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Why People Who Make Things Should Learn Chinese
ptorrone writes "MAKE Magazine is making that case that any 'maker' who builds, buys or creates electronics should learn (Mandarin) Chinese. MAKE outlines the resources for anyone wishing to learn the language of the soon-to-be largest economy and source of just about everything we buy in the USA."
China is poised to become the worlds largest non-native English speaking population in the world. They are learning English at a much faster rate than any Americans can learn Chinese.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
That Was The Week That Was
What remote evidence is there that the PRC will ever be the world's largest economy? They're displaying symptoms characteristic with a bubble, and their GDP is only roughly half of that of the US. Or is massive growth going to continue forever, just like it was going to for Japan and South Korea?
It's important to learn Chinese so that when you are doing business with Chinese people in English, you can understand what they are saying about you behind your back, cause that's what people do when they speak foreign languages.
Well, if you wanted to learn a language with the largest number of speakers, Mandarin Chinese would be your best bet.
why? So I can save a few bucks on some shit PCB's while giving the knockoff capital of the world the blueprints?
Maybe its just me, but that sounds pretty fucking dumb
Absolutely true. To deny this is to not understand that the shift to offshore manufacturing isn't in its early or even mid stages - it has happened.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
I remember the 1980s when everybody said that you'll need to learn Japanese. In popular culture the Japanese were shown as our future overlords.
I already bought Rosetta Stone - Klingon edition to try to fit in on slashdot.
So, while I'm at it, should I learn how to read traditional, or simplified Chinese?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)
Life imitates art, or as is often the case, sci-fi is "Future History".
My dad owned the same electric can opener my whole life, which is to say it over 30 years old.
My dad owned the same clothes dryer my whole life, which is to say it over 30 years old.
I cant find an electric can opener that lasts 6 months.
Therefore I say:
The Chinese need to learn to make things.
America, Fuck yea.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
You're kidding, right? Look up Uighurs if you want one example...
Yea, I remember this kind talk about the Japanese back in the 1980s( yea I'm old, get off my lawn ). Ooooh, better learn Japanese if you want to succeed in business, Ooooh, they are going to take over the world with their mysterious asian cunning, that us round-eyes will never be able to match.
Glad I could put it into perspective for you. My work is done here.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
So the Chinese use Mandarin like the West uses English?
No wonder they are learning English so much faster. Either all the west can learn their merchant language or they can learn ours. By them adapting to us they can lock us out of their newscycle.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
China has a very large Muslim population. Every town I have lived in has had at lest one, and often several mosques. China includes Islam prominently when identifying its nations religions.
"Chinese citizens enjoy full religious freedom. China is not only a large country in terms of population, it is also a major country in terms of religion, with schools of Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism and others, and a total of 100 million religious adherents among a national population of 1.2 billion." http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zjxy/t36496.htm
Glad I could put it into perspective for you. My work is done here.
Can I go back to playing Okami on my Wii connected to my Sony TV that I brought home in my Toyota minivan?
NA/Europeans (not raised in China) that speak traditional Chinese even semi-fluently IN THE ENTIRE WORLD
1. Because the writing system is ridiculous (arguably 5,000-25,000 characters to learn, the vast majority of which one can find in an everyday newspaper)
2. Because the language doesn't have the common sense to use an alphabet.
3. Because the writing system is MINIMALLY phonetic if at all.
4. Because you can't cheat by using cognates (cognates vastly accelerate the learning of language, especially when living with indigenous speakers).
5. Because its a tonal language.
6. Because translation can require multiple (5-20) dictionaries, and using the dictionaries is incredibly complicated in and of itself.
7. Because we don't see language like this:
FEAR LESS LY OUT SPOKE N BUT SOME WHAT HUMOR LESS NEW ENG LAND BORN LEAD ACT OR GEORGE MICHAEL SON EX PRESS ED OUT RAGE TO DAY AT THE STALE MATE BE TWEEN MAN AGE MENT AND THE ACT OR 'S UNION BE CAUSE THE STAND OFF HAD SET BACK THE TIME TABLE FOR PRO DUC TION OF HIS PLAY, A ONE MAN SHOW CASE THAT WAS HIS FIRST RUN A WAY BROAD WAY BOX OFFICE SMASH HIT. "THE FIRST A MEND MENT IS AT IS SUE" HE PRO CLAIM ED. "FOR A CENS OR OR AN EDIT OR TO EDIT OR OTHER WISE BLUE PENCIL QUESTION ABLE DIA LOG JUST TO KOW TOW TO RIGHT WING BORN AGAIN BIBLE THUMP ING FRUIT CAKE S IS A DOWN RIGHT DIS GRACE."
If you live in the US, learn Spanish. Do not waste your time trying to teach yourself Chinese with rosetta stone, YOU WILL FAIL!!!!
"MAKE Magazine is making that case that any 'maker' who builds, buys or creates electronics should learn (Mandarin) Chinese.
MAKE has no idea what they are talking about. I DO manufacture electronics (electronic data harnesses primarily) for a living and fairly little of the parts we make come from China and most of what we buy is commodity parts. (wire, terminals, connectors, etc) Lots of it comes from Japan and much of it is made here in the US. Sure there are some parts from China but it isn't as much as one might think. The manufacture of many of these products is highly automated and China has no cost significant cost advantage.
Furthermore, virtually all sales of commodity electronic components are done through distributors. You simply are NOT going to buy direct from China unless you are a purchaser for a manufacturing company. Distributors have customer service representatives, most of whom do not speak a word of any Chinese dialect. And even if for some reason you did need to contact someone in China directly, there are a HUGE number of English speakers there. I've been to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chengdu and other places in China. It is NOT hard to find someone who speaks rather good English.
source of just about everything we buy in the USA.
