23 Jul Should Our Children Learn Chinese?
At the middle school where my children attend they offer three modern foreign languages: Spanish, French, and Mandarin Chinese. Rarely does a parent of a pre-teen have the opportunity to directly influence their future career opportunities, not to mention personal enlightenment, so dramatically as when we encourage them to take several years of this language or that language.
In making this decision, consider these facts:
Chinese: Twenty percent of the world’s population, over 1 billion, speak Chinese, with 850 million of those speaking Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated that 30 million people around the world are learning Mandarin Chinese as a second language. Approximately 100 million Chinese are learning English. Over 2 million Americans speak some variation of Chinese, and approximately 24,000 middle and high school students in the United States are learning Chinese.
Spanish: Approximately 500 million people throughout the world speak Spanish, with 400 million people speaking it as their mother tongue and 100 million as a second language. 27 million people in the United States speak Spanish at home and almost half of those do not speak English very well. The United States has the fifth-largest Spanish speaking population in the world.
French: Approximately 128 million people in the world speak French, with 77 million speaking it as their native tongue and 51 million speaking it as a second language. It is estimated that 2 million Americans speak French. French is the 11th most common first language in the world.
So in light of these facts, what was my recommendation to my junior high children?
I am a Chinaman, and have learned english for years. To futher improve my English speaking and listenging ability, I want to make friends, via internet, with some english native speakers. But, there is no such thing as “nothing for something”. Therefore, I want to find some guys who want to learn chinese. So, we can teach each other and improve together. This is the my primary purpose.
Concerning the mothod for communicatin, we can use MSN or yahoo message,
My MSN account is lijiawei2000@hotmail.com
Yahoo message is my1988wo@yahoo.com
Come on, and act quickly. Let’s talk…
One of the best Americans I know who speaks excellent Chinese came to Chinese by way of French. Apparently she was having a difficult time with French and one of her college professors suggested Mandarin Chinese. Now she is Sally Harpole – an incredible lawyer in Hong Kong. I would say that from Spanish to French or French to Spanish is not terribly difficult and then one can get to Italian pretty quickly from there. Han ze hen mei keshi hen nan xue! (Chinese characters are very beautiful but very hard to study.) I think that is right. My first lesson in Chinese in a book written in French and purchased in Paris was as follows: 1. China is big? (Zhong-guo ta ma?) 2. China is very big! (Zhong-guo hen ta!) 3. Ru ben ta ma? (Japan is big?) 4. Ru ben bu ta, hen xiao! (Japan is not big, very small!) I really felt I was turning to another part of the world and a history of which I was very unfamiliar. The great thing is that your junior high children are learning a second language. When they master that, encourage a third language. In my 14 years in… Read more »
Spanish was the choice my dad made for me as well. Although, at the time I wanted to be a broadcast journalist.
Now I constantly let him know that had he let me take French as I wanted, it would have been so much more helpful in the international law context.
Even so, I think I’m going to enroll in a conversational Spanish class this fall at my community college to brush up on it; my fluency has been down since I completed my Spanish minor in undergrad.
But as they are presumably starting a second language 2-3 years in advance of when I started, they will also have enough fluency that they will likely be able to pick up a third at an earlier stage, if they so desire.
Your school can try to build an online Chinese school from Chinese World. Their education partnership program maybe is suitable for you. Chinese World is the largest Chinese Language Education Group in China. Their URL: http://www.learnchinese.bj.cn
There are some free Chinese lessons designed by CCTV (China Central TV) on Learn Chinese ( http://www.learnmandarinonline.org ). You can try.
You could also try Chinese-Tools.com, with great features:
– Learn Chinese: online audio mandarin lessons
– Chinese dictionary: with example and calligraphy
– Chinese songs: with lyrics in chinese + pinyin + english
– China Club: language exchange program
And so many more…
Enjoy!
I speak all the languages you mentioned, as well as Portuguese, Arabic (very rusty), Nepali (rusty too) and Bahasa (malay / indonesian). I have gotten by in Ndebele (a south Zimbabwean language similar to Xhosa) and umbundu (central Angolan language). I learnt five of these languages when I was older than 18 (they say the optimal time is before 16). However, I am not going to argue from a political or social perspective. Instead, I am going to make an analogy with learning to play the piano versus another instrument where you only play one tune with two hands (the piano, you play separate tunes with each hand) — best to learn the piano when you are young, then the other instruments are easier. In other words — learn the difficult language when you are young, all the indo-european languages have their similarities, the reason I gradually acquired 5 (fluent) + 3 (working) languages is that I was accustomed to re-wiring the language part of my brain.
The world dynamics may change in your children’s lifetime, but the wiring of the brain (according to the psycholinguists) gets harder to change later.
oh, but one more thing — do the grades matter? then maybe you’re right… 🙂
On a more serious note, I wonder how much of the mystique of the difficulty of the Chinese language is a) real; b) too many adults learning it when it is easier to learn languages when you are young; c) reinforced by Chinese speakers who like to maintain their (our) “uniqueness” or who like to appear intelligent at dinner parties!
But I agree with Benjamin Davis’ and Victoria Jozef’s comments — good that they are starting a second language, and starting young!
I would probably recommend Chinese, but I’m a little biased — my Chinese is far, far better than my Spanish :). I think that the difficulty of Chinese is far overrated, and with resources like ChinesePod available it’s a lot accessible than it was when I was younger.
Another reason for my recommendation would be because of how much less competition there is in Chinese. SO many people speak Spanish, and while Chinese is increasingly popular it’s way behind any European language in the number of Westerners that speak it well.
Still, learning Spanish (or any foreign language) it’s a bad thing. 🙂
I’m with John B., for similar reasons, but I think one’s decision to learn a particular language also depends on the purpose for which it will be used. Having learned both languages (Spanish in high school, Mandarin while in law school), Chinese has been far more useful in a professional setting, while Spanish has only been of minimal utility (and most of its utility has been realized in social, not professional, settings). Most of my prospective employers have been more impressed by my ability to speak Mandarin than Spanish, and I suspect it’s for the same reason that John B. pointed out: far fewer westerners are able to speak Mandarin, while Spanish-speakers are in great supply. Chinese could be what gives your kids an edge over others, both in their education and in the job market.
Fluency in French(West Africa, parts of Europe) and Spanish(Latin America and US[unless English only laws occur]), and some Mandarin/Cantonese business language ability(unless you’ll live there then you’ll need fluency for outside of the business environment)
Try Chinese Course for Children on http://www.hellomandarin.com
many American public schools also choose this course.