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Are you bilingual?

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Meandola:
When the Europeans colonized the world, going to Africa and America mainly, we knew nothing about the cultures etc and pretty much just took whatever the hell we wanted. Now, however, the world has been explored. There's nothing left to colonize.
Yes, the eastern culture is spreading. But in a world where most people learn english/french/spanish to a degree there's no need for the ''mainstream'' languages to change in the western part of the world.

What iindigo said isn't racism. When you move to a country and intend to stay there I'd expect you to learn the language, to atleast some degree. My mom has a friend who came here to the Netherlands from America 15-16 years ago. And he STILL does not know a single bloody word dutch. Now this is also partly to blame on the dutch for being fairly easy going, as most people here have english as their second language. But I still find it pathetic.

(click to show/hide)Moving to a localized area of a city where people of similar/same cultures lives happens everywhere. It's not because we bully them into ''their corner of the city'' it's because they find it more comfortable being with people of their own culture. We did not make that area ''the islamic part of town'' and said ''you should all move there, where you belong''.
I suppose it doesn't really help that those areas are somewhat cheaper to live than in other areas. But truth be told, a fair number of these people don't have jobs. This is due to various reasons, among those is that our system is piss poor for providing work for the unemployed (regardless of nationality, it's just a shit for the dutch as for everyone else), we give them money to ''look'' for jobs, this money is enough to get by in the cheaper areas. This provides no motivation for them to actually find said jobs, get a higher income and move to a better place.

AceHigh:

--- Quote from: duskfairy on February 01, 2011, 12:51:52 AM ---Ehm.... once again; colonialism. It was- and in many extent still is- a really filthy action....you should really learn more about it I suppose before saying things that sounds like a holiday-trip-all-of-it, and not that countless of people died and so on. Europeans occupied and colonized many areas in the world and therefore European languish is still valid there... and the prize for the locals in the different areas weren't cheap. Bear that in mind please.
--- End quote ---

I know all I need about colonialism and I know that the reason why many Americans know only one language and don't feel like they need to learn a second or third, has nothing to do with how many people died during colonization hundreds of years ago. You side tracked the topic really well there.

The only thing that is pre-derement by colonial age, and that is the official language used in countries that used to be former colonies. It has nothing to do with the desire to learn new languages at present time.


--- Quote ---Different is that even if China (for example, Asia is big...) is rapidly growing and earning power (more than US), they don't kill in the same amount as the colnialist did or all the wars in the 1900's for to earn power...
--- End quote ---
Right.... I am sure you will have a great time discussing the evil Europeans that advanced the world to this point with losers from 3rd world countries like Pharismo.

Offtopic...
(click to show/hide)
--- Quote ---Not true.
The strongest economies now is China, Japan, Singapore, India, Brazil, USA...
I'm studying about this at uni, so know  what I'm talking about, even if I of course doesn't know everything and ofc can be wrong; but am really sure on that you're wrong here, AceHigh.
--- End quote ---

I guess your uni never bothered to inform that in the current global economy it is always the consumer and not the supplier that has the economical power. We live in a debt based society after all. In that sense USA is still the economical powerhouse because they have a huge demand for supplies, and China, being the little bitch of the USA as they have been for a while is only happy to oblige.

I am just curious, based on what data do you assume that China has the strongest economy? GDP? Federal reserve? BNP?
Video on fake GDP growth.

BrownMasterV:
Lol, USA's economy sucks big fat donkey dick right now...

xfreidax:
Those empty city reports are one dimensional Ace. China since opening up, has one major glaring problem. The lack of a social safety net. Because of this, the Chinese save more than anyone else in the world. And they park their money in long term investments. The growing middle class there have been snapping up a 2nd property like crazy and leaving them empty. That's part of the explanation of the empty city. Is there a property bubble forming in China? Yes there is and they are very aware of it and trying to fix it. Whether or not they will manage this or it will blow up in their face, we'll see. But to say all their economic figures are cooked up is silly. A good part of China's economic growth is real. Have you ever been to China? Go to places like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Tianjin. I'm sure it will open your eyes.

