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Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

economist.com

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Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#111

Post by laserdancepony »

bohadi wrote: post #51
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…

>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. I don't think this is a fair take for a couple of reasons. Mandarin is unlike other languages in that it's written form is famously ideographic. Phonetic translation is all that is done in any pair {L, M}. I assure you there is no such thing as…

English is the lingua franca of planet earth today, and will be in the foreseeable future. No matter what you think.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#112

Post by laserdancepony »

lozenge wrote: post #83
parineum wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused at what you think isn't a fair take. It is pretty screwy to replace existing English translation (useful to people who speak English) with phonetic transcriptions of Chinese words into Latin characters (useful to... who?). Sounds dumb to me. > Mandarin is unlike other languages in that it's written form is famously ideographic. Phonetic translation is all that is done in any pair {L, M}. I assure you the…

They're talking about street names specifically, not traffic signs. What's the point in having a street name that none of the locals know because they know it by a completely different name? Btw, based on Wikipedia, China uses symbols for traffic signs like Russia and Europe. US and Canada are the exceptions who use text and only a small few symbols.

Btw, the STOP sign is both a shape and text.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#113

Post by laserdancepony »

version_five wrote: post #4
NN88 wrote: post #3

Soft power matters. "Cool" matters. China will always struggle against freer and more open societies that bring people into their culture, music, art, and other forms of expression. The comparison to what Japan and South Korea have done should be a wake up call for these places. Even Russia doesn't have the cultural cachet it did during the Cold War.

I don't think framing it as unilaterally China's fault is helpful. Obviously they have their issues, though it seems like ~40 years of increasing trade with them has improved their standard of living and backed them off of a lot of ideology, even of they still have a long way to go. The issue now is the regression back to isolationism - according to the article it's over the past 10 years that interest has eroded.

Of course it is their fault. They remain in a communist dictatorship with no regard for human rights whatsoever.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#114

Post by ahdkskf »

bohadi wrote: post #51
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…

>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. I don't think this is a fair take for a couple of reasons. Mandarin is unlike other languages in that it's written form is famously ideographic. Phonetic translation is all that is done in any pair {L, M}. I assure you there is no such thing as…

[flagged]

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#115

Post by Dr_Birdbrain »

tenpies wrote: post #73
samcheng wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it's about COVID now. The government has really ruined China's "brand" internationally. 1. You need an onerous-to-obtain visa to visit. There is no visa exemption. 2. Banking is a total pain for a foreigner. Many places only accept Alipay or Wechat, which require a Chinese bank account. Cash doesn't work well either, because the largest denomination is tiny. 3. Many US-China flights were canceled in the pande…

In Canada's case, you also had the CCP essentially kidnap two random Canadians who happened to be in China as retaliation for Canada's cooperation in exercising a US warrant against a Chinese national[1]. Good luck getting any Canadian that is not a dual citizen with China to visit, especially because CCP tyranny combined with Trudeau's incompetence cost these two people almost 3 years of their lives in Chinese deten…

Just want to be pedantic and point out there is no such thing as a Canadian that is a dual citizen with China. China does not allow dual citizenship.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#116

Post by hakfoo »

trentgreene wrote: post #97
hakfoo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don’t have a dog in this thread’s particular fight and am basically just doomscrolling on a Friday night. But I don’t think English is a nominally supported language in Quebec. IIRC all of Canada outside of Quebec requires dual signage in english + French, but Quebec only requires French. I’d guess Gare bonaventure is an artifact of that law rather than a translation strategy.

That may be the case, but you'd expect that a service like public transit is likely to have a higher than average number of users (travelers from elsewhere) that don't speak French and they still chose to minimize concessions to English.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#117

Post by MissingAFew »

emptysongglass wrote: post #110
MissingAFew wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not pervasive. Incredible claims require evidence, which you have none. If anecdotal evidence is enough, dozens of people I know go to China with zero issues regularly. Many people we know live there with zero issues. There's 1.4 billion people, logistically what got are saying is not feasible for a country that size. It's nonsense.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#118

Post by majikaja »

MJsGlove wrote: post #100

China has peaked. Anyone studying mandarin will be like those studying Japanese at the peak of Japan Inc. in the 80s. Globalization was a great time for some while it lasted though, hope some of you of age have made money during the zenith.

Japanese is still a great language for business. Obviously if one learns it then joins an industry that doesn't benefit from it that's one's own fault.

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#119

Post by mensetmanusman »

MissingAFew wrote: post #98
mensetmanusman wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My end shows $4-9k economy, $10-12k premium.

On what time frame? I bought one for around February. Maybe if you are buying same day it's that expensive?

2 weeks out. That’s arguably a reasonable timeframe in the business world (at least, pre Xi-mageddon).

Re: Fewer university students are studying Mandarin

#120

Post by mensetmanusman »

MissingAFew wrote: post #117
emptysongglass wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not pervasive. Incredible claims require evidence, which you have none. If anecdotal evidence is enough, dozens of people I know go to China with zero issues regularly. Many people we know live there with zero issues. There's 1.4 billion people, logistically what got are saying is not feasible for a country that size. It's nonsense.

Western travelers would fit more within the 10% or so of China with total wealth in the $100-$1,000k range.

These are the people with the means to challenge the power structure, and they are watched more closely.

If someone in this wealth range holds up a blank piece of paper, they may end up in jail.

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