ELT World » L2 acquisition

The Top 8 Reasons to get Started Learning Chinese

david — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:44:00 +0000

China (PRC) is experiencing a period of speedy economic transition, one built upon the back of a phenomenal catch-up, but which has also triggered a chain of social and cultural changes that will be on display for the world to see as we approach the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

With businesses now rushing to China (PRC), and the generations of Chinese immigrants establishing their specialties in foreign lands, the influence of Chinese culture is unmistakable in all the major cities of the globe.

While the Chinese people abroad and at home have had to live with their notorious Chinglish, many second-generation Chinese immigrants have shed the image of the broken English and now speak as fluently as any native speakers. The novelty of the new Chinese immigrant speaking fluent English has worn out, and now it is the Westerners that must tackle the language barrier and avoid wearing the tag of speaking broken Mandarin Chinese.

There are many reasons why someone would desire to learn Chinese . What might surprise you is that many second and third generation Chinese immigrants also want to join the club of learning Chinese, because in their haste to learn English, they have neglected their own mother tongue; Mandarin Chinese.

So what are the top motivations for many of us who want to learn Chinese ? We compiled some top motivations here for you:

For the businessmen/businesswomen; the savvy and culturally sensitive generation of business people realize

1) bring their products and services to a wider market.

2) the importance of bridging the cultural and linguistic barriers that have been the bane of doing business with China (PRC);

3) the advantage of having capturing information and data from the source of origin, thus avoid the Chinese Whisper effects. Small businesses and websites have also taken advantage of technology improvements to

For translators/interpreters; the influx of immigrants to places such as America, Australia, England and other countries now means that

4) the demand for professional language services are on the increase. There is also an impetus to

5) bring the research of Chinese academics to the Western world, much in the same way that Russian research has been translated and published in Western journals.

For interest groups/people; with the loosening of media and technological regulations and restrictions, the Chinese language and culture has been opened up to more interest groups than ever before. People who are fascinated by the

6) culture and language, as well as those who

For second/third generation migrants; with their roots firmly established in foreign countries, they are now

7) trying to recover their language and culture origins, lost when they were busy trying to integrate with their new environment. Also, second/third generation migrants who have retained their language skills want to give their children a head start by teaching them the language early, and wish to let their children learn Chinese.

wish to travel in the country and wanting to reduce the impact of the cultural shock are also very likely to want to learn Chinese.

Some useful resources:

1) Learn Chinese Pinyin [http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/]

3) Chinese school [http://www.yaomandarinschool.com]

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What Will Globalization Do to Languages?

david — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:22:00 +0000

Stephen J. Dubner recently posed the question, ‘what will globalization do to languages?’ on the Freakonomics blog of the New York Times. The article contains the views of some notable folk, including Christian Rolling, Mark Liberman, Henry Hitchings, and John Hayden. Here’s what they have to say about the issue:

“The Internet has helped curtail English language domination.”

Christian Rolling, senior interpreter and next chief of the French interpretation section at the U.N. in New York.

“English is like a cell phone provider offering the best plan. But if the dollar continues to drop, the most viable option could shift.”

John Hayden, president of Versation, parent company of English, baby!, a social networking site for English language learners around the world.

“If you’re going to combine many countries with different national languages — and do it by political compromise rather than by military conquest — then you can’t impose any single national language on the result.”

Mark Liberman, professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, blogs at Language Log.

“One of the intriguing consequences of globalization is that English’s center of gravity is moving.”

Henry Hitchings, author of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book that Defined the World, and his most recent, The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English.

This one of the most interesting articles I’ve read on the matter in quite some time, with each of the contributors putting forward some compelling arguments.

Read the full article here.

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Is it OK to Speak Engrish?

david — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:21:00 +0000

Language Transfer, (also known as L1 interference, linguistic interference, and cross meaning) is most commonly discussed in the context of English language learning and teaching, but it can occur in any situation when someone does not have a native-level command of a language, as when translating into a second language. So, if you speak Chinglish (Chinese), Czenglish (Czech), Denglisch (German), Dunglish (Dutch) or even Engrish (or “Japlish”: Japanese), don’t worry, you’re not alone:

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