why not some Indian language?

Mei Di mahh?

Homer Simpson: "Relax, our economy is growing and taking over the world. We're China right?"

"I'm not ECONOMICALLY VIABLE!!!" "Oh here's a happy customer, he must be ECONOMICALLY VIABLE!!!"

Why not Arabic? Get it over with.

Why not some Indian language? Perhaps because there are more speakers of Mandarin than any other language.

And perhaps because most folks in India know English and tend (not always, but tend) to conduct business in English.

http://www.krysstal.com/spoken.html

Good luck. If they can't get British kids to learn French or German or some other closely related Indo-European language then they have no hope with Mandarin.

/Ni how ma, or something

It's a smart move. If someone from a western country is going to learn mandarin, childhood is the time to start. I'm fairly certain I could pick up, say, french or dutch. I just can't wrap my head around mandarin though.

/My brain is old and tired.

I've thought for some time that all the schools in Wales would be better off teaching Japanese to kids than Welsh, seeing as most of the new jobs in Wales are from the likes of Toshiba.

"Blah blah A-level blah Cambridge blah code phrase blah blah Tanaka?"

There's a fair Chinese population in the UK, but they mostly stem from Hong Kong rather than mainland China, so I would have thought Cantonese would be more likely to be practical.

I read that headline too quickly. I thought it said something about British schoolgirls.

/Dissapointed

I know some English people. They are so politically correct, they don't even care for British culture. They feel Britishness and the English language only reflect oppression, colonialism and the worst thing in the world: the USA - which they call the globalization of the worst of British culture.

FarkingZionist: I know some English people. They are so politically correct, they don't even care for British culture. They feel Britishness and the English language only reflect oppression, colonialism and the worst thing in the world: the USA - which they call the globalization of the worst of British culture.

We're not all morons filled with self-loathing, though.

FarkingZionist

I know some English people. They are so politically correct, they don't even care for British culture.

But, they must have tea.

2007-02-04 05:03:02 PM FarkingZionist
I know some English people. They are so politically correct, they don't even care for British culture.

I would actually say that's unusual. If anything we tend to go the other way and have an inflated sense of our country's position in the world.

Living in New Zealand, I've started to realise just how un-PC the UK is, compared to some countries (i.e. this one).

Funny Headline...Make Me Laugh...DNRTFA

FarkingZionist

Yeh, and I know some Americans, they are all fat, loud and wear big cameras and golfing trousers.

Stereotypes are stupid aren't they?

So here's the deal. In UK schools at the moment, it is mandatory to learn a "major European" language from age 11. The government wants to amend the regulations so that a "major world language" is permissible. This includes mandarin, urdu, or arabic.

This has nothing to do with self-loathing, political correctness or whatever. This has to do with tweaking the education system so that it actually teaches useful skills.


/Proud to be British.

Mandarin is actually a standard part of the kindergarten through second grade curriculum in my son's school district (western New York). I'm not sure how they expect any of the students to retain it until it becomes available to them again as a high school elective.

2007-02-04 04:52:54 PMPurple Sheeple Eater


why not some Indian language?

Such as Urdu ?

English as a second language in english speaking schools....Yea ,thanks for making my kid that much for dumber for the people who can't speak english dragging down the whole class.

/And fark the french basssstards who think french is the only way to go..

Angostura: The government wants to amend the regulations so that a "major world language" is permissible. This includes mandarin, urdu, or arabic.


Urdu is a major world language?

How about Spanish?

I work around some people who speak Marathi (Bombay area). They always want to teach the dirty words to us.

fart = pah-thee

No need to learn Chinese. All chinese children are required to take english classes. Tons and tons of chinese speak english, albeit not totally fluent.

I'll bet you're better off with Japanese and Arabic. I just started playing around with both.

Headline is a troll, submitter is a twat.

I gave up on Britain a long time ago...

"'Tis a silly place."

theeagle
English as a second language in english speaking schools....Yea ,thanks for making my kid that much for dumber for the people who can't speak english dragging down the whole class.

Looks like someone needs to take more "English as a first language" classes.

theeagle: /And fark the french basssstards who think french is the only way to go..

Sure, we don't know any other languages. At all.
In fact this post is transmitted directly to your brain thanks to telepathy.

/Not to mention we got some opportunity to learn german a coupla decades ago too...

wo ai chung gou ren?

/already lives in china...

Cream of sum yung gai?

