Today I had a thought, and contrary to popular belief, I can, in fact, think. My thought was that it seems like English is the "international language." It is second only to Chinese, because that have a few billion people in their country, but the United States and England combined is still less populous than China by a long shot. It seems that a lot of non-European countries have English as a national language, and if you were to look at pictures of road signs, etc form places such as China, they will be written in Chinese with an English translation right below it.
And look at this forum too. We have some 35,000 people a bevy of which are not from USA / England / Australia / Ireland / Scotland / Canada, yet they still speak English perfectly. And correct me if I am wrong, but Bondings is not from an English country, yet he decided to make these forums in English.
What are your thoughts on this?
-Nick 
P.S. I am guessing that Bondings is Dutch or something like that because I think I remember someone saying that and there are 3 forums dedicated to Dutch. Would a mod just edit my post if I am wrong. Thanks. Our foreign affairs and policies have definitely had an affect as to the spread of English.
China, although with its billions of people is more or less introverted due to its communist ideology, thus preventing its spread. Otherwise, I suspect if China behaved closely to the US, UK, and other UNs, I'd suspect it'd be a vastly different world.
English probably will continue to spread and become a real global language. Some of this is caused by technology, especially the internet and programming languages, originally made in English, so anybody who wants to become an expert in them needs to learn English. Another interesting example is that every air traffic control tower in every airport of the world is staffed by people who speak English. After all, you can't have planes and the control tower speaking different languages! And what language did most of the pilots already know? English.
| ocalhoun wrote: |
| English probably will continue to spread and become a real global language. Some of this is caused by technology, especially the internet and programming languages, originally made in English, so anybody who wants to become an expert in them needs to learn English. Another interesting example is that every air traffic control tower in every airport of the world is staffed by people who speak English. After all, you can't have planes and the control tower speaking different languages! And what language did most of the pilots already know? English. |
That's true, like your saying that all of this globalization originated in English-speaking countries (i.e. the US) and in order for other countries to get involved, they had to learn English. It makes sense that one day everyone will speak the same language out of the convenience, in fact I think I've read somewhere that the number of languages in regular use is declining.In my opinion, Chinese doesn't count as an international language.
Just because a huge number of people within the same nation speak the same language does no make it an international language.. i think.
I think that the two most widely used languages are English and Spanish.
just look at south america, every nation except Brazil speaks Spanish as their national language.
I wont even mention English because at the moment, I think it is accepted as the internation language. (correct me if im wrong)
| Guelila wrote: |
| I wont even mention English because at the moment, I think it is accepted as the internation language. (correct me if im wrong) |
No, you're right. You're very right. It's not hard to realize that English is the "international" language. Students in schools all over the world are required to take it, if not all students a huge number of them, and it just serves as a standard language, even online.English will be always our primary laguage where ever you go. in addition to chinese launguage its hard to understand to communicate once if i encouter chinese people or korean i fell theft hehehe . others dialect it will not be popular unless it will not include to the curiculum or mandatory subject to schools.hope the english dialect will include to our curculum around the world.
This page pretty much answers all the questions raised in this topic:
http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm I am sure as well that english is going to be the main language of the world. Chinese people will learn it
They have started already
I even wonder how you can consider Chinese (I guess you mean the Mandarin) as "international" language.
In my opinion it is spoken only by Chinese people so no international at all.
Even in China there are several languages such as Cantonese.
I for one am trying to learn Chinese. It will one day be an international language. President Bush was in the works to have Chinese taught in our schools as a requirement. Not sure how well that turned out. I wish I could afford the BBC children DVDs called Muzzy so my son can learn Chinese while he's still in his learning years. China is one of the top exporters in the world and they are a valuable asset to the world whether we want to admit it or not. Plus it would be of dire consequences to piss them off. Might as well learn their language and strive to keep the peace. And it will make it easier to communicate via internet.