The US has a $3.7 TRILLION manufacturing sector and most of that stuff we make is also sold here in the US. In 2010 the US imported $364 BILLION in goods from China or roughly 10% of what the US makes itself. A big number to be sure, but nowhere close to "just about everything".
China is a billion people, 3x the US, I bloody well hope they'll have a bigger economy than the US at some point, because otherwise it means that they remain poor. Same with India.
The sooner they take the "#1 spot" and the responsibility that goes with it, the better as far as I'm concerned. The US is still big enough to make sure its own interests are preserved, and Europe can then kvetch about China for a while, while the US can focus on improving its infrastructure and education.
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, German to my horse, and Mandarin to my electronics.
The cookie told me to.
the summary should probably read "I make the case in MAKE magazine". honestly, the case isnt very conclusive in the article, just really a story on how someone tried learning chinese.
The author states that he intends to be fluent by 2016 by studying in his free time. I don't think this is likely to achieve fluency unless you're living full time in a Chinese speaking enviornment. Of course 'fluent' word that tends to get thrown around indiscriminantly and rarely used in the linguistic sense of true fluency. If he means functional or conversant, then it's definitely doable. If, however he means C2 on the CEFR scale, then 5 years of full time study might be enough to achieve that, but it's not guaranteed.
I will say that he's on the right path using Pleco & spaced repetition. These tools mostly appeal to us engineering types, but I can tell you that they truly exploit the power of your memory.
Chinese is just a harder language than others. It presents numerous challenges for non-native speakers, especially westerners. These include:
* Difficult writing system
* awkward pronunciation
* difficulty distinguishing tones
* numerous characters associated with any given syllable which makes it diffulcult to infer meaning of new words that you haven't heard before.
* abbreviated forms, (i.e. huan2bao3 - huan2jing4 bao3hu4)
* Larger vocabulary. To understand 90% of all content in English, you need to know about 5000 terms, with Chinese, that number is about 9000.
So, if you're the type that likes a challenge, then it can be very rewarding, but just realize what you're really up against. Most folks who take it on give up before reaching true fluency.
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
...to learn the languages of countries that I might actually want to visit because they aren't yet censor-happy dictatorships / overflowing with toxic pollution / not biased against female children / not known for selling toxic crap overseas. I'd love to visit Japan, but you could not pay me to visit China any more than you could pay me to visit North Korea.
I have nothing against the Chinese people, but they allowed their government to get out of control, and their government cares more about keeping outside ideas out of its populace than improving health and safety and living conditions, and now their country probably un-redeemable.
I have a very hard time with new spoken languages. This is a diagnosed disability: auditory comprehension learning disorder.
Will there be accommodations or will I and people like me be tossed aside?
Aside? No, that'll be a waste - there's always soilent green.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Yes, yes, a million times yes.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
The issue is not whether you need to learn Chinese or not. It's about whether you really need to go to China anymore at all. I've been in the electronics industry for 21 years. Slowly everything is moving out of Asia. First everyone was in Taiwan, now they outsource to China, now they have begun outsourcing to Thailand and Singapore. With the many advances in automation, both from a flex manufacturing perspective and final product packaging, there really is no need to go there anymore with the proper upfront capital investment back in Canada or the US. I figure in about 10 years, the only reason you'll need either Japan or Singapore is for high-value production materials that the Japanese have invested heavily into already from an automation perspective and that downward pressure and competition will make it worthwhile to still produce there. Again this depends on what you make but for the most part if you invest properly in your own equipment you can do it yourself here back home and employ operators locally to boost your own economy.
Everyone in the USA should learn Chinese. For economic, political, and social reasons. I find it absurd that we still push Spanish on kids in our country as a second language, when the sum total of all Spanish-speaking countries doesn't have the economic, political, and social impact of China. I took three years of Spanish in school and hear someone speaking it maybe 3 times a month. I hear people speaking Chinese nearly every day.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Well, I sure hope for you you are being sarcastic... because the quality and energy consumption of any Japanese product is about 90% better then the US standard... you might not feel it yet due to idiotic import restrictions in the US, but the rest of the world is benefiting greatly from Japanese quality. As a matter of fact, it's quite awesome to have some decent stuff finally!
Okami: pressed in Taiwanese DVD-fab factory.
Wii: full of Foxconn components (China slave labor), likely Korean laser diode in the DVD drive.
Sony TV: Taiwanese or Korean LCD, could be either.
Toyota minivan: mostly made in the US (probably Knoxville TN).
What was your point again?
Taiwan's what we really should wonder about. China's very good at stealing tech from other countries, but crap-all at doing anything else except for destroying the environment and committing acts of barbarism against farmers and monks.
They held a massive expo. They're building huge skyscrapers, They've got crazy real estate prices, and now Americans are thinking of learning their language. They've got both bases covered if they want to emulate Japan, circa 1986. We all know where that went.
All we need now is for Time magazine to put China on the cover. Maybe they already did, perhaps more than once.
Despite all these contrary indicators, China rolls on... for now.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Just as in every other market, you have to look at supply and demand. The world is already brimming with people who speak English and Mandarin or Cantonese. Learning a language takes a lot of time and effort, and if you're past your early 20s you probably won't ever be a fluent speaker no matter how much you put into it.. Are you really ready to risk millions of dollars because you accidentally offended your client?
You'd be far ahead getting a second job and then hiring a translator with the money you make.
Okami -video game, video games, invented in Merica.
Wii - PowerPC, microprocessor, invented in Merica.
Television - partially invented in Merica, but not in Japan.
Minivan - invented in Merica.
Dont misunderstand me, Japan is a great friend and ally( since we put the 'act right' on 'em, nuclear war- invented in Merica ) and I adore Japanese culture, but lets please give the devil his due.
