Australia Makes Asian Language Learning a Priority

An anonymous reader writes "The Australian government came a step closer to formalising its plans to make Asian language study compulsory for schools this week. It has released a draft curriculum for public consultation which reveals plans to include Indonesian, Korean and french language in the curriculum. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard publicly stated in September 2012 that in response to the "staggering growth" in the region, the government would be instigating 25 key measures to strengthen and exploit links with Asia. The plan includes the requirement that one third of civil servants and company directors have a "deep knowledge," thousands of scholarships for Asian students, and the opportunity for every schoolchild to learn one of four "priority" languages- Chinese, Hindi, Japanese or Indonesian."

Comments

Indonesian, Korean and french

[Eunuchswear]

French is an asian language now?

(And why no capital for the poor old frogs?)

Re:Indonesian, Korean and french

[GerryHattrick]

My work colleague had rudimentary Mandarin. Whenever we had an official Chinese delegation in London, she would help me in the Boardroom. They were hugely delighted with her greetings, and the meetings became much more sociable. I was amazed that Chinese/Brit subtle humour had much in common, too. Of course we had a professional interpreter also on the team, but do NOT underrate the value of effort to learn some sounds in Mandarin, and (never mind the business) to laugh along with your ancient-world counterparts.

Re:Indonesian, Korean and french

[ShanghaiBill]

you would still not be accepted by native Chinese, because you're not one of them.

I can speak and read Chinese, and it is indeed a very difficult language. But you are wrong about cultural acceptance. Chinese people are very welcoming, and will be delighted and helpful if you make an effort to speak even a little of their language. China is a multicultural and multilingual country, and even some Chinese people speak Mandarin poorly, so they have flexible expectations about fluency. This is in contrast to Japan, which is like France, where they expect you to speak their language perfectly or not at all, and even then, will never accept you as one of their own.

Re:Learning is great

[Chrisq]

Every corporate senior person I've met from India - Director type level - not only speaks several Indian languages, but also has flawless English in terms of grammar and vocabulary

If you were dealing with workers on a factory floor, even skilled ones, your experience would be different

Re:Learning is great

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Learning is surely great in all forms.

. . . plus by learning the language . . . you also learn the culture. And be able to understand it better. That makes real business sense.

Re:Won't do much good

[jellomizer]

Well it is a step in the right direction. If you look at a globe Australia south of Far East Asia.
Sure they can do business with the Yanks and the Brits, but they are missing their closest neighbors.

Re:Learning is great

[Millennium]

Abram de Swaan identified a list of twelve "supercentral languages" that he believed serve as extremely common bridges among speakers of different languages in their native dialects. If one considers the region that people in English-speaking countries typically think of as "Asia," four of the supercentral languages are native to that region: Chinese (specifically Mandarin), Hindi, Malay (of which Indonesian is a dialect), and Japanese. This list was probably a strong factor when they were deciding which languages to use.

Geographically speaking, there are actually two other languages on the list that are native to the Asian continent: Arabic and Russian. I doubt, however, that the people drawing up these lists considered the regions these languages are from to be "real Asia." Make of that what you will.

(Incidentally, the other six languages are English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swahili).

Re:Exactly Backwards

[donscarletti]

Australia's balance of trade with China is extremely positive at the moment. China buys almost twice as much Australian stuff as Australia buys Chinese stuff, as opposed to trade with the US which is 3-1 in the red. So, hao hao xuexi ba.

Re:Exactly Backwards

[Kjella]

English is used worldwide when conducting business between two people with otherwise dissimilar language, but Chinese is still mostly limited to conducting business with China.

This. Before, people were mostly concerned with learning the language of the bordering countries because that's what was most useful. Today people have the Internet and want/need a global language of communication. While this graphic is also in many ways biased, English in the World shows most of the world has English as their first foreign language. That trend is only going to grow stronger because there are huge network effects at play here. While the US may be seeing a big influx of Spanish, here in Europe the trend is opposite - few people learn Spanish and the Spaniards learn more and more English. And I don't think it has any traction in Africa, Asia or Oceania.

Re:English...

[0xdeadbeef]

They can mandate kids pass a proficiency test, but three years after highschool, it will have made no difference

So, it is just like biology and physics and math beyond first year algebra.

The point is it does make a difference, for they are better for having learned it, because basic concepts aren't forgotten and they will be that much less ignorant (and provincial), and some of the kids will make use of what they learn, thus advancing their country's interests in international trade.

Re:Exactly Backwards

[smash]

Have you ever been in a business meeting with people who speak another language? Have you seen them confer amongst themselves, in your presence in said language? I haven't, but my ex has - and they didn't know that one of the english speakers actually knew French. The conversation that they thought was private was quite revealing, to say the least.

Knowledge is power. That very much includes knowing how to communicate.

Remaining wilfully ignorant of the language spoken by those you trade or otherwise conduct business with is pretty fucking foolish, irrespective of whatever "standard" language there may be.