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Kenya Will Start Teaching Chinese To Elementary School Students From 2020 (qz.com)
Kenya will teach Mandarin in classrooms in a bid to improve job competitiveness and facilitate better trade and connection with China. From a report: The country's curriculum development institute (KICD) has said the design and scope of the mandarin syllabus have been completed and will be rolled out in 2020. Primary school pupils from grade four (aged 10) and onwards will be able to take the course, the head of the agency Julius Jwan told Xinhua news agency. Jwan said the language is being introduced given Mandarin's growing global rise, and the deepening political and economic connections between Kenya and China.
"The place of China in the world economy has also grown to be so strong that Kenya stands to benefit if its citizens can understand Mandarin," Jwan noted. Kenya follows in the footsteps of South Africa which began teaching the language in schools in 2014 and Uganda which is planning mandatory Mandarin lessons for high school students.
"The place of China in the world economy has also grown to be so strong that Kenya stands to benefit if its citizens can understand Mandarin," Jwan noted. Kenya follows in the footsteps of South Africa which began teaching the language in schools in 2014 and Uganda which is planning mandatory Mandarin lessons for high school students.
The first step of many towards English losing it's place as the premier language in the world and the world's "second language". More countries will switch as China replaces US as biggest economic power. No surprise it's happening in Kenya as Africa is heavily invested in by China.
A better investment would be if the world adopted Esperanto; so much easier to learn than Mandarin. Based on European languages, so very easy for an English speaker to learn- especially since it was designed to be easy to learn (2 months to become low-level conversational)... and guess who else is a big believer in Esperanto? China. China already publishes all their official news in Mandarin AND Esperanto.
I bet if the EU committed to Esperanto as a universal second language, China would too- and the rest of the world would follow. Makes so much more sense than the world learning English or Mandarin, two of the hardest languages to learn as an adult.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I wonder if in 20 years, Chinese people will be bitching about talking with "Yang" or "Li" in the call center when they know it's really someone from Kenya.
It is bound to be a lot more useful to those kids in a global commerce environment than Swahili.
China is doing this because they own significant parts of Kenya along with their debt. Kenya is behind on payments too, bet you really haven't heard much on that.
Om, nomnomnom...
The US and EU have sucked in our dealing with Africa, mostly realizing that the area is too hospitable to colonize, they just left it alone. Not realizing there is a population of workers being under under utilized, and can be supported to be stronger economies, which in turn create more customers.
I don't think it's that. Trying to get involved in Africa as a western company just gets a mountain of whinging twats complaining about colonialism on Twitter or other social media.
China doesn't give two fucks. They're rounding up religious minorities and sending them to reeducation camps. They won't care about international criticism from those former groups on Twitter either.
It's always a good idea to learn the language of the master class that bought your country.
I object to cultural appropriation of Mandarin and find Kenyan actions deeply offensive. This is one step removed from wearing yellowface.
In the short-lived series, Firefly, Mandarin Chinese was a common second language. So... a good prediction, or life imitating art?
And you americans worry about a few thousand spanish speaking illegals entering your country from the southern border... Your turn will come soon enough.
And what about all those whiny canadian anglos bitching because the big bad federal governement forces them to learn french in school. Try to avoid hearing mandarin or cantoneese anywhere in Vancouver these days. You too will be forced to jump on the chineese band wagon.
China doesn't need nuclear weapons. All it needs is to move five hundred million chinese along the border of the country they want to invade, and have them yell "BANG !" all together.
Disclaimer: I'm an American who has been to Kenya recently.
For English not familiar with the national language (Swahili), you see some Swahili words in The Lion King (simba, rafiki, hakuna matata).
Everyone is multi-lingual. You start with your local/regional/tribe language (20-60 of them?). You then learn swahili when you go to school or travel. As you progress and want to start interacting with foreigners, you learn English. Kenya was a British colony in the early 20th century. The capital Nairobi was founded as an British railway town, and people learned English.
China just funded and operates the new Nairobi/Mombasa railroad that's key to getting goods to and from the shipyards in Mombasa inland to other parts of Africa through Nairobi.
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/08/641625157/a-new-chinese-funded-railway-in-kenya-sparks-debt-trap-fears
New road construction has chinese-sounding names on the green tractors, not American Caterpillar or .Japanese Komatsu.
Kenya Airways has flights from China. I saw many Chinese tourists.
Managers of Chinese-owned operations would benefit from having more Kenyans know Chinese rather than possibly double-translating through English.
If you want to be successful working with the new Chinese money and management, it helps to speak Chinese, right?
Wake up western colonizers. China is learning from the IMF and World Bank of the last century.
English is the (or a) official language of Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, the three countries mentioned in the summary. This is about adding Mandarin (as an elective) in schools, not replacing English.
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