Glad I could be of help again!
Merica, Fuck Yea!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
There really isn't a substitute for having lived through something to provide some perspective.
There are a lot of ways the Chinese Miracle could go bad. I'm old enough to remember when Russia was the main competitor and how they were going to take over the world with their superior genetics and technological blah blah. Hell, there was even a Rocky movie about it. But then Rocky went to Moscow to fight the genetically superior Dolf Lundgren and told the Muscovites, "If I can change, then you can change and we can all change and make some change and hope and change and then we could all walk hand in hand into the bright future on the Moon" (I'm paraphrasing).
I'm sure there was a time not long ago when the people of England and France were saying "Those Americans...we've got to keep an eye on them or they'll end up being almost as powerful as our Roman Legion and Spanish Armada and then we'll have to deal with them". But of course, the British and French had gay sex and created Canada, and that did something, I'm not sure what, but they sure like their hockey up there. Hell, they fucking riot when they're behind in the second period".
Anyway, my point is, um, that learning Mandarin because you think it's going to give you some deep advantage in the coming epoch is as dumb as calling yourself a "maker" because your hobby is building steampunk costumes for your chihuahua. If you have to make up a gay name like "maker" then you should visit a tool and die shop in Berwyn, Illinois and talk to someone who actually knows how to make something without giving himself some fruity name just because Cory Doctorow says so. Please. Don't get me started on Cory Doctorow....
Now please excuse me, I have to go freshen up this drink. Did you know vodka/pineapple is a nice summer pick-me-up? You put in a shot of grenadine and slice of mango. Get a party hat. Hell, two of these and you'll feel like you're wearing a party hat even without the party hat. See? I'm a maker too!
You are welcome on my lawn.
Why would you need an electric can opener?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
bitcoin scam lol. its not a scam but it cost more to mine them then they are worth.
Sort of. But it was a very popular (for Lehrer) album. Here is the Wikipedia article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Was_the_Year_That_Was
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
No.
I demand that the Chinese learn to speak, read and write proper English! I will NOT learn their language and help facilitate their further infiltration and subsequent takeover of the Western world!
You didn't list any japanese products. I'm sure it's all made in China.
Google "Chinese ghost cities" and take a look. Strange stuff going on over there.
It's China we're talking about, you insensitive Western clod. Baidu for "Chinese ghost cities" and hopefully you'll see "better" information.
except you probably already do.
The "Oh the US doesn't make anything!" You see it on Slashdot all the time and it is so amazingly wrong. In fact, prior to the downturn the US manufactured more than it has ever made in the past, and prior to the end of 2010, it made more than China. It is now a close second, manufacturing more than everyone but China.
I think part of the problem is just people wanting to believe America is doomed and/or crap for some reason but the other part is people don't understand the very global and distributed nature of things these days. They also function by what they happen to notice, which in terms of "made in" stickers is a lot of Chinese things.
Ok well that doesn't mean anything but that final assembly was done there. The "made in" or "assembled in" mark has to be put on something where it was put together. That has nothing to do with where any of the parts or major part of the work was done.
As an example: Buy an Intel processor in the US and it'll generally be stamped from Costa Rica, but sometimes Malaysia. Well if you do some research, you discover they have no fabs in those countries. Most of their fabs are in the US (7 of them) 1 in Ireland, 1 is Israel and one still being finished in China. All the high tech ones, the 32nm ones, are in the US so that's where the new CPUs are being made. Why then the labeling? Because it was developed there? No, you find their R&D centers are in the US and Israel. So what then?
Well the chips are tested and assembled there (also other locations, including one new on in the US). The wafers are shipped off, and the chips are cut off, tested, and packaged, then sent back. However, since that's the final place they are put together, that's what you see stamped on the chip.
When you do some digging, you find that indeed the US does make plenty of stuff, not all of it finished products though. When the US does make finished products, you discover that their are parts from all over in them. It isn't a situation where many things are built, start to finish, in one country much less one location. Companies all over the world make things, and they buy and sell form each other.
The US has a big share of that, as I said, second only to China currently.
Yea, I remember this kind talk about the Japanese back in the 1980s( yea I'm old, get off my lawn ). Ooooh, better learn Japanese if you want to succeed in business, Ooooh, they are going to take over the world with their mysterious asian cunning, that us round-eyes will never be able to match.
Glad I could put it into perspective for you. My work is done here.
Well, last I heard (and yes, I remember the same things you do, they can stay the hell off my lawn too), China had more people learning English than the entire population of the United States. I don't think we're going to have to worry about learning Mandarin. Generally, the dominant economic power of any given period in history finds its major tongue becoming the lingua franca of the times. Nations that wish to do business with that power find it beneficial to be able to communicate with it, at least for the purposes of trade. English is that language now (thanks as much to the British Empire's influence as our own) and China wants to be able to use the world's facility in English to its own advantage. That's just smart, because it takes a lot of time to convert the global business community to another international language. If China wants to be part of the global economy, they're just going to have to deal with that, and to their credit, they are.
Whether or not China's ruling elite has visions of Empire is hard to say: I'm not sure they're a. into that or b. would be able to pull it off anyway. Time will tell. But I'm not rushing out to learn Mandarin.
Spanish, maybe. That would be far more immediately useful to me.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
After years of frustration while reading incomprihensible English instructions from Chinese products, it's time for revenge!
http://xkcd.com/605/
North America produces food for the world. If the Chinese want to eat, they'll learn English. If they want Maple Syrup, they'll learn Francais. ~:-)p
Indeed. Only non-mathematicians could mistake "x^3" as being "e^x".
[Write out the Taylor series for "e^x" and you will see that this mistake is extremely silly]
I am so disappointed my mod points from a few days ago have disappeared. I would have used (one of) them for this post. Sing on, brother, sing on.
