Most Marketable Language to Learn

[Dumac]

Originally posted by: LePetomane
Ebonics!

:laugh:

 

[vital]

i'm chinese and speak fluent cantonese. took 3 semesters of mandarin and still can't have a decent conversation or understand mandarin. it's hard.

 

[bleuiko]

Spanish if within US.
Mandarin Chinese if international.

If you want a third language, do Japanese.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: sdifox
That's ridiculous. Language by itself does not determine whether you can become a great country. Look at the PRC press conference now, it is only delivered in Mandarin. Guess what, if you want to be there, you learn the language. You get to dictate the language of choice when you are running the show.

Like I said, I can't find the quote. I believe it was Chinese philosopher.

At any rate, written Chinese can be very beautiful, but I'd have a hell of a time learning it. I'd have to tip my hat to any "Westerner" that can learn Chinese as an adult.

its not entirely ridiculous though, english is the language of science and computing. chinese have to learn atleast bits of english to do well in those areas. theres nothing similar for chinese.

 

[Kadarin]

Well, Spanish would be useful if you have the need to communicate with the hotel cleaning staff, fast food workers, and other menial class help...

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: sdifox
You mean like make 1/5 of the world's population change their language for your convenience?[/L]

It wouldn't be any more convinent for me. I'll be dead before knowing Chinese in America is anything more than a neat skill.

However, the idea of changing the language in China isn't new:

-
In a speech delivered on January 10, 1958,[24] Zhou Enlai observed that the Committee had spent three years attempting to create a non-Latin Chinese phonetic alphabet (they had also attempted to adapt Zhuyin Fuhao) but "no satisfactory result could be obtained" and "the Latin alphabet was then adopted".[25] He also emphatically stated:

In future, we shall adopt the Latin alphabet for the Chinese phonetic alphabet. Being in wide use in scientific and technological fields and in constant day-to-day usage, it will be easily remembered. The adoption of such an alphabet will, therefore, greatly facilitate the popularization of the common speech [i.e. Putonghua].[26]

The development of the Hanyu Pinyin system was a complex process involving decisions on many difficult issues, such as:

Should Hanyu Pinyin's pronunciation be based on that of Beijing?
Was Hanyu Pinyin going to supersede Chinese written characters altogether, or would it simply provide a guide to pronunciation?[27]
Should the traditional Chinese writing system be simplified?
-
From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...f_Chinese#Hanyu_Pinyin

-
In China, there was talk in some circles after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution about officially replacing Chinese with Esperanto as a means to dramatically bring the country into the twentieth century, though this policy proved untenable.
-
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

I saw a quote once that said something to the effect of "China cannot be a world power until we modernize our writing system". For the life of me I can't find it.

At any rate, I think it would be in China's best interest to at least Romanize their language completely.

That is absolutely near impossible Chaotic, and I completely disagree with you. Do you realize how difficult it is to try to really understand full conversations or written papers in pinyin? Chinese already requires a lot of "in context understanding" because there are quite a few words with dual pronunciations that have to be understood in context, and within a written context removing their character would create too much ambiguity found in the spoken part

romanization now removes the character aspect so how do I distinguish between ?,?,?,?,?,?,?,? when all have the same sound AND same tone. Of course these characters are not easily interchangeable, but each means an entirely different thing. Life get SO much more difficult when you just have a sound and tone to work off of.
I see the benefit of using the pinyin system to teach non-chinese people like me HOW to pronounce the characters - and every time i study a new character I would like the pinyin because then I know how to say it...but afterwards you need the character because it conveys information lost due to romanization.

And I agree - China did TRY to move to a strict romanization system, but it proved too difficult to do, because it would have required major changes to the entire language just to accommodate it. Simplified was ultimately introduced as a means of simplifying strokes (note: i'm not saying its easier, but it is infinitely faster to write than traditional)

Here is a more extreme example.
http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de/SHISHI.RXML

I doubt that anyone could probably understand this if it was spoken. I think it illustrates the fact that chinese requires parsing words within a context moreso than other languages, but in written form this poem makes sense...but in pin yin of any form i can't conceive ANY person understanding what the heck is being discussed.

Characters are about helping make chinese less ambiguous about the language -and moving to a phonetic roman system absolutely destroys that because relying on phonetic aspects alone isn't enough to really clarify the language..


Anyways to the OP:
English of course...which it sounds like you have And then Chinese for sure. After that it really depends what else will be a big force - the Middle East seems to be gaining importance like crazy these past 50 years so I can see the wisdom in leanring that. Japanese can always prove to be useful so as long as Japan remains one of the top economies...Spanish in America has a lot of utility (and that is why I would learn it and why I did study it...I wouldn't learn it for "South America" for sure)
and ultimately, if you want to learn a language because you like it...that is the BEST reason!

For me ,I've settled on Arabic, Chinese and English

 

[0roo0roo]

are you sure its the same sound? atleast in cantonese its not really the same sound, there is a pitch difference.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: sdifox
That's ridiculous. Language by itself does not determine whether you can become a great country. Look at the PRC press conference now, it is only delivered in Mandarin. Guess what, if you want to be there, you learn the language. You get to dictate the language of choice when you are running the show.

Like I said, I can't find the quote. I believe it was Chinese philosopher.

At any rate, written Chinese can be very beautiful, but I'd have a hell of a time learning it. I'd have to tip my hat to any "Westerner" that can learn Chinese as an adult.

From personal experience, I can tell you the priests are the best at learning languages I ran into one in Toronto that spoke Taiwanese like a Taiwanese... I was just stunned.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: IcebergSlim
why has nobody said russian?

LOL

 

[MagicConch]

It depends on what type of business sector. From a purely business standpoint, Chinese is only worthwile if you are in the right sector, as is Hindi (unless you want to tap the massive Indian market). On the other hand Spanish is always useful regardless of industry because it can be market-focused too. You won't see all of South America minus Brazil or India close up their borders to trade as you see China trying to do through currency manipulation and trade import control. To me it would be Spanish then Hindi then Chinese.

 

[mrkun]

Originally posted by: sdifox
From personal experience, I can tell you the priests are the best at learning languages I ran into one in Toronto that spoke Taiwanese like a Taiwanese... I was just stunned.

After learning Latin, Biblical Greek, and Classical Hebrew most people would be fairly adept at acquiring a new language I would think.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Whoops, I forgot one in my earlier post.

If you want to work for the CIA: Arabic!