mynamehere
[H]ard|Gawd
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Most of the idiots on the web can't even type in their native language, so what makes anyone think they'll be able to learn to type in Chinese?
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Chinese Language to Dominate the Internet
- Thread starter HardOCP News
- Start date
Every Chinese person in school MUST learn English. Maybe there are more Chinese attending school than there are people in the US, I don't know. What I do know is that even though they must learn English....they really don't. Many can barely form a sentence after graduation unless they study outside of school. Anything more than "how are you" "I'm find thanks, and you?" is beyond many who graduate. I would be like calling somebody who can say "Hola" a Spanish speaker.
Also.....everyone in China can speak Mandarin if they attended school. More people in China speak Cantonese by choice I believe but they still learned Mandarin in school and all classes are taught in Mandarin regardless of the dialect used locally. Mandarin is called putonghua, it means common language. This is China, there is no choice.
Technically, Chinese is the worlds dominant language if you go by the number of people who can speak it. However it is far from any kind of world or internet domination outside of China.
English is the official language of roughly 80 countries, Chinese is the official language of....one....but it's a big one. (I think only one)
First off, what is "Chinese"?
Most Chinese can't speak with other Chinese in their native language, because there are a LOT of different dialects.
I lived in Singapore for a few years for example, and the people speaking Mandarin can't understand Hokkien and Cantonese and so forth, so what do they all speak? Singlish, which is their best attempt at English!
British Imperialism for the win!!!
Most Chinese can't speak with other Chinese in their native language, because there are a LOT of different dialects.
I lived in Singapore for a few years for example, and the people speaking Mandarin can't understand Hokkien and Cantonese and so forth, so what do they all speak? Singlish, which is their best attempt at English!
British Imperialism for the win!!!
Monkey34
Supreme [H]ardness
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所有您的互聯網屬於我們
My two foreign cents here...
From a practical point of view, it will be useful to learn Mandarin. I have encountered many Americans/Europeans working in China during my course of work.
Those who can speak and write Chinese... well, let's say they are very much in demand (nice pay, house, legions of giggling females).
The ones who can't speak nor write Chinese, or could not be bothered to try, will not get much out of working there... and they go back to their home countries - bitter.
I know one guy, from UK, he speaks Mandarin fairly well and he is learning to speak Cantonese as well. He told me, "If you can accept the cultural clashes between your own background and the Chinese people, you had it made. Oh and once you taste yellow fever, boy, you'll never quit!"
Singapore is a melting pot of different races, religion and dialect groups.
If Singapore was purely a country of just Chinese people, you can bet your shirt that Singaporeans will be speaking Mandarin.
Singlish is a English-based colloquial language. Personally, I regard Singlish as a pidgin language. Unfortunately, a significant percentage of the Singapore population can't speak Standard English.
On a related note, HOR SEY BOH?
ChronoDetector
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I just wish there wasn't two different Chinese writing systems... Traditional and Simplified. PRC should have just stuck to Traditional instead, Simplified just made it more confusing.
Falling Anvil
[H]ard|Gawd
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I've actually mulled this point over in the past, supposedly the Chinese internet is like, the size of the rest of the world's internet in terms of content or something crazy like that so it would follow. If you can fix some of the pre-existing problems with the language and it's dialects (because grandmothers from different provinces ought to be able to talk to each other), then you have a potential contender for the future lingua franca on the internet. I am concerned with the difficulty of the language though, as someone who's tried to do a college course on it, I can assure you all it's no walk in the park to learn.
That might be the biggest thing stopping it from being the future language of the internet. English can be a difficult language to master as far as rules and grammar goes but it's relatively easy to speak. If a foreigner walks into a restaurant and asks "where find bathroom" in broken/heavily accented English, people would still understand his/her question. This does not work with many Asian languages because of things such as tones and stresses. A single word (spelling-wise/a single combination of letters) may have many different pronunciations, all of which could mean totally different things.
For example, in my native tongue of Vietnamese (which is similar to the Chinese languages in the fact that a word can have many different tones), the word chua means "God" if pronounced in one tone, "sour" if pronounced in another tone, and "temple" if said in yet another tone. And there's more, too. Vietnamese has 7 different tones; not every combination of letters has all 7 tones but most of them have at least a couple. I'm not sure exactly how many tones the Chinese languages have but it's probably at least 4 or 5 - point being, it's ridiculously difficult for someone who is a not a native speaker to learn.
bigpimpatl
Limp Gawd
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The chinese language and its iterations may be the most spoken and widely used on the web, but it is far from "dominating" it.
jojo69
[H]F Junkie
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seriously though, as long as you can swear a little and bargain for fuel you're good right?
Chinese has 4 real tones plus a neutral...which is really no tone at all. Good guess on the number of tones
What makes Chinese a real bitch to learn as well is that some of the characters when used together are far more than each single word would indicate. Some times, when characters are used together they are used to basically reference a story from China's past. To be able to understand Chinese really well you would actually have to study Chinese history and literature. This thing I did not know, my wife...who is Chinese... just told me.To be able to communicate on a very basic level, Chinese is not that difficult. Even if you get the tones wrong...most people will understand your meaning if they want to. Educated adults usually have little difficulty deciphering what I say in Chinese but children and others have a harder time.
The varying dialects and Cantonese are almost a moot point since Mandarin is the only language used in education. Folks from the south may not WANT to speak Mandarin..but the vast majority of them can. To say most Chinese can not speak with one another is not true at all under most circumstances. Yes, if one person is speaking Cantonese and another is speaking Qingdaohua or Harbinhau or any of the other hundreds or thousands of local dialects there will be some difficulty or maybe it will even be impossible which is why....every student learns putonghua (common language). Get it? Anyone who went to school in China regardless of the location learned and communicated in Mandarin.
To be honest, I am glad that the Chinese people retain their local languages.....but would be less than happy about it if there was not a common language for all to communicate in effectively.
TL
R - Chinese is Mandarin....so sayeth the gov't.WBurchnall
2[H]4U
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Wait, wait. Are you saying the idioits of the Internet would no longer be able to use the Internet? ... I am strangely becoming more fond of this idea the more I hear about it.
In all honesty, it depends on the amount of economic control China gains over the next x years will ultimately determine whether or whether not China becomes thee dominate language force on the Internet. People in India don't learn English because we make the best tv shows evvarrrr and are the ultimate in cultural sophistication. They learn English because you can make an excellent wage from knowing even some English compared to local jobs/wages. If that language-for-economic-profit suddenly became Chinese, you can bet there would be a lot more demand for Chinese language lessons in India and a lot less for English.
Truest thing in this thread.
English is the language of business. It's the reason so many other countries require them to learn it.
TechLarry
RIP [H] Brother - June 1, 2022
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I hope this ain't right cause I can't draw worth shit.
But me see's one hell of an Emoticon Expansion Pack coming for vBulliten!
But me see's one hell of an Emoticon Expansion Pack coming for vBulliten!
firas
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English is not my native but I prefer it as a universal language for the internet.
it’s a simple non-declension language with no vowel endings and other complications of other languages. so it’s easy to learn and I guess non-natives doesn’t sound so funny when they speak it unlike some other languages. also webpages with English letters look neater.
oh and it's funny
it’s a simple non-declension language with no vowel endings and other complications of other languages. so it’s easy to learn and I guess non-natives doesn’t sound so funny when they speak it unlike some other languages. also webpages with English letters look neater.
oh and it's funny
