The Economist says learning Chinese is "a fad for misguided fools"

[Colossus]

Since there's really no "general forum" and this doesn't fit specifically with any topic area, I thought I'd post this here as it is one of the more popular ones. Mods--if you think it more appropriate somewhere else, feel free to move it.

Now I have grown to enjoy learning the Chinese language quite a bit, but according to Economist, the economic value of Mandarin is vastly overrated. As I said, I enjoy learning it, and I haven't stopped studying the language, but it is rather disappointing for those of us (me for example) who were hoping to apply the language to other fields of study.

The blurb runs:

According to The Economist, Chinese may be a fad for misguided fools. The tonal intricacies and delicate inflections of the Tang tongue are too much for those more accustomed to the Romance languages.

http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10180807

Read the article and tell me what you think. I'd be interested in your opinions.

[roddy]

Since there's really no "general forum"

The one with 'General' in the title might fit . . .

[liuzhou]

The article does not say anything about 'fools'.

It says, "The craze for teaching Chinese may be a misguided fad"

Not quite as sensationalist, but a good starting point.

[gato]

The article does not say anything about 'fools'.

It says, "The craze for teaching Chinese may be a misguided fad"

Actually, it says "Fools, Beware":

http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10180807

With its tones and horribly complicated writing system, Mandarin is much harder to learn than most European languages. The Foreign Office, for example, gives its officers four times as long to get from beginner to operational level in Mandarin as it does in Italian, French or Spanish—and only those with the greatest aptitude for languages are selected for it. The vast majority of Westerners who travel to China to study Mandarin give up, go home and forget what they have learned. Undergraduates at British universities find it hard to adjust to a workload heavier than that for other subjects, and many drop out.

[simonlaing]

I think the points made about many Chinese people learning english is a good one.

If you think learning get by Chinese one or two semesters will be "enough" then perhaps it is true that Chinese educated worker can do your job better as they may have better language skills .

However, most businesses in China have to deal with many suppliers, these suppliers often don't have strong enough spoken skills to negotiate smoothly though emails and Instant messaging is ok. In situations like these having good Chinese skills helps tremendously. It also protects you from Chinese interpreters who paraphrase things.

Some of the article sounds like sour grapes. Because Chinese is so hard to learn, and takes awhile it is not worth learning. That seems like a circular argument.

I hope I don't swing racist here but I think expats have a western ideas on problem solving, creativity and long term success that Chinese memorization intensive schooling doesn't stress, though they may have a large english vocabulary. Depending on your industry one type of skilled person might be better than another.

As some one who took some undergrad Chinese classes, the level is not very high, with professors with strong sichuan or fujian accents teaching oral classes. The amount of class time was significantly less than the US classes . There is more emphasis on writing which I guess is normal for foreign languages.

The amount of highschool chinese available is also overstated and they don't have A levels (SATIIs) for it last I checked. In London there are a significant number of weekend schools I think but these cater often to Chinese/Asian families.

The drop out ratio of undergrads studying in is true, with about 40% rate in the first year. Also many of the graduates getting jobs that don't use their Chinese.

The other issue is that it seemed many Britons don't seem to try as hard to learn foreign languages. Southern Spain and Italy maybe considered new colonies of british vacationers and retirees but the language learning is still minimal. So take that into consideration in judging the success and worthiness of Chinese, as the other options are not often taken either.

Have fun,

SimoN:)

[muyongshi]

With its tones and horribly complicated writing system, Mandarin is much harder to learn than most European languages.

Well for native Europeans speakers maybe, but not for other asians necessarily. I love how these things only ever look at one side of the issue. Is it really much easier for a Chinese person to learn English. I doubt it. With the complex grammar and over use of prepositions....ok you get my point. There may never be a "reward" for learning it but that does not negate the usefulness or experience of putting in the effort. We live too much in a microwave society. Am I misguided? Maybe. But I live in China so how am I misguided in trying to speak the language that is spoken around me everyday?

If I move to the states will I ever use it again? Maybe not! But why in the blood f*** would I want to exchange all that I have learned for having sat on my arse at home doing nothing.

[muyongshi]

For those determined to become fluent in Chinese, a good level to aim for is a score of six in the national standard “Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi” exam.

I got an 8 after 1.5 years of study.... so I guess I can quit now can't I!

[liuzhou]

Actually, it says "Fools, Beware":

Where?

[outcast]

Is it overrated? The answer is "it depends". I do personally know a girl from Sweden who got a good job there at a large multi-national corperation straight out of university just because she can speak fluent mandarin.

For those determined to become fluent in Chinese, a good level to aim for is a score of six in the national standard “Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi” exam. This is the qualification foreigners need to enroll alongside local undergraduates at a Chinese university.

This depends on which university you are going to and what major you have. Typically for science and engineering majors it's band 3, but for the social sciences it's band 6.

With its tones and horribly complicated writing system, Mandarin is much harder to learn than most European languages.

This isn't exactly fair since most European languages are related to eachother. It is much easier for korean and japanese students to study mandarin because it is much closer to their native languages, but it is much more difficult for them to learn western languages.

To say that its writing system is "horribly complicated" is a bit sensationalist. Every language has its own style of writing and its own difficulties. English writing is hard for non-native students because of the complicated grammar rules and word conjugations. Chinese writing is hard because you need to remember characters (so the biggest problem is vocab) and you would need to remember plenty of idioms to effectively write an essay. The grammar is different and needs some getting used to, but not nearly as complicated. Every language is hard just in different ways.

[venture160]

my job requires me to work with the government on a daily basis, and if you guessed their english sucks, so in and out of the office its 80% Chinese. If I didn't speak or read Chinese there is now way I could do this job. But then again, I am in a field with limited career openings.

