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Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

economist.com

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Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#11

Post by jamesaurichs »

There is 0 reason to learn mandarin if you're doing it for travel/business reasons

In Taiwan street signs do mostly have English translations. A lot of citizens speak English, especially night market vendors. You'll also have a lot of native English speakers in Taipei due to expatriation from US and Canada.

In Singapore signs officially are in English. And it's one of the four official languages, which means most people speaks English.

In Malaysia people usually speak at least 4 languages. Because it was ruled by Britain before, people speak English fairly well.

Lastly, in China, well, nobody is traveling there now. International travel is down 97% this year, even after reopening. And if you're doing business there, well, there's no point understanding the contract in Mandarin because most likely it won't be enforced, and will favor local business anyways by the courts. What's really screwy is the government has replaced most of the English translation on street signs from a literal translation to phonetic translation of the mandarin sound. So even if your read the English part of the sign you cannot understand it.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#12

Post by rcme »

diego_moita wrote: post #8

Easy: 10 years ago Western companies though they could and should make businesses in China. Today, even many Chinese companies believe that China is not a good place for making business (e.g: AliBaba, Ever Grande, Country Garden, Tencent, etc). Slightly off-topic: about 15 years ago Golman Sachs would say that the BRICS were the next countries to become rich. Guess what... Brazil and South Africa reverted back to its…

China did become rich though.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#13

Post by jimbob45 »

jamesaurichs wrote: post #11

There is 0 reason to learn mandarin if you're doing it for travel/business reasons In Taiwan street signs do mostly have English translations. A lot of citizens speak English, especially night market vendors. You'll also have a lot of native English speakers in Taipei due to expatriation from US and Canada. In Singapore signs officially are in English. And it's one of the four official languages, which means most peo…

Do you have an explanation for China’s low tourism? Is it just latent fears of COVID?

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#14

Post by rcme »

fn-mote wrote: post #9

I can't understand this impulse. It seems blindingly clear to me that the international influence of China is rising and will continue to rise, and the need for Mandarin-English bilingual work will continue to skyrocket. If you do not believe that China is going to be an even more massive world power in the coming decades, then I guess I understand the drop in interest. I just cannot fathom how that could happen, tho…

“All the important jobs” seriously?

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#16

Post by zem »

fn-mote wrote: post #9

I can't understand this impulse. It seems blindingly clear to me that the international influence of China is rising and will continue to rise, and the need for Mandarin-English bilingual work will continue to skyrocket. If you do not believe that China is going to be an even more massive world power in the coming decades, then I guess I understand the drop in interest. I just cannot fathom how that could happen, tho…

this, from tfa, seems like perfectly adequate reasoning to me:

8Students in the West may have also soured on the idea of doing business with China. Mandarin teachers point to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 as a seminal moment, when excitement for learning the language took off. Since then, though, China has grown more oppressive under Xi Jinping. Its human-rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong have been widely reported. In most rich countries negative views of China are at or near all-time highs.

8i know that if i were a student in an american university right now, the thought of doing business in or with china would not cross my mind - kind of similar to how, when i was growing up in the 80s, there was very good money indians could make working in saudi arabia, but neither me nor any of my friends would have been remotely interested in going there.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#17

Post by shaneoh »

nonethewiser wrote: post #15

It's just not that useful. It's only useful in China and foreigners can't really conduct business there. It's basically only useful if you move to China which is just a handful of people and shrinking at this point.

Can't the same argument be made of almost any language unless you live in a bilingual neighborhood?

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#18

Post by [deleted] »

fn-mote wrote: post #9

I can't understand this impulse. It seems blindingly clear to me that the international influence of China is rising and will continue to rise, and the need for Mandarin-English bilingual work will continue to skyrocket. If you do not believe that China is going to be an even more massive world power in the coming decades, then I guess I understand the drop in interest. I just cannot fathom how that could happen, tho…

[deleted]

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#19

Post by MekaiGS »

rcme wrote: post #12
diego_moita wrote: post #8

Easy: 10 years ago Western companies though they could and should make businesses in China. Today, even many Chinese companies believe that China is not a good place for making business (e.g: AliBaba, Ever Grande, Country Garden, Tencent, etc). Slightly off-topic: about 15 years ago Golman Sachs would say that the BRICS were the next countries to become rich. Guess what... Brazil and South Africa reverted back to its…

China did become rich though.

China is not rich but a middle income country. China's GDP per capita is lower than Bulgaria and Romania.

Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#20

Post by nonethewiser »

fn-mote wrote: post #9

I can't understand this impulse. It seems blindingly clear to me that the international influence of China is rising and will continue to rise, and the need for Mandarin-English bilingual work will continue to skyrocket. If you do not believe that China is going to be an even more massive world power in the coming decades, then I guess I understand the drop in interest. I just cannot fathom how that could happen, tho…

> I can't understand this impulse. It seems blindingly clear to me that the international influence of China is rising and will continue to rise, and the need for Mandarin-English bilingual work will continue to skyrocket. If you do not believe that China is going to be an even more massive world power in the coming decades, then I guess I understand the drop in interest.

China is having less and less influence globally. Look at the decoupling. It is having more influence regionally. This is a global trend by the way - a weaker global order and a rise of regional poles of power. Regardless of this, English is the de-facto international language and China is hostile to foreign business. It's really only useful if you decide to move to China.

And even if this is not convincing, the trajectory of China is questionable at this point between allying with Russia, a complete disdain for democratic values with 0 constitutional protections (free speech, privacy, etc.), abysmal demographics, and shakey economics. There will be no Chinese global order.

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