It's about time! I hope this will spread to other European countries as well. I wish I could have chosen to study Mandarin in high school; instead I had to suffer through 6 years of German. In addition I had to move from Bergen to Oslo as this is the only university in Norway that offers Mandarin! A travesty! Go 中文！

2007-02-04 05:45:51 PM some_beer_drinker
wo ai chung gou ren?

The answer is "Stimpy".

HaHaHaHa.....

Some people still think China's economy is t3h aW3s0m3.

/ studied Mandarian
// can't remember shiat
/// want to study it more

China will implode within 10 years. It is inevitable that the masses will rise up and demand parity. India will go the same route; leaving billions dead. Poppadoms will survive as a foodstuff; So will Moo Goo Gai Pan. But only those two delicious entrees will survive.

We in the western world will then get our "stuff" from slave colonies formed in the outback of Australia.

Learn Australian.

Angostura

Yeh, and I know some Americans, they are all fat, loud and wear big cameras and golfing trousers.

Stereotypes are stupid aren't they?

Nah. Those sound just like the asses that we can convince to GTFO for a few weeks. It's a vacation, to be sure, but it's not theirs.

wo hui shuo yidianer jhongguoren.

wo xihuan meiguo dianying, keshi wo biao jhongguo dianying.

It's not spoken mandarin that is hard, it's the damn written language.

/would ace mandarin if it was speaking/understanding and writing in pinyin.
//dong le ma?
//ningjing!

jonezee

We in the western world will then get our "stuff" from slave colonies formed in the outback of Australia.

Learn Australian.

We're doomed.

Nahh... I know people from Ireland, Scotland, Boston, South Africa, and Australia. Guess who's easiest to understand?

Angostura:

/Proud to be British

Shut up you NASCAR loving redneck.

/Wait what?!

jonezee:
Learn Australian.

"Oi! A dingo has stolen my baby! Fosters? That is not a knife."

Echnin

/我懂了，可是你写中文写的不太好

Slight typo in your sentence. Should be:

我懂了，可是你写中文写得不太好。

But who's checking, eh? And for those who read traditional!

我懂了, 可是你寫中文寫得不太好。

Stupid idea. Most kids are too stupid/lazy to even pick up French or German in school. People don't realize how much time and effort it takes to learn Chinese writing.

Dunno about Urdu tho, seems a bit saner than Mandarin, but still.

Also, you don't learn foreign languages in school, it's just a starting point. You need to practice them by talking to people and reading and stuff, and continue this to maintain your abilities.

/needs to improve his English.

You don't understand. The British don't need to learn foreign, that's why we're so half-arsed about it. When you've gone out and conquered, colonised or founded so many of the world's countries they all speak English and we don't need to learn their barbaric gibberish.

Purple Sheeple Eater
why not some Indian language?

Because english is already a Indo-European language (you do know what country "Indo" refers to right ?

As far as chink, that's a completely alien "language" to Indo-European tongues...the tones are completely off and it sounds more like falling cutlery to my ears than anything else. It's more a novelty than anything else, really.

How about getting British kids to learn farkING ENGLISH for a start?

CEREBRAL BALLSY:

"No need to learn Chinese. All chinese children are required to take english classes."

Yeah sure, maybe a few hours of classes a week sometimes with a teacher that speaks barely passable English themselves.

"Tons and tons of chinese speak english, albeit not totally fluent."

No, at best tons and tons of Chinese can remember barely a few words of English they studied while at school years ago. Most "English Speakers" over there speak no where near a fluent level. It's actually kind of rare to come across someone that speaks English with any real fluency. Sure there are people that can (there'd have to be with a population as huge as theirs is) but for the most part they can speak nothing at all or they're at a barely passable level. At least that was my experience during the 3 years I lived there.

"I'll bet you're better off with Japanese and Arabic. I just started playing around with both."

Why? Wouldn't they be studying English as well?


/FARK 什么时候会有一些中文语法纳粹呢？

pstudent12: Because english is already a Indo-European language (you do know what country "Indo" refers to right ?

So?

Mandarin isn't being proposed because it is a non-Indo-European language, it's being proposed because it is through that it will offer greater employability to future British citizens.

Gungfu
Urdu is a major world language?

It's the fifth most spoken language in the world.

they just want to produce a future generation of spies. pretty useless to send spies to china who cant speak the mandarin.

Well, it IS the most spoken language in the world.

Followed by Spanish, then English.

Also, since China is the next superpower, this makes alot of sense.