Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Seems like there have been several threads recently about elementary school kids taking Mandarin or other Chinese dialects.

I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to do that unless they have some family or cultural connection to China. It just doesn't seem like a particularly useful language to know unless you plan to live there some day. It'll never be the language of business, for instance. So, what's the appeal, exactly?

Why study French, German, or Spanish for that matter? Doesn't seem particularly useful to know.

Well, French is a language of diplomacy.

Mandarin will only ever be used in China. Yes, it's a huge market -- but like I said, is usefulness is limited,unless you're going to go live and work there.

this is so dumb and ill-informed. How many people right in this area speak Mandarin on a daily basis? - I know dozens of them.

A fractionally minuscule amount.

Obviously a fraction, since not everybody speaks Mandarin. But if you want to speak to the people right here in this area who speak Mandarin, then knowing how to speak Mandarin is useful.

In any case, it's an odd argument. If you want to know why somebody without family or cultural origins in China would study Mandarin, why not ask somebody without family or cultural origins in China who is studying Mandarin?

Well, I think gearing your kid's entire education around being able to have conversations in the US with Mandarin speakers would be really strange if you have no family connections.

My life has been very enriched personally and professionally by learning a second language, but I agree that the fetishization of learning mandarin is odd. The chances of your kid becoming a factory manager in mainline china and needing to speak mandarin are slim to none. I know American ex pats in HK and they all work in English. Further, there is no reason to think your kid is going to want to be an international businessman just because you enrolled him in Yu Ying at 3.

I'm sure it can be a great experience to be exposed to a second language and culture so young, but it's a bit too much to claim thag Mandarin is putting 3 year olds on the path to global dominance.

If you don't see the utility, then good news! You don't have to study it!

And if you already know (or think you know) the answer to why non-Chinese-origin people are studying Mandarin, then why ask? Why not just say, "This is why non-Chinese-origin people are studying Mandarin, and I think it's a stupid reason."?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Seems like there have been several threads recently about elementary school kids taking Mandarin or other Chinese dialects.

I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to do that unless they have some family or cultural connection to China. It just doesn't seem like a particularly useful language to know unless you plan to live there some day. It'll never be the language of business, for instance. So, what's the appeal, exactly?

Why study French, German, or Spanish for that matter? Doesn't seem particularly useful to know.

Well, French is a language of diplomacy.

Mandarin will only ever be used in China. Yes, it's a huge market -- but like I said, is usefulness is limited,unless you're going to go live and work there.

this is so dumb and ill-informed. How many people right in this area speak Mandarin on a daily basis? - I know dozens of them.

A fractionally minuscule amount.

Obviously a fraction, since not everybody speaks Mandarin. But if you want to speak to the people right here in this area who speak Mandarin, then knowing how to speak Mandarin is useful.

In any case, it's an odd argument. If you want to know why somebody without family or cultural origins in China would study Mandarin, why not ask somebody without family or cultural origins in China who is studying Mandarin?

It's not an odd argument. I said it's useful if you're going to live in China. But other than that, I don't see the utility.

I believe a lot of upper middle class overly anxious mommies -- the kind that scheme to get their precious little snowflake into AAP -- push Mandarin on to their children believing for some reason it will give their child an "edge."

What I'm saying is that it's a foolhearty way of thinking. You're right -- UNLESS you're going to interact with a miniscule Chinese-speaking market in this area or live in China, it has no utility. Mandarin simply will NEVER be the language of global business. I think some people foolishly believe it will.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Seems like there have been several threads recently about elementary school kids taking Mandarin or other Chinese dialects.

I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to do that unless they have some family or cultural connection to China. It just doesn't seem like a particularly useful language to know unless you plan to live there some day. It'll never be the language of business, for instance. So, what's the appeal, exactly?

Why study French, German, or Spanish for that matter? Doesn't seem particularly useful to know.

Well, French is a language of diplomacy.

Mandarin will only ever be used in China. Yes, it's a huge market -- but like I said, is usefulness is limited,unless you're going to go live and work there.

this is so dumb and ill-informed. How many people right in this area speak Mandarin on a daily basis? - I know dozens of them.

A fractionally minuscule amount.

Obviously a fraction, since not everybody speaks Mandarin. But if you want to speak to the people right here in this area who speak Mandarin, then knowing how to speak Mandarin is useful.

In any case, it's an odd argument. If you want to know why somebody without family or cultural origins in China would study Mandarin, why not ask somebody without family or cultural origins in China who is studying Mandarin?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Seems like there have been several threads recently about elementary school kids taking Mandarin or other Chinese dialects.

I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to do that unless they have some family or cultural connection to China. It just doesn't seem like a particularly useful language to know unless you plan to live there some day. It'll never be the language of business, for instance. So, what's the appeal, exactly?

Why study French, German, or Spanish for that matter? Doesn't seem particularly useful to know.

Well, French is a language of diplomacy.

Mandarin will only ever be used in China. Yes, it's a huge market -- but like I said, is usefulness is limited,unless you're going to go live and work there.

this is so dumb and ill-informed. How many people right in this area speak Mandarin on a daily basis? - I know dozens of them.

A fractionally miniscule amount.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Seems like there have been several threads recently about elementary school kids taking Mandarin or other Chinese dialects.

I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to do that unless they have some family or cultural connection to China. It just doesn't seem like a particularly useful language to know unless you plan to live there some day. It'll never be the language of business, for instance. So, what's the appeal, exactly?

Why study French, German, or Spanish for that matter? Doesn't seem particularly useful to know.

Well, French is a language of diplomacy.

Mandarin will only ever be used in China. Yes, it's a huge market -- but like I said, is usefulness is limited,unless you're going to go live and work there.

this is so dumb and ill-informed. How many people right in this area speak Mandarin on a daily basis? - I know dozens of them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We said all the same things about Japanese in the 80 s

Precisely. And Japanese isn't exactly the language of global business now, is it?

It's useful if you're doing business in Japan, though.

More people in China speak other dialects than speak Mandarin, so while Mandarin may be useful in some business contexts in China, it is not useful in every business setting there.

Mandarin is way too difficult to become a lingua franca. The Chicoms are pretty good at picking up English from what I can see.

(To shut up the haters' ignorance remarks: Yeah, I speak in tongues. Probably way more than any of you ever will.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd hope this is troll

Sadly I doubt it. And it’s comforting really that some don’t see the appeal. I’m not going to waste my time explaining it to them.

You sound like Bobby Jindal's kid, who can't explain why 8 + 4 = 12 and if asked will reply "it just is."

Anonymous wrote:

Seems like there have been several threads recently about elementary school kids taking Mandarin or other Chinese dialects.

I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to do that unless they have some family or cultural connection to China. It just doesn't seem like a particularly useful language to know unless you plan to live there some day. It'll never be the language of business, for instance. So, what's the appeal, exactly?

Why study French, German, or Spanish for that matter? Doesn't seem particularly useful to know.

Well, French is a language of diplomacy.

Mandarin will only ever be used in China. Yes, it's a huge market -- but like I said, is usefulness is limited, unless you're going to go live and work there.

Anonymous wrote:We said all the same things about Japanese in the 80 s

Precisely. And Japanese isn't exactly the language of global business now, is it?

Anonymous wrote:A billion people speak it

Soon they will own our dumb lazy asses.

Figure it out.

The number of native speakers of Mandarin is less than a billion. But it is still a very big number.

Anonymous wrote:I'd hope this is troll

Sadly I doubt it. And it’s comforting really that some don’t see the appeal. I’m not going to waste my time explaining it to them.