[Shadowdh]

Wow and the economist also predicted the end of the cold war too didnt it... oh wait...

[roddy]

Given that plenty of graduates end up working outside of their degree anyway, I don't think a degree in Chinese is going to do you any harm, as long as you can demonstrate the transferable skills and ability to learn to get you onto your chosen career path.

Sure, if you want to be a lawyer then by all means study law, but I suspect anyone who graduates from high school and already knows what they're going to be when they graduate university is suffering from a bit of a lack of imagination.

[Radial]

I agree... I tell anyone who is considering studying chinese to think really hard about it... you can have a perfectly happy life without chinese... and you will be giving up years of your life to get a decent level... only study chinese if you get to a point where you feel like you cannot avoid it... having said all that... I am always amazed when I walk down the street in China and I understand what people are saying... so there are some benefits...

[johnmck]

One could say the same for learning all foreign languages if English is already your mother tongue. Looking at it in pure economic terms (as one can expect the Economist to do) foreign language skills are very poorly paid. The work required to become fluent in French (i.e. a level at which you can work, negotiate, socialise) is easily the equivalent of the work required to obtain a master's degree in another subject, yet you are unlikely to ever obtain a noticeable pay rise because of it.

Until recently nearly all children in English schools learn French yet how many English people are capable of holding a simply conversation in French? Clearly, from an economical view, French tuition to the masses is a big waste of money. (The same can be said for many subjects - when was the last time anyone on this forum used a sine function?)

The work to learn Chinese is enormous. I know people at work who decide to learn it because they work with China. The company gives them 40 hours of lessons and that is it. If they are not fluent after 40 hours of study, tough. What a waste of money that is.

Enough Chinese are studying English so that in 10 years any Chinese person who needs to work with foreigners will speak English.

But that is just from a simple economic point of view. Education has far more benefits that direct economic ones. Studying these subjects trains the mind and it is quite common for people to say that what they learnt at University is useless, instead the benefit was how they learnt to use their brain (which from a complex economic point of view is beneficial).

I learn Chinese simply for the pleasure, my work gives me a rare opportunity to practise it.

[yonglin]

To be honest, I don't see how it would hurt to teach them British kids Mandarin.

I don't quite know why (though I have my suspicions), but language teaching here in Britain is really quite bad, and it's not like those who've been studying French or German at school are anywhere close to being fluent or even "operational" in those languages anyway. So the opportunity cost of teaching Chinese is arguably quite low.

In addition, I feel that if conducting Chinese classes for British kids would teach them some facts about China, doing so would unequivocally be a good thing. Given that China is becoming quite an important global actor, it would be advantageous to the Brits to learn a bit about China, even if they don't become fluent in Chinese. (It seems to me that British people - on average - are more ignorant about other cultures and countries than most: pointing out the location of Hungary on a map would be an arduous task for quite a few, and I know of those who sincerely couldn't tell on which continent Iraq is located.)

And yeh, the writer of that article probably has not done her research properly. It is ridiculous to claim that it takes three years of full-time study in China to pass level 6 of the HSK. Since I passed level 5 after one year of non-intensive study mostly outside of China, I would expect that someone with "good linguistic ability" could pass level 6 after one year of full-time study in China. Even if you lack linguistic ability, you should be able to pass level 6 after two years of full-time study in China (as the official stand of "3 levels per year). That said, I'm not convinced that passing level 6 would be equivalent to being professionally "operational" in Chinese: maybe we would in fact demand something like level 8 for that. Yet, getting there shouldn't take more than two years for the linguistically talented either.

[renzhe]

Don't forget that this was published in The Economist. From their perspective, the main reason for doing anythingis making more money.

For those of us who don't learn Chinese as a way to get rich or increase our selling price, there are plenty of reasons to learn Chinese.

The fact that the people who write for The Economist cannot fathom that there could be a reason short of increasing your bank account balance is something for a different discussion.

[wushijiao]

I agree with the article, to a large degree.

Of course there will always be jobs that require Mandarin, and sometimes knowing Mandarin will be an extra plus that will get you a job over another candidate.

But the case for learning Mandarin is way over hyped, for the reasons mentioned in the article.

[trevelyan]

I don't see much point to the article. Certain types of economic relations reward fluency in foreign languages. Western economies have traditionally created institutionalized profit points around finance and law (government regulation as the profit point), while commoditizing distribution and production. This implies lower profits for those selling physical items into English-speaking markets.

As China begins to develop more of a service economy, and the weight of the Chinese market starts influence global standards-setting and production, the sorts of profitable interactions capable of supporting high wage jobs will shift away from selling objects (few language skills required) to more bilingual areas. Meanwhile, the relative value of English-only work will decline.

The Economist is wrong and Korea is the case study to watch here: it is already profiting from the mainland market in major ways, and the result has been a salary premium for mandarin speakers. US firms might not be here yet, but that's because they outsource most of their production: an inefficient way of doing things in a truly global market. Foreign language skills will gain their premium as the middleman slowly ebbs away.

[mpallard]

For those of us who have spent a lot of time learning Chinese that article was harsh but true. The fact is that fluency in Chinese has little to no effect on your ability to get a job inside or outside of China.

The most discouraging quote was from that computer guy who spent 4 years studying Chinese, works in a Chinese company in Beijing, and still feels he has no opportunities to use his Chinese.

As an accoutant my firm has a lot of postings for jobs in China and none of them require knowledge of Mandarin. At most a basic knowledge of Mandarin is "reccomended".

Having an interest in languages or China is really the only reason to learn Chinese. I have never heard any compelling economic reasons to do so.

[renzhe]

I have never heard of any compelling economic reasons to make love to your spouse either, but I wouldn't call that a "fad for misguided fools"