ScrewMaster said it better than I could. Our dominance of world culture and innovation are carrying over, even during our supposed decline... at least for now. You can spot the winner by whose culture is spreading, China is starting to look like us rather than the opposite.
Actually, those of us who live in Mexiforniazona would be better served by learning Spanish, at least we will able to speak the native tongue of our future country/contested zone. At present there are more Spanish speaking invaders in my hood than Chinese, despite the fact that I live 5 miles from a major university heavily enrolled with Asians.
I too suspect that the Chinese are not interested in empire although the whole 'blue water navy' thing makes me suspect. I submit that its probably just a 'me too' thing.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
I lived in Japan quite a while. Way back when. If you spoke well enough to communicate you could get a job.
Today, I see ads for US engineers for jobs in Japan, and the ability to speak and write technical Japanese is a pre-requisite for engineers. So yes, it's absolutely true. If you want to succeed you are better off speaking the other guy's language.
It doesn't matter where they were invented. What matters is who is making them. TVs haven't been made in America this century. I don't personally begrudge Chinese or Japanese workers the opportunity to make a living, but let's not pretend that the fact that some American invented something more than half a century ago means anything about life in America now.
Party hats off to alcohol lubricated Slashdot posts!!!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
An English speaker (and for that matter a speaker of any other non-East Asian language) is likely to find Chinese harder to learn than any other reasonably common language, except possibly Japanese. David Moser's paper "Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard" may provide a useful reality check. He wrote it in 1990 while he was a student of Chinese. (He later got his doctorate in Chinese Studies and is currently Academic Director of the Chinese Studies staff at CET Academic Programs, an American study-abroad organization with a strong Chinese focus. He lives in Beijing with his Chinese wife.)
There are strong opinions that the transition from a manufacturing economy to a service economy is the natural progression, just as agrarian to manufacturing is... I don't know yet how well this theory holds with reality, but all sufficiently advanced economies (well, ones that lasted this long...) do move their manufacturing towards the developing world to keep prices low and resources in play.
I have been following the "Manufacturing job mantra" from the White House for the last year or so, but I'm on the fence about the whole idea. Things that are made here are done so not because cost doesn't matter, but the advantage of a more skilled workforce (or things like certain defense items which have to be made here in some aspects due to National Security)... However, it is clear that the economy benefits from cheap labor, and as a country expands its wealth and influence, the possibility of having cheap labor dries up domestically. It's the natural outgrowth of more spending power and more influence the working class can have on our form of government and our economy. Through maturity of the laws and power of labor, things shift away from the 12hr days for scrip... (which I don't think anyone argues is a bad thing to have happened...)
The fun part is when China matures past its "industrial stage" and has to farm out its manufacturing to keep competitive. (I don't know if the oppressive regime there will be able to contain the growth and wealth enjoyed by the prosperity of China's economy forever.) They might try, of course... because unlike the Liberty of the West, China does a good job of keeping their people just enough under the heel of the government's boot to prevent too rapid a rise into a service economy like Europe and the US.
*shrug* It's probably an interesting subject to dive into, if you can get past the boring theories. :)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Umm, a State cannot simply override Federal immigration and labor laws, can it now?
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I don't think I'm in denial at all. I have no doubt the balance of power is shifting (and really, HAS shifted in many ways already). Since the 1980's, the USA gave up most of the raw manufacturing capability that made us great in the 1950's and 60's. The plan was, essentially, to get the majority of our population doing less labor-intensive work, substituting use of our brains for equal or better pay. But this was somewhat foolish in hindsight, because despite the U.S. still having a big lead in supplying such things as Hollywood movie entertainment and considerable success with computer software products, there's no denying that everyone needs numerous "hard goods" which we now constantly import.
It's unfair to compare what the U.S. government says/does with the thought processes of the general public over here. I find a BIG disconnect between the two.
But that said? China's enormous population doesn't really guarantee them any advantages over other nations, prosperity-wise. For every one of the benefits China can obtain with those numbers (larger workforce and more people to collect taxes from on income, etc.), they have an equal penalty working against them. (The larger population means more people consuming resources at a faster rate and creating more waste/trash to dispose of.) I don't claim to know the actual math or anything - but I strongly suspect there's a "sweet spot" for the optimal population of a nation. Beyond that, I imagine you see diminishing returns on additional populace equating to a "better country".
Certainly, you see this with businesses. A small business needs growth in their number of employees to succeed and prosper. But once you reach a certain size, you become much less agile. Historically, it's these "mega corps" that usually wind up getting toppled by a small, agile start-up type of company (think IBM, for example, up until Microsoft came along and knocked them down).
The funny thing with the trend towards "globalization" is, all the major players' economies become intertwined, to the point where one can't really afford to let another fail. The "rising tide lifts all ships" theory about the economy has a lot of truth to it, but I think people often forget the reverse is equally true. If the "water" around your nation drops enough, it affects more than just your OWN ships! Therefore, I like that Josh Wheaton theory (Firefly) a lot ... that in the long-run, we may simply see the USA *and* China as major "superpowers", even if the U.S. never again sees a situation where they're the "most prosperous" nation.
but I already was supposed to learn japanese because they were going to own everything only 15 years ago.
damnit!
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
No, this is what freedom of speech looks like!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_firewall_of_china
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Funny enough, my last job had its corporate HQ in Germany, and yet it was corporate policy that all international meetings and communications of any type were to occur in English.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
There's a perfect Cyanide and Happiness comic for this post, but I can't find it on the Googles. A guy is sitting at his dorm room studying. Then there's an idea balloon over his head. Final frame, he's drinking with a lampshade over his head.
