China to train Americans in Chinese

College Confidential Community
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<p>[url=<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/04/19/chinese.language.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest%5DLink%5B/url"&gt;http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/04/19/chinese.language.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest]Link[/url&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
NEW YORK (AP) -- Calling Chinese "an important tool for the rest of the world," China's education minister announced a plan Wednesday to help train hundreds of U.S. educators in the language.</p>

<p>The initiative will bring more than 150 guest teachers to U.S. high schools from China and immerse nearly 600 American teachers of the language in Chinese culture through summer institutes there, organizers said.</p>

<p>It will also provide financial aid to nearly 300 American teachers seeking state certification in Chinese.</p>

<p>"Ever since the reform and the opening up of China, the Chinese economy has enjoyed sustained growth," Education Minister Zhou Ji announced at the New York headquarters of the College Board, a U.S. organization helping with the initiative. The Chinese language "is an important tool for the rest of the world to learn about China and to communicate with the Chinese people."</p>

<p>Organizers said they hope to reach 500,000 U.S. students. The College Board, which administers the SAT college entrance exam, said it began looking into such a program after a 2004 survey found hundreds of high schools interested in offering Chinese-language college preparatory courses.</p>

<p>The Chinese government will provide $4 million this year for the initiative, but total costs of the five-year program have not been finalized, said Xu Lin, director general of China's office for teaching Chinese as a foreign language.</p>

<p>Mandarin Chinese is already the world's most widely spoken language.</p>

<p>More than 200 million Chinese children are studying English, but only 24,000 U.S. children are studying Chinese, said Gaston Caperton, College Board president.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>My thoughts will be in the next post.</p>

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<p>This reminds me a bit of the Japanese push to train Americans in Japanese in the 80s and 90s.</p>

<p>I can't help but think that it's bound to fail.</p>

<p>DRab brought the article to my attention, and I remarked that we should send an open letter to East Asia in order to explain why this won't work. Here is the first draft:</p>

<p>Dear East Asians,</p>

<p>Your languages are hopelessly difficult to learn as non-natives. You spend more time in your classes learning those damn pictographs than we do learning how to do math.</p>

<p>The rest of the world is not going to learn your languages like it will English. Who wants to write 40 characters with 30 strokes each just to say, "Hello, my name is John." Especially when your languages make our names sound like, "Jyo-yoo-on-gu"</p>

<p>Please, just learn English. We'll all be better off.</p>

<p>Sincerely,
The rest of the world</p>

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<p>Actually, I think it would be an interesting plan.</p>

4

<p>Apparently, you have no sense of humor. Either that, or you've never studied one of the East Asian languages to know the pain and suffering that us non-natives go through.</p>

<p>PAIN AND SUFFERING.</p>

5

<p>Well, to put in perspective, no one would have liked the Soviets training Americans to speek Russian, or Castro teaching Americans to speak Spanish, or Iranians teaching americans to speak Arabic</p>

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<p>Actually, I'm taking Japanese.
And yes, my sense-of humor is off.</p>

7

<p>Jesminder,</p>

<p>Then you should know how this is just the Chinese way of saying, "Hahah, stupid gaijin! Look at our impossibly difficult language and DESPAIR!"</p>

<p>At least that's how I always felt in Japanese class, all the way through to the fourth year.</p>

8

<p>I wouldn't mind learning chinese. China's becoming a world power</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
Well, to put in perspective, no one would have liked the Soviets training Americans to speek Russian, or Castro teaching Americans to speak Spanish, or Iranians teaching americans to speak Arabic

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, if I'm not mistaken, a fair number of Soviets did come to the US to teach Russian.</p>

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<p>is it really that difficult? I always liked how it doesn't have any verb conjugations, as opposed to French where one will need to know 8 tenses at the basic level when taking the AP exam.</p>

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<p>Is Chinese more difficult than Japanese?
I've only studied one, so I can't really compare.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I wouldn't mind learning chinese. China's becoming a world power

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yeah, but will Chinese become important?</p>

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<p>your sense of humor is not off. it's actually very witty..sophisticated</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Is Chinese more difficult than Japanese?
I've only studied one, so I can't really compare.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I actually thought that outside of the tones, Mandarin is much simpler than Japanese, with it's 45 conjugations and 87 levels of politeness. </p>

<p>
[quote]
is it really that difficult? I always liked how it doesn't have any verb conjugations, as opposed to French where one will need to know 8 tenses at the basic level when taking the AP exam.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Not as hard as Japanese, but hard. Very very very hard.</p>

15

<p>...i like it.</p>

<p>oh and if they keep invading our markets, i guess we'll have to learn chinese.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
your sense of humor is not off. it's actually very witty..sophisticated

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's what people say about Woody Allen films. I don't see it.</p>

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<p><em>is witty</em> :p</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Well, to put in perspective, no one would have liked the Soviets training Americans to speek Russian, or Castro teaching Americans to speak Spanish, or Iranians teaching americans to speak Arabic

[/quote]
</p>

<p>As long as they're doing a good job, this would have/has put less of a strain on American political institutions training spies and what not. Americans who speak Arabic are in high demand (as I think so few do relative to say, Spanish).</p>

<p>I would sign that letter.</p>

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<p>Well, there's a reason why so many Americans can speak at least passable Spanish, but so few can speak Arabic.</p>

<p>And it has nothing to do with hating Arabs or Chinese or even the loathesome Durkadurkastanis. </p>

<p>It all has to do with proximity. Why do so many Europeans speak like 56 languages? Maybe because Europe is fragmanted into little states with distinct languages each. Americans have Canackistanians to the north (the Quebequois excluded) and Mexnaans to the south. Oh, and did I mention that it takes 18 hours to drive to either one of them if you're in a state in the middle?</p>

<p>Spanish will continue to be the language of choice for many language learners, followed up by French. And it has nothing to do with American ignorance.</p>

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<p>that and the fact that people keep saying it's the easiest language class =D.</p>