion people are speaking Mandarin. Since China is a very promising country for its economy power and Mandarin is an official language of the United Nations, a Mandarin speaking skill is surely a must-have in the future. You are lucky, and your Chinese is good. If you are interested in learning more about Mandarin, visit the website http://www.learnchinese.bj.cn/
12-21-2007 @ 4:57AM
godisamyth said...
BTW, there are a hell of a lot more than 480 characters in Chinese (and written Chinese is pretty similar for all the dialects). a good student would know at least 5,000 characters, an expert might know 20-40,000 DISTINCT characters.
Yet another thing standing in its way as a global language is the tonal complexity. it is a real pain to learn, especially for an English -speaking adult. Most who try fail miserably. Most, not all.
Plus, you can't program in Chinese. Until they get the algebraic representation of the language sorted, perhaps by moving completely to pinyin, then there's no way it will dominate the computer world like English has.
English already has far more penetration than Chinese, and more people speak English as a second language than any other. Inertia will keep English the dominant langiage until long after we're all dead.
China will be important in business, for sure, but that's no reason to try and force Chinese on the rest of the world. And if you are going to learn Chinese learnthe traditional characters rather than the bastardised mainland versions. There's no point now in the simpler version seeing as most people write using a computer. (and no, it does not make the language any easier to learn despite the best wishes of Mao. it actually removes the etymology of a character and often makes it less easy to remember how to draw a particular character).