Screw the economic incentive. Learn chinese because it's a completely diferent language (if you are a germanic or romance speaker, anyway). It's fun.
*Standing ovation* Couldn't have said it better myself. Especially the part about that tool Doctorow.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Ok, let's suppose that China does like Japan. They grow their economy up to the point where per capita GDP is slightly higher than the U.S. and then their bubble bursts leaving them about the same per capita GDP or slightly higher.
That means the Chinese economy will only be 3 times the size of America's and 6 times the size of Japan's.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
The fun part is when China matures past its "industrial stage" and has to farm out its manufacturing to keep competitive
They're already preparing for that, in fact, by investing heavily into African industry - in many cases literally building it from scratch so that they own it fully once it's there.
Wood chips are still chips, eh?
Well done, sir. This is one of the best /. comments I've read in a while. It makes one humorous point after the other, and each point makes perfect sense. But at the end of the comment, I'm left wondering what sense any of it made at all.
"Spanish speaking invaders"
Funny California sounds like a Spanish word. I wonder if this indicates which invasive colonial land grabbers first staked a claim to it.
As you may need to it spelling out: Mexicans!
And, does not the fact that many of the "invaders" have plenty of native heritage indicate that they have more/as much right to be there as you?
"You can spot the winner by whose culture is spreading"
You pretty much said it yourself, China have not, much, yet expressed an interest in exporting cultural hegemony. And, besides (as the theory goes) America is at the tail end of its dominance, the cultural capital you currently enjoy is due to the century passed, and does not, as such, determine your future cultural trajectory, nor that of the world.
So, why dont you fuck of to the beach, California man.
Conventional wisdom has it that China lags India in English proficiency, for obvious reaons. However, this report says:
"Asia’s English proficiency scores show that reputations are not always accurate. Take for example the nearly equivalent scores of China and India. Despite its British colonial legacy and reputation as an English-speaking nation, India is today no more proficient in English than rapidly improving China."
http://www.ef.com/sitecore/__/~/media/efcom/epi/pdf/EF-EPI-2011.pdf?ctr=ca
One minor difference being that there are only 130 million Japanese speakers, but something like 850 million Mandarin speakers (thanks Wikipedia).
"Since the 1980's, the USA gave up most of the raw manufacturing capability that made us great in the 1950's and 60's."
This is untrue. US manufacturing output, measured in cost of goods produced, is near all time highs, and has been continually rising except for a small blip during the most recent economic unpleasantness.
US manufacturing employment has dropped dramatically due to automation and concentration on manufacturing of higher value goods.
This is very similar to the fate of agriculture in the US. 150 years ago, the vast majority of Amerians were employed in agriculture. Today, only a few percent are, yet those few workers produce far more food than the entire agriculture workforce of 150 years ago because of farm mechanization.
China excels in low-skilled assembly of products that is just hard enough to not be easilly done by robots. If it can be done by robots, it can be done in the US it Japan.
Learn Chinese? Nah. It is stupendously difficult for native speakers of English to learn Chinese at a level that provides an advantage. It is even more difficult to learn to read. Not impossible, but just very difficult. Your time is better spent elsewhere. Tons of Chinese are learning the international language, English. Especially little kids. They will be quite fluent when they grow up in 10-20 years.
Oh, you're going to impress Chinese people in your country? Guess what Chinese do when they travel overseas? They deal with the ethnic Chinese native to your country. So, you're a hairy barbarian who speaks their language? Congratulations. They still won't do business with you, or hire you, or be impressed in any way.
Chinese is a freaking mountain. The more you learn, the harder it gets. And guess what: Chinese people don't even speak Chinese. Millions of them speak regional languages. Mandarin (putonghua) translates as "the common language". It was invented so that a giant country could have a dialect that could be used nationwide, a great advantage. Meanwhile, America is busy teaching foreign languages in its schools and anyone who thinks that a country should have a common language is attacked as a racist.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Never read a post with linguistics, economics and multivariate statistics in a single paragraph. I salute you
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
./ needs some kind of über-meta-moderation for those rare +5 Funny that really should be +500 Funny.
There's definitely a case for learning Mandarin so you can talk to people in Taiwam. That's why I'm doing it. Mandarin is an interesting language too - in an odd sort of way its very user unfriendliness makes it fascinating.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
"They are learning English at a much faster rate than any Americans can learn Chinese"
That's an interesting comment. Do you mean Chinese folk are more clever than Americans, or more highly motivated, or something else?
Educated people in Europe spoke Latin until the late 1600s, way past the "supposed decline" of the Roman Empire. Oh wait, that was a real decline. On the other hand, Latin ruled as a lingua franca for a long time afterwards. On the third hand (if I may borrow one of yours for a moment) I doubt that the Chinese are as enamored with English as the Europeans were with Latin.
It depends.
The rates fluctuate, sometimes wildly.
New things are always on the horizon
Interresting how people think it is that simple, but agriculture is actually a big industry in the US, even when compared to the rest of the world.
Although you could make a point about how it is very mechanicalized now, so atleast it is industrialized.
New things are always on the horizon
Some argue this is a fallacy - manufacturing is making gains in efficiency much much faster than the service sector - this overstates the degree to which manufacturing has declined and understates its importance - from Ha-Joon Chang "23 things they didn't tell you about capitalism". He goes on to point out that although increased efficiencies have reduced the relative contribution of manufacturing, manufacturing is still quite important to some very successful advanced economies. Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Finland, and Sweden have the highest levels of industrial output per head of population. The same author also points out that the low tradability of services may result in service based economies having problems with their balance of payments.
they're still just 1 market.
Despite the giant market that they are, it probably doesn't help your companies competitiveness if 20 people speak mandarin vs 2 or 3.
There are still more people who are not Chinese than those who are and if you want to break into other markets, well..
