Some Georgia Schools Make Mandarin Mandatory

Re:Some Georgia Schools Make Mandarin Mandatory by seanmcdirmid on Sunday September 09, 2012 @02:59AM (#4495158)

If you want to do business in china, Chinese is sort of required. Considering the rising clout of china, it could become mandatory for work trade very quickly. Japan is much smaller (population) in comparison, and much more an island where you don't see many Japanese outside of Japan these days.

Chinese people are learning English, they are already better at it than the Japanese. But again, huge population, many of the powerful guys don't feel like learning or speaking English for face reasons.

Totally agree with you on language choice, learned Japanese in the 90s, never went anywhere with it. Mandarin has been much more rewarding. Take it from me, an American living in china.

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Re:Some Georgia Schools Make Mandarin Mandatory by grose on Sunday September 09, 2012 @03:27AM (#4495214)

Sorry if my post came across as implying that Japanese was "better" to learn, I don't think there is any "best" language to study.

Much like you, I studied another language before I found one that worked for me. I studied German, before I committed to Japanese. I had fun studying it, but I was never excited enough to the point where I wanted to move to Germany. Learning a language is a very difficult process (especially Chinese for English speakers) and having the freedom to choose to take a different language is what allowed me to find one that I was truly passionate about.

I believe that Chinese will continue to remain important, but forcing kids into it might dissuade them from finding a foreign language they truly enjoy. That's all I wanted to say.

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Re:Some Georgia Schools Make Mandarin Mandatory by seanmcdirmid on Sunday September 09, 2012 @05:34AM (#4495407)

Chinese is way easier than Japanese, none of that crazy grammar or honorifics going on, you just have to learn a few tonal sounds. I made my greatest leap in all but 6 moths studying in Beijing in 2002. But it's much better to learn a language in context (where they speak it) vs at high school.

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Re:Some Georgia Schools Make Mandarin Mandatory by w1ntermute on Sunday September 09, 2012 @12:11PM (#4496108)

That might've been your personal experience. But the Defense Language Institute, which has trained thousands of people over the decades, gives both Chinese and Japanese (along with Arabic and Korean) a level "4" rating - the highest one, requiring (IIRC) 2200 hours of practice. A large part of it depends on the individual - if you find grammar easy to pick up, then Japanese will be easier. The opposite will be true if you find pronunciation easier.

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