Shall we study Chinese ?

On an italian newspaper's websites, they write that we all should study Chinese. As a matter of fact - they carry on writing - by the year 2015, Chinese will be the most studied language in the world and even nowadays Managers of various companies are requested to have a little familiarity with the chinese language.
Sure enough, we must consider that chinese people are as many as 1,400,000,000.
China itseslf is a country that has an outstanding econimic growth.
But - I mean - fancy that we have to study Chinese !
I mean: I myself speak some foreign languages (english, a bit of german, a bit of spanish, a bit of russian) but those are languages that use the same alphabet as my native language (italian) and have a grammar not so different from the italian grammar.
Russian use the cyrillic alphabet. But the cyrillic alphabet is not so completely different from our alphabet as the chinese "signs" are...
For example, in cyrillic, "T", "A", "O", "M" and many others are exactly the same as in our alphabet...
As far as I know - actually - a very complicated chinese sign could mean a whole sentence...
For example, a sign could mean: "Let me know if I have to buy some eggs" :D.
I challange you to keep in mind such a sign... :D
Furthermore I have heard that chinese pupils have to study more years than our countries' pupils to learn to write their language...
Blimey...

Well, the good news would be that if we manage to learn chinese, sure enough we have good job opportunities...
For sure ! :WINK1:

 

Come sta, Maksim?

Yes, Chinese would be the practical choice. But I'd much rather learn Italian.

 

I don't know about Chinese but I learnt Japanese for a short while and they have 3 different sets of characters the first two sets are fine and then you move onto the 3rd with something like 50,000 characters... but even most native speakers only regularly use around 5,000 - 7,000 mind boggling isn't it:D

 

Our Chinese all speak English already, and there menu's are easy to understand. The quality of food though varies significantly.

On a more sensible note, when I have had dealings with the Chinese, they made significant efforts to speak and write in English (enough to be able to discuss specifics). The same can be said for most Europeans (with one exception that I must not mention for fear of reprisals).
A typical English response to lack of understanding in a foreign language is to speak louder.

 

In general I suppose we don't try that hard as a nation to speak a foreign language as anyone who speaks English as a 2nd language will most likely attempt to speak English when your around out of politeness...

 

haha would we all have the same opportunity if we all had to learn, so have it on our CV? :D

Gee, I don't fancy having to learn Chinese and never in a million blue moons would get that around my nogging! I'm happy to sticking with Norwegian and Kvensk thank ye! It's not even just how their symbols are but even to say something slightly differently with, for example, an accent hiccup, then you could easily end up saying something entirely different! If I tried Chinese I wouldn't have anyone to talk to for all the nonsense I'd end up saying

 

LAY HOMER :D

to speak chinese is a nightmare ! firstly do they mean for you to speak cantonese, hakah, manderin the list is quit long i assure you !

i was married to a chinese man for 10 years he had little little english and i had little chinese made for quite enteraining conversations i can tell you, our daughter said it was easy to learn english from a young age then it is to learn chinese and at 21 when she visits hongkong she struggles to keep up with the chinese conversation !

lay homer by the way is a greeting to the same as "hello how are you"

And Gccg3663 is right people would often shout at my husband when i said he spoke little english lol

 

during college terms, half of Cambridge is chinese (loads of students)

they are also always flush with cash and are welcomed with open arms by local businesses

very nice people, but would help if they learn some western culture, such as standing in the queue at bus stops instead of pushing in

also find that you never see any of them arguing, fighting or being paraletic drunk/legless (unlike australian and south african students)

 

They do ignore dying babies though.

 

What language is "Chinese", as has been mentioned, there are numerous Chinese languages.

But then are they Chinese languages? My Taiwanese mate maintains that Taiwan has its own language, and that Taiwan is not part of China but an autonomous state under constant threat from Chinese imperialism. Could we say the same about places like Tibet?

So until they sort out their own internal conflicts, some of which incite very strong political views, I won't be burdening my tired mind with such things.

Besides, it was on the news a couple of days ago, China's economy bubble has burst, and they are heading into dire straights with high unemployment and many of their factories closing. I guess the importance of Chinese commerce will subside if things carry on as they are.

 

I always used to wonder why the kids played 'Donkey Kong' when there wasn't a donkey in sight. I was a bit slow to realise it was a mistranslation of 'Monkey'.

 

Fantastic. I never realised that.

 

If I shall reply in italian, I say: "Sto bene, grazie".
In German: "Mir geht's gut"
In Russian: "Horosho"
In spanish: "Bien !"

Unfortunately, I cannot say it in chinese...
Or - as you say in this thread - in one of the languages spoken in China (Kantonese ? Mandarin ? What else ?)

I think that someone willing to learn Italian is defenetely "in love" with the italian language.
He must be "in love" with the italian language because there is not a practical purpose to learn a languege spoken only by 60,000,000 people out of 7,000,000,000 people in the world...
Still, Italian is spoken only in Italy and in a very tiny portion of Switzerland.
If you consider the various products of technology (electronics, computers, cars, equipments, etc.), only a few cars are munufactured by an Italian car company.
The great majority of technology products that we see here in Europe are from USA, JAPAN, GERMANY and COREA.
Those who break up in ten minutes are from CHINA... :D (just kidding)

So I must say that Italian is not a relevant language.
But - I must admit - someone may likes italian either because she/he likes the sound of the italian words or because she/he loves the italian arts dating back to the Renaissance or ancient ages that she/he can see in such cities as Venice, Florence or Rome...

As far as I am concerned, I do not speak any chinese but I know just a single word in another oriental language: in Japanese.
This word is "REEGATAW". I guess that it means "THANKS" or "BYE" (I don't remember).
Anyway I remember it because it sounds like a word in the dialect from Rome: "RIGATO' " (in Italian "RIGATONI", a kind of PASTA )