Frankly just don't waste your time because everyone else is better (more prolific) at learning English than English speakers seem to be at learning other languages. Even in Asia, Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, etc all do business in English because they're all learning English. Just let them do all the hard work because their biggest market has English in common. Work smarter, not harder. In fact, ignore all advice about learning a language for business because no matter who you're going to do business with, they're probably learning English right now.
Interestingly enough, a lot of foreigners say the same thing about English. When you step back and look at English, you won't have trouble finding lots of fabulously stupid constructs and notions. At least with Chinese its the way it is because it evolved over a very long period of time. English, on the other hand, is largely the way it is because it was specifically crafted this way over time. Of the two, English is far more embarrassing. Though from what I've heard, far easier.
...learning Spanish would be far more useful for those of us who already don't speak Spanish.
And btw, many of us do, for those who like to hard on Americans not knowing a second language. (My Spanish is lame, but passable).
We have a cheap labor pool in Central America that will be picking up the slack once the Chinese workers become too expensive and the price of fuel rises enough... which it will soon.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
>> I too suspect that the Chinese are not interested in empire although the whole 'blue water navy' thing makes me suspect. I submit that its probably just a 'me too' thing. For the Han Chinese the Opium Wars have just ended and they finally won. They will now attempt to resume their 4000 or so year history of being the dominant power on the planet and recover from the bad history of the past 500 years. The Han do in fact seek to reassert their historic role in history minus isolationism.This is quite different from the goals of the Western capitalist mafia who are more or less just Borgia's + 500 years.
I'd still like to lean to read Japanese, then I could enjoy the bulk of Tezuka's Manga that was NOT translated into English.
This deserves a 6.
That will work out as well for them as it did for Europe.
The 'leaders' of the African nations will just nationalize the industry, wreck it, then blame the mess on the Chinese. The 20th century has dozens of examples.
Africa wins. Africans lose.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Stupid constructs and notions? No. Homogeneity is not a sign of intelligence (or lack thereof). It's really sad to me that people see all of our (anglophones') variegated forms of words and totally ignore the individual histories of suffixes, conjugations, etc. "-Or and -er are just the same! Strike one from the record!" It's nauseating really.
Plus, I'm not sure what party you think "crafted" English over time... was it the Celts, Romans, Normans, etc. all conspiring together? Not to mention that there are 100's of dialects of English, all with their own interesting stories. It is a language with a rich history whether you want to believe so or not.
You really have no idea what you're talking about. Sad. Typical for /. these days so I guess you're in good company.
Do enlighten us O Holy and Great Commander of All Knowledge!
Still beats the 'made in the us' label when it should say: made 5 meters across the mexican border by mexicans...
Unlike European governments, which have suddenly found out that machine-gunning the natives to quell them down is no longer considered acceptable by their own population, Chinese don't really have that problem (judging by Tibet). Maybe they will eventually, but I suspect it'll take a while - and in the meantime, they will enjoy all the benefits of being a colonial empire.
Wait. Americans start the first foreign language in 7th grade? Thats ridiculous. I think 10y should be the latest point to start, after that language is more or less hardwired.
FWIW, I started studying Japanese in 9th grade at the age of 14. Had it in high school for two years, then the program was dropped for lack of students, and I took once-weekly night classes for the next two years (because I'm a geek). I didn't take any my first year of college (choosing instead to take intensive Spanish and a semester of Chinese), and got back into it in my second year. Spent 6 months living with a host family in northern Japan between my sophomore and junior years.
When last I was living in Japan, I could fool folks on the phone (you know, where they couldn't see me) into thinking I was Japanese.
Mind you, I'm a decent mimic anyway, with an ear for accents. Always have been, so far as I can remember. And time spent living in the language and culture is hard to beat, and not something that most second-language-learners in the US ever really get around to doing.
That aside, the basic premise that language is hardwired after some age in the early teens is, frankly, bupkus. The main age-related issue regarding language acquisition has vastly more to do with social awareness -- part of learning any language is experimenting with making the sounds until you can sound like a native, and playing around with words until you have a solid grasp of valid syntax and grammar. For example, I can guarantee you that a 5-year-old will have far fewer compunctions about going "ba ba ba flub bla bla" on the bus than anyone who has gotten as far as puberty.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
What makes Mandarin hard is learning thousands of characters. Also it doesn't have tenses in the way that pretty much every other language on Earth does. I.e. it's a lot easier to move from one Indo European language to another since the mapping is more or less 1:1. That definitely isn't true between Chinese and an Indo-European language. In fact it probably isn't true between Chinese and for example Japanese.
What would make English hard is spelling I suspect. Also it's got a very complicated ancestry - you can see bits of Scandinavian, French, Latin and Germanic in English. Modern vernacular Mandarin by contrast is very recent - the switch from Classical Mandarin is 20th Century. It's actually a younger language than Esperanto. But it's hard to really say because English was the first language I spoke. So I didn't really learn it the way people learn foreign languages.
I suspect even if I hadn't learned it growing up it wouldn't be that hard to learn because it is so ubiquitous and the odds are I would have learned another Indo European language.
It's also worth pointing out that in English if you can form the Present Continuous that covers a very large percentage of use cases.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I know the value of learning languages you'll never use again: very very small.
As with most things having to do with language, it depends on the context. (<-- a linguist's way of saying YMMV.)
I'm a Japanese-English translator with an interest in Japanese word formation patterns, archaeology, and human migration patterns. I'm currently studying Navajo of all things, simply out of curiosity and because I love a good puzzle. I have zero opportunity to use it in speaking, and a very limited opportunity to use it in written form, primarily by puzzling out articles on the Navajo Wikipedia.