| James_Hicks wrote: |
| I for one am trying to learn Chinese. It will one day be an international language. President Bush was in the works to have Chinese taught in our schools as a requirement. Not sure how well that turned out. I wish I could afford the BBC children DVDs called Muzzy so my son can learn Chinese while he's still in his learning years. China is one of the top exporters in the world and they are a valuable asset to the world whether we want to admit it or not. Plus it would be of dire consequences to piss them off. Might as well learn their language and strive to keep the peace. And it will make it easier to communicate via internet. |
Well, but if everyone is already learning English, why would the international language be Chinese. So few people know it that aren't Chinese, but tons of people know even a little bit of English. A few weeks ago there was a short-term foreign exchange student in my school (he was there for about a week). When he got there, he knew NO English. He was not even able to say 'Hello'. By the end of the week, he was able to make a few sentences, and he knew a bunch of words, and he knew which words were what. In Chinese, if you mispronounce someone's name, you may end up calling them Mr. Stinky Fish Face (I am referring to an AT&T commercial for cell phones).
I think English being the international language has to do with 2 things.
1.) Three hundred years ago, the sun never set on the British Empire. English was everywhere.
2.) The United States kept English when we got our independence from England.
-Nick | polly-gone wrote: |
(I am referring to an AT&T commercial for cell phones).
|
And of course, AT&T commercials are a great way to learn about other languages. Anybody with a name that sounded like stinky fish face would probably be used to being called that, if nothing else, then from his classmates at school.
Just ask the Navy student at my base: Seaman Guzzler.A little off topic, but that is not the point. Chinese words sound so similar to other words that they could easily be confused.
-Nick Unlike English, Chinese is tonal. Thus accenting each tone will give you a different word. Those who aren't used to tonal languages haven't been trained to listen for these differences - it may be settle for you guys, but it's a huge difference that is easy to tell when I listen.
English on the other hand isn't without its own quirks.
You can read it here:
http://www.proz.com/forum/off_topic/54124-how_confusing_english_can_be-.html
It's a nightmare for many to learn English.
I suspect the second most used language would be Indian. No, the second most spoken language in the world, coming in very close to Chinese, is English. There is a statistical fact about it.
But, while English has it's problems (Every time in English that we come up to an Exception of a Rule, my teacher say "because English sucks"), it is still so widely used, which I think makes it the International Language. Chinese is confined to most China.
-Nick 
| polly-gone wrote: |
No, the second most spoken language in the world, coming in very close to Chinese, is English. There is a statistical fact about it.
But, while English has it's problems (Every time in English that we come up to an Exception of a Rule, my teacher say "because English sucks"), it is still so widely used, which I think makes it the International Language. Chinese is confined to most China.
-Nick |
According to this website, English is third (and possibly fourth) - year 2000. I'm not sure how much this would've changed within the past 8 years:
http://anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_1.htm
However, it is the most highest by far for usages in countries.Here is the current stat:
http://www.photius.com/rankings/languages2.html
The population has gone up something like 3/4 of a billion since 2000.
-Nick According to the DFA here in the philippines and other private schools 10-15% here chinese, korean other asian country enroll for english curriculum in our country the best is the they create a jobs for filipino people, more private school open this course to foriegn people if we compare to online studies im sure you will learn actual than online.
Chinese words sound so similar to other words that they could easily be confused.- im not agree about this words .
Moved to Languages and Translation.
Yes, that forum exists, you are now in it. I agree with the belief that Chinese is not an international language, and that just by having a huge population that speaks it does not make it a global one.
For me personally, I think, in order for a language to be so called "international" is for it to be viewed as an absolute necessary language to succeed in the global environment. English would still come off as the top one. I am quite unsure if I consider Spanish to be an international language. Sure it's widely used here in the America Continents, but I can't consider it an important language in say, Asia, the way English is. (Out of my acquaintances, I personally don't even know any Asian living in Asia who even thought about studying Spanish. The same could be said for Chinese outside of Asia.) I mean, people are interested in learning these languages, but mostly not so out of a belief of necessity, more so out of an interest in the language itself.
Uh, I donno if I made sense since i'm running on 1 hr of sleep today, but that pretty much sums up my 2 pennies for thought.