A lot of Asian countries came out of the recent financial meltdown in US relatively unscathed why? Because we have been riding on the back of strong Chinese growth. Do you hear of massive bailouts or debt crisis anywhere in Asia? No. In fact, economy in my country grew last year by 10%.

Take a look at some of the advanced economies in Asia. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore. Largest trading partner? You would think USA. Wrong, it's China.

ASEAN's largest trading partner? China. Indochina? China. India? China number 2. Indonesia? China number 2.

Going further afield. Largest economy in South America, Brazil. Largest trading partner? China.

None of these figures can be cooked up Ace.

On topic,

What language is relevant as a 2nd language will largely depend on your neighbors. For example in my country apart from English, no one really learns European languages. Why? Because it's irrelevant. More useful for us to know Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Indonesia for example. Most Singaporeans are bilingual, some of the older generation trilingual. If we are going to learn any foreign language, picking up an Asian language will make 10X more sense. Examples of popular foreign languages to pick up here, Japanese and lately Korean.

Sakura90:

--- Quote from: borghellit on January 27, 2011, 01:53:04 AM ---Maybe he isn't interested. Besides, if you speak portuguese, you can understand spanish while in a conversation. It's the same for me (I'm from argentina), I can understand almost everything what I listen in portuguese. Bouth languages are so similar.

--- End quote ---
Another one from Argentina. Nice ♥ ;D

Native: Spanish
Fluently: English
Learning: Japanese
Forgotten: German

About English... I've learned it since I was 6, I can read, write and hear it fluently (unless ppl speak it with rockets in their asses or with a strong accent/dialect/whatever). About speaking it myself, I haven't spoken more than with teachers and in learning environments, so I guess I'll be no good there, mostly because my pronunciation must suck or I may not know a random word for a random situation. All in all, I need speaking practice as all the current contact with English for me comes from books or our beloved series of tubes :P (which varies from anime subs to random chatting and everything, currently there's one only site -a forum- I regularly visit in Spanish, rest all English).

Japanese... growing strong (well, just growing xD). Most of the things I like come from there and many are not translated (and let's not talk about music), so for me it's learn Jap or die. Aside from the course (which is in Spanish <.<), I use English resources to learn Jap, so that helps me practice 2 languages at the same time. It's a win-win ;D

German... had a year of it in 3rd year of high school (3rd of middle school for the ones that have middle school -> high school). Was an optional course, I liked it and even had good grades. Dropped it when 4th year came because general attendance was getting lower and lower and even the teacher went absent in many classes (reason why ppl started dropping the course, we went early in the morning -regular school was in the afternoon- just to find out the teacher was missing <.<). Later I believe the German course was dropped all together from school and never came back :(. Still, I would like in some point of my crappy life to learn German again. As I've never had contact with it again, I forgot nearly everything. Might remember a little if I read something, but that's a long shot, mostly I don't remember anything right now.

Portuguese seems to be the tendency here, even the government announced it will be mandatory in high schools in some years, but I'm not interested in it unless I have spare time and someone wants to give me free courses or something. I'd rather stick with Jap, I already have a looooong way to go there, even though my chances of ever seeing Jap soil or any soil outside this region are almost 0 :'( (and they may even turn to negative numbers :-\). I still like many things from there and I even find kanjis... cute ♥. German too, but I have to find something to motivate me along the way if I start again, something I want to use the language for, even if it's music, reading a novel or whatever. Learning a language just for fun is nice, but if you don't apply it in something it's easily forgotten (yeah, I know, I just "discovered America" like we say here ;D). For Jap it was music, then anime, then light novels, then culture and so on. So I now want 日本語 to use for almost everything :-*


PS: Learning Chinese or Korean would be nice too, and would love to (along Japanese) if I had the money and time >.>

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