Despite the apparent sheer uselessness to me of studying Navajo, I have still found it helpful in nudging my brain this way or that with regard to looking at Japanese word formation. Note that I am in no way arguing that Navajo and Japanese are somehow related -- any relation would have to be so distant and so long ago as to be of dubious utility anyway. But I *have* found that studying the language has prompted new productive lines of thought in my study of Japanese.
So, from my point of view at least, the value of learning languages you'll never use again can be quite large indeed -- depending on your specific circumstances.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The problem with Chinese is just it's such an awful language, with a bizarre and retarded method of writing it down which just makes it incredibly hard to learn.
What makes it "awful"? I find it quite lovely to listen to, at least when spoken clearly as it is in the soundtrack of the movie Hero. The use of aspect markers instead of tense and the way that verbs do not conjugate, as well as the way that nouns have no plural, gender, or case distinctions, all make Chinese much easier to learn.
And when it comes to writing, anyone writing in English has no grounds for complaint -- both Chinese and English are written using a limited number of graphic elements (radicals vs. letters) combined in specific ways to form specific words. Both writing systems require years of study before they can be used productively (though less study just to read -- this is one example of the difference between passive use [reading] and active, productive use [writing]). Both writing systems contain obscure elements/words that are best left to specialists or arcana buffs. Basic texts in both writing systems make repeated use of the same elements/words.
Written English has the benefit of purveying sound information, but with notable lacunae and complications -- the word chough is a good example (apparently pronounced chuff), or perhaps slough would be better (I've heard slow, slue, and sluff, depending on region and context). Meanwhile, written Chinese has the benefit of purveying meaning, regardless of pronunciation -- allowing its use to write down very different languages, including all of the Chinese dialects, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. (Bonus points for folks who are at least passingly aware of CJKV text processing issues.)
I suspect the Chinese will end up learning English, not English speakers learning Chinese.
This I agree with, though for different reasons -- I think this will happen because (1) most native English speakers in the US (and possibly in other countries?) tend to exhibit a certain sense of entitlement (and ensuing complacency and hubris) from the long years of being near or at the top of the geopolitical dog pile, and (2) people on the rise and trying to make something of themselves tend to have the ambition and drive to get in and get to work.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
This is because almost anybody can learn English faster than Chinese. This is the reason why children begin communicating at an earlier age in the west than their equivalent Chinese counterparts.
This claim is wildly at odds with what I have seen -- spending time with both native-English and native-Chinese families, I saw zero appreciable difference in the ages at which children began communicating.
Besides which, the vagaries of English (verbs inflect for person and tense, tenses are varied and inconsistent, nouns inflect for number and gender, comparatives are inconsistent, articles exist and can be either definite or indefinite in hard-to-define ways, etc) that are not shared by Chinese would suggest that English would be the harder language to learn.
Do you have any references to back up either of these arguments? If so, I'd be quite interested in reading them.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
California is a Spanish word... last I checked a map, Spain was a part of Europe, which make it a hell of a lot closer to the where my ancestors were born than Mexico. So yea.. nice try, you get an 'A' for effort, but an 'F' for ignorance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_name_California
"The name California is the fifth-oldest surviving European place-name in the U.S. and was applied to what is now the southern tip of Baja California as the island of California by a Spanish expedition led by Diego de Becerra and Fortun Ximenez who landed there in 1533 at the bequest of Hernán Cortés."
"... fifth-oldest surviving European place-name" Damn, sucks dont it?
Mexicans are descended from the Spaniards. Think about it, you are not as mucha 'minority' as you would like, you are a European as well, you are... one of us... one of us... one of us... one of us.
Also, I like to say that, before you start on your racist rant, all my friends are brown and red. My wife and children are Native American- they think your ass dont belong here either.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
And, last i checked Spanish is the first language of Mexico. And, yes California was first part of Mexico, until it was taken by the U.S.
I am quite aware of where the Spanish language comes from.
Mexicans are descendants of Spanish and native Americans, hence "native heritage". Have you ever seen a Spaniard? Clue, they don't tend to look Mexican.
So, you get an A+ for completely missing the point.
And, why do you think i will respond with a racist rant. From what is evidenced here, it is more likely that would be you.
If your wife doesn’t think Mexicans belong there, then she is rather inconsistent in her beliefs to some how think you do. Please note, i am not saying that you don't belong, i am just saying that, logically, Mexicans have as much right to be there, if not more.
"And, last i checked Spanish is the first language of Mexico. And, yes California was first part of Mexico, until it was taken by the U.S."
Are you, angry about this? If the U.S. and not 'taken' California, how would your life be different?
"I am quite aware of where the Spanish language comes from."
Ok then we are off to a good start, glad to have that out of the way.
"Mexicans are descendants of Spanish and native Americans, hence "native heritage". Have you ever seen a Spaniard? Clue, they don't tend to look Mexican."
Your complaint is that the US committed an offense by 'taking' California, this language I don't quite understand...
California is still there isn't it, like the dirt and the sky an the beach right? California is full of "native heritage" yes?
I would venture a bet that there are more ethnic Mexicans in California now than when it was 'taken'(whatever that means).
So, again, whats the problem? You in the Mexican Army? You a Mexican diplomat?
You of course know that the Mexican government already has it own country, right? You also know every day thousands of Mexicans brave the desert to get out of that country and into a country that USED to be Mexico? And therefore we can assume that it sucks... wait, let me think about it.... LESS than the country these poor people are trying to escape from.
And you are upset that the country that the Mexicans are escaping INTO isn't Mexico?
No, that cant be right.
Let me ask you -where do Mexican nationals NOT have the right to go? Lets start there
I await your answer.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Oh jesus your difficult. I was a bit heated to begin with, i apologise. But, to be honest it can make me angry, that Mexicans are treated as invaders, which is true if you also consider the US as invading, but they themselves where invaded to begin with, and then treated as if they dont belong, echoes of Israel/Palestine. It is true that Mexico did the same to Native North Americans.
