Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 128 posts

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#101

Post by nradov »

endisneigh wrote: post #65
jamesaurichs wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are any business to do in China in the next 10-20 years. Foreign investment in China is down 90% this year. Again, international travel in China is down 97% this year. Apparently everyone else except hacker news readers are aware of the shift.

Such hyperbole. If you seriously think there will be no foreign business activity in China in twenty years let’s bet real cash on that. It is true that China like most countries at some point is experiencing a crisis at the moment. As an aside, I think Xi needs to go. Deng Xiaoping’s strategy was better imho. The semi-planned economy approach has worked surprisingly well for now but it’s clear it’s running out of ste…

The CCP leadership doesn't care what you think. Xi seems fairly healthy. He could be in power for decades to come. We need to plan around the expectation of a new Cold War with China and declining foreign trade.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#102

Post by nradov »

dahdum wrote: post #67
VerminOctopus1 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t help but think that if you’re doing business in China from abroad, it’s good to know Mandarin. Seems like a weird take to claim there’s zero value in it.

It's definitely hyperbole, but the core idea that learning Chinese is rapidly becoming less useful for Westerners is fair. It'd be a fantastic idea if you live in BRICS and friends though. I expect China to essentially dominate that group for the rest of my lifetime, at the least.

You really think that China is going to dominate India? Come on.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#103

Post by Noumenon72 »

lstamour wrote: post #63
vore wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you going to do any kind of business with Chinese companies without speaking Chinese? Even if you use an interpreter, clearly someone in the loop is speaking Chinese.

I doubt I can train myself to do better than ChatGPT can, this late in the game. When I last needed to communicate in Chinese, which I often have to for products I’ve ordered or other mishaps, all I did was use ChatGPT and compare the result in other translation apps to make sure it approximated what I wanted to say. I also included the English version for completeness and accuracy. While it’s true I should learn oth…

I am stunned that only one of 99 comments here mentions ChatGPT. If computers can transform one language into another as fast as I can type, why would I try to learn to do it with my brain? It's like majoring in the abacus.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#105

Post by idrios »

endisneigh wrote: post #65
jamesaurichs wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are any business to do in China in the next 10-20 years. Foreign investment in China is down 90% this year. Again, international travel in China is down 97% this year. Apparently everyone else except hacker news readers are aware of the shift.

Such hyperbole. If you seriously think there will be no foreign business activity in China in twenty years let’s bet real cash on that. It is true that China like most countries at some point is experiencing a crisis at the moment. As an aside, I think Xi needs to go. Deng Xiaoping’s strategy was better imho. The semi-planned economy approach has worked surprisingly well for now but it’s clear it’s running out of ste…

I can't cite numbers but I don't think it's hyperbole. A friend of mine recently did her Master's thesis on the effects of Covid on international business in Guangzhou. She interviewed a number of business owners and the consensus was basically that a lot of businesses that shut down because of Covid don't seem to be coming back, with most seeming worried about Taiwan.

But still, there was one business owner arguing that there's never been a better time to do business with China because it's cheaper right now, so who knows what will actually happen.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#106

Post by _xivi »

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…

China has shown how hostile and vicious it can be, and damaged its reputations as a safe business environment.

No one can sleep well at night, knowing that they're completely reliant on a foreign country with such aggressive and hostile policy. Which is why many countries all over the world are starting programs to diversify and promote local manufacturing to cut back on reliance on China, one step at a time.

So, don't worry about future jobs, for me, I'm betting it's downhill from here for China. They played their card too early.

It's not China vs US. It's China vs the whole world, china has literally no friends that share its interests because it's so self-centered and intolerable, not even many of it's own oppressed people.

