<p>ARYL08, please vote in this thread.</p>
<p>thanks. :) Courtney and I are going to debate on a serious topic where you can see our real skills.</p>
<p>I still stick with the idea of learning chinese. Yes, spanish may seem more useful than chinese because of the % of hispanics here, but understand that by virtue of the simple fact that hispanics are living in the US (whose official language IS English), hispanics are forced to pick up English to some degree. You really can't be self sufficient in the US without English. Besides, you really don't need that much spanish to survive (Donde esta el bano? doesn't strike me as that hard to memorize).
True, many Chinese are learning English, but if you were to learn Chinese you would demonstrate an appreciation for their language. They would be more inclined to do business with you, be more flexible in deals, etc. Not to mention the advantage you'd have in job searches. From what I've seen, most bilingual people applying for jobs in the US are spanish speakers. How many Chinese speakers do you see? Less competition.
Lastly, there are more than twice as many Chinese speakers as Spanish. The ability to communicate with 1/6 of the world is astounding in itself.</p>
<p>ok me and jonathan are gonna debate a real topic, because he think's he's better. haha. any ideas or suggestions on what we should debate, im up for anything.</p>
<p>
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Lastly, there are more than twice as many Chinese speakers as Spanish.
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<p>All located in one region.</p>
<p>ps. i really hate this wait 60 seconds between posts thing.</p>
<p>haha i know. it's ruining my lifeee.</p>
<p>ps . this thread has 46 posts.</p>
<p>MAJOR BUMPP. haha.</p>
<p>Spanish is easier. I am a senior at a high school and I had the option of taking Chinese or Spanish. I took Chinese. I think it is the only reason I got into NYU,Claremont,Grinnell,U of Rochester,Fordham Trinity(Conn). I had terrible SAT's and a 3.2 GPA . Not very good. How did I get in? I think it was the Chinese and that I want to incorporate it into the business world.</p>
<p>Spanish is easier with your english background, Chinese will be easy if you Japanese (both how to read and write), and easier to a lesser degree then Japanese if you know Vietnamese, Korean, or even Filipino..Viet and Korean help you more then Filipino though...
Spanish is easy if you know French, Portuguese, Filipino, Latin, and Italian...Italian big time...
I know both, cause...I'm Mexican and Chinese...hehe...
The characters in Chinese are hard, the translation may not be accurate, but it can be simple...like if you want to make a sentence past you add a seperate word at the end...
Spanish can also be complicated...like in Spanish...they're 2 word for fish...one means fish that is dead, the other fish that is alive...IF you just know english Spanish will be wayyy easier...
I would take Spanish, but Chinese is not a bad choice...you have the tones which will absolutely annoy the crap out of you.
take spanish or french if you don't speak Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, or any other chinese dialect....assuming you mean mandarin...some places offer Cantonese...</p>
<p>Call me crazy, but wouldn't the gratification from Spanish be far more immediate and (from a literary perspective) more rewarding? Compare how many years of Spanish it would take to be able to read Cervantes or Gabriel Garc</p>
<p>in the us- spanish...in the world- chinese</p>
<p>pquote]...one means fish that is dead, the other fish that is alive...IF you just know english Spanish will be wayyy easier...
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</p>
<p>o.O De que estas hablando guey?</p>
<p>Chinese all the way</p>
<p>
[quote]
o.O De que estas hablando guey?
[/quote]
nuestro amigo chino mejicano se refiere diferencia entre pez y pescado... q ambos son fish....</p>
<p>I am chinese so I know it and tried to teach chinese to latinos... It is hard even for teaching!!
If you are not asian then you tongue ain't physiologically designed to pronounse the 4 different scents.
so learn spanish... if you learn spanish in one year then u might be able to have already a easy conversation with ramdon cute latino girl for example...
note that chineses from different provinces speak differently...VERY DIFFERENTLY. So if you learnt from a beijing you won't understand to a Shandong guy for example.
So go with Spanish</p>
<p>Wow, thanks for the MANY posts. I think I'm going with spanish but I'm not 100% quite yet.</p>
<p>Unless your teacher's Chinese, they probably won't teach it well. Even if they are Chinese, they might not teach it well (thus why Asian parents send their kids to Chinese language schools). So, I'd say Spanish is definitely better for HS learning.</p>
<p>English is NOT the official language of the US.
In fact, it's the de facto language.</p>
<p>I'd say take Spanish.
Its easier.
Its faster.
Its spoken more in the US.</p>
<p>It really depends on your language proficiency and how much time you want to spend on a language vs. something else. Chinese is very difficult to learn - tone, characters, etc. You have to dedicate a lot of time to learning this type of language. And, while I agree that China as a world power and a presence in the world, would make you think that learning Chinese would take you far ... there are thousands, if not more, of Chinese Americans who are able to fill the language void without struggling.
If learning foreign languages is the be all and end all for you, then go for it. But, if you also want to be a star in something else ... learning Chinese may detract from other things you want to do,</p>
<p>
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All located in one region.
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</p>
<p>Actually, chinese is spoken throughout Asia, which is a continent, not a simple "region." Note that I'm not trying to say that chinese is a better language to learn than spanish, I'm just trying to make some points for chinese since the vast majority of ppl on this thread are in favor of spanish. The OP should make a decision after weighing the pros and cons of BOTH sides.</p>
<p>Spanish is easier to learn because you already know most of the alphabet, and it's easier to pronounce (you know how the word's spoken by seeing how it's written, unlike Chinese). However, if you want to go into the military academies/CIA stuff, learning Chinese is a huge plus. Both the kids from my school who got into West Point were taking Arabic/Chinese at the local university. I'm sure they were wonderful all-around students, but the 'national security languages' really strengthened their "I want to defend the United States" thing. </p>
<p>Chinese is only spoken in China/Taiwan and a few other Asian countries (Singapore, some of Malaysia)...Countries like Korea, India, Vietnam, Japan etc. all have their own languages that a Chinese speaker cannot understand (although they might have similar linguistic structures)</p>