...
Oh wait, i think i get it, the US took it so Mexicans are no longer welcome, because they have been usurped. Is that what you are saying.
I think we are arguing past each other.
So, lets just call it quits.
Your argument that "California is still there" is a wind-up right, if not i think you might be taking my statement a little bit literally, i dont mean taken as in moved, but you know that, you are winding me up. Let me clarify: I do not think that U.S. has no right to Cali (though it is arguable), simply that
Ok, so you give up? I accept your surrender.
You just dont get to come back later can claim you won...
get it? come back later...??? get it?
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Yes, you won. Your arguments are so clear and make so much sense.
I am just bowled over by your grasp of logic and argumentative prowess.
Here's a gold star
I would swear by the tone of your message that you dont really believe I out debated you.
Answer my question: Where can Mexican nationals NOT go?
thanks.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Really? How astute you are.
As far as i am concerned, they can try and go wherever they want, currently it is up to local governments to discern their own immigration policies. I was just trying to highlight certain historical and political injustices, as i see them. I believe that if you think it's right that your (actually our) ancestors could just rock up and set up as they saw fit, that those whose ancestors were there first have some claim in returning. It is a complicated issue, and we clearly have different ideas of social justice. However, if, as you claim, you have Native American family, you must, on some level, sympathise with an usurped people seeking a better life on land that was taken from them.
Once again, i am sorry that i was rude, you were right i was angry.
You are lucky to live in Cali, my family live there, and i love the place, i had the misfortune of being born in the UK. But, i'm dual national, so one day maybe i will come and invade the place too.
Cheers.
Yea, I kinda guessed from some of your choice of words you were from the islands.
You better keep your pasty Brit ass off my continent! What make you think you can just come here like it some kinda fucking country club?
Na, Im just kidding.
But really that IS the impossible question. Its easy to say a [non-caucasian] person has to right to [whatever]. However it next to impossible to say the converse. It a tricky-dickie that has been inserted into the discourse on the subject- you cant say, and they wont tell you. Therefore YOU are limited while THEY are not.
What if was was to sneak into YOUR home at night and set up camp? You would be offended. But i would assure you that its OK, why should you have a nice pad and me have nothing? After all I am of English/Scot extraction and dammit we are all in the together.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
As things are, Caucasian people clearly have greater access to resources and greater social privilege, in the States and elsewhere. I dont buy that its the opposite. I think that you have the idea that is the opposite because, due to ideas of political correctness, it is more acceptable to disparage Caucasians in public discourse. But, that really cannot hide the fact that really Caucasian people are still comparatively privileged, in all respects. Not that i don't think that it is important to promote appropriate language, after all it is through the medium of language that ours and our children's concepts of others are formed.
The idea that invaders are sneaking into your house is completely ridiculous rhetoric. I presume you mean move into your area, state, or whatever. So, it's okay for a white family to move in next door, even if they are fresh off the boat from Holland or wherever? What about if they are second generation Mexican? And how could you necessarily know off the bat? Frankly, i find it hard to believe that you are married to a Native American, or are even old enough to marry. The idea that we have more in common because you are of Eng/Scott extraction is ludicrous, if you really were married to a Native American i would think you might feel more affinity with Mexicans (as they are more than less Native Americans) than some random bloke on the internet, whom you know nothing about. My family is of Dutch and Mexican decent. And yes, we are all in this together, you, me, and your Mexican neighbours, so pop round for a cerveza and start building bridges, your children will be mingling with them and your family lines will eventually converge. Mexican-Americans represent a huge demographic in California, and sitting on your porch, being a self-entitled racist and staring down your new neighbours is not going to do you any good.
Im not talking about Mexican-Americans, like I said ALLL my friends are ethnic Mexicans, born here, their family's have been here in the Southwest longer than mine. Our children do play, we do share cervezas( we adults, not the children ;) )You misunderstand me. My original statement was directed toward the MEXICANS that tip-toe across the border every night.
Simply because there are ethnic Mexicans living in the Southwest does not give every Latin American in the world a claim to the USA. My Mexican friends.... wait for it... agree.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Alright mate. Fair enough.
Enjoy 'dem beers.
Peace.
You realize the Chinese aren't the government of Africa?
The AKs will be pointing _at_ the Chinese.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The Chinese have AKs of their own, though. And tanks, artillery and air support. And, most importantly, they're not afraid to use them, and they don't care about "collateral damage" so long as their goal is achieved. See Tibet, Xinjiang etc.
The math here is clear.
1 chinaman is never alone.
africans ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Besides which, when did an african ever manufacture an AK?
Yes I know some Angolans were, they never did it did they.
sig. congo vet, 1963 Belgian congo that is.....
I'm not sure I appreciate our experimental long winter night inspired epic lustforms being termed "gay", eh?
But then I AM from the anglo side of the Dominion.
Dominion = One of the self-governing nations in the British Commonwealth. Keep that clearly in mind as time goes on. Infidel.
Did the Africans seem unarmed to you? Matters little where the arms came from. It would take centuries of rust before Africa is not awash in cheap Soviet block arms.
The Chinese investments in Africa are located in (wait for it) Africa. Even if they can muster the force to hold them it cuts deep into their Profit.
The locals are all smiles while the investors are building the dam/farm/factory/mine. Things change when they are done spending and want to make money.
The only way to invest in Africa is by buying the nation first. That no longer works (though it is continuing to work for the DeBeers clans, they are grandfathered).
The Chinese will learn the same lesson as most recent African investors. Stay the fuck away. Make no long term plans.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Bermuda?
You are welcome on my lawn.