In short, china reputation as a safe business environment/partner is already damaged, and if it continues with the same policy and overplay its hand, then in the next two decades its role will diminish and it'll be isolated, even if it was still super power by then.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#107

Post by ninjin »

hakfoo wrote: post #93
jamesaurichs wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/beijing-replaces-english-words-sub... The English word “station” was replaced with “Zhan,” which is the pinyin or romanised version of the Chinese character. In some places, station names such as Olympic Park and Terminal 2 of the Beijing airport were changed to “Aolinpike Gongyuan” and “2 Hao Hangzhanlou”. https://www.economist.com/china/2022/04/13/why-china-is-turn... Why China is turning…

This seems like a better choice for the sake of "compatibility". Given that English is not a major local language outside of Hong Kong, I'd expect there's a very high chance that an English-only speaker might need to interact with a Chinese-only speaker. It could be something like trying to relay their goal to a taxi driver or delivery person, or something as critical as trying to gain the attention of emergency serv…

I do not think that anyone is arguing that it does not make sense that we say write 東京駅 (Toukyoueki) for "Tokyo Station" in Japan and that -eki as a suffix is to be expected here. However, if you see a purging of already existing terms in a country, akin to turning Sauerkraut into Liberty Cabbage, it probably indicates that something other than an increased consideration for monolingual speakers is going on.

If what the grandparent's linked Economist article says is true: "The province of Hainan has launched a campaign to 'clean up and rectify' kindergarten names by purging a variety of words, including 'world', 'global', 'bilingual' and 'international'", it does make me feel somewhat sad, as I would hope that many of the terms they list as falling out of favour should remain positive and aspirations for us as a species regardless of the political winds in Beijing.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#108

Post by PrimeMcFly »

nradov wrote: post #102
dahdum wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely hyperbole, but the core idea that learning Chinese is rapidly becoming less useful for Westerners is fair. It'd be a fantastic idea if you live in BRICS and friends though. I expect China to essentially dominate that group for the rest of my lifetime, at the least.

You really think that China is going to dominate India ? Come on.

Definitely. China is significantly more unified and several steps ahead in most important areas.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#109

Post by hititncommitit »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #103
lstamour wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt I can train myself to do better than ChatGPT can, this late in the game. When I last needed to communicate in Chinese, which I often have to for products I’ve ordered or other mishaps, all I did was use ChatGPT and compare the result in other translation apps to make sure it approximated what I wanted to say. I also included the English version for completeness and accuracy. While it’s true I should learn oth…

I am stunned that only one of 99 comments here mentions ChatGPT. If computers can transform one language into another as fast as I can type, why would I try to learn to do it with my brain? It's like majoring in the abacus.

I think it depends on your goal. If it’s to communicate, I think it’s fine to use machine translations especially in limited situations like directions or something like that. But language is also a social act, and you can’t really build the same rapport with someone using a translator as you can by speaking their language- especially in person.

But the machine translations are not (and will probably never be) perfect I’ll show you why:

Habló con su jefa y le dijo que le tiene ganas.

Google translate: He spoke to his boss and told her that he feels like it.

Well in Spanish this could mean:

(He/she/you) talked to (his/her/your) (boss/wife) and told (him/he)r that (he/she/it/you) (somewhere between wants and craves) (him/her/you/it).

This sentence mind you, isn’t especially contrived. It’s just how people talk in Spanish. And while all of these potential translations are good, only one is actually accurate. The only thing that it certainly doesn’t mean is:

He spoke to his boss and told her that he feels like it.

Which is what Google said it meant.

The problem is that what may be and can be ambiguous in one language, often needs to be explicit in another language. And when it must be explicit, the translator or whatever’s translating makes a choice and you don’t know what’s being said on your behalf. And while you can certainly improve a machines ability to guess what’s meant, you’d have to change the languages themselves to actually solve this problem.

What I find most amusing is when English speakers complain about why Spanish uses genders and say its pointless. Because Spanish uses genders for precisely the same reason English does. To add specificity and make things less ambiguous.

I realise this is a very long way to both agree with what you said and disagree.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#110

Post by emptysongglass »

MissingAFew wrote: post #86
mensetmanusman wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A work colleague checked their phone when a protest happened a block away and was then interrogated on the weekend for 10 hours by state police. This is average schmuk stuff in China.

This is a singular anecdotal experience. There are 1.4 billion people in China, most never experiencing anything like that in their lifetime.

People aren't going to KubeCon China because of being harassed by minders. This is not an isolated case. It is pervasive and it is chilling.
Post reply on HN