Are you bilingual?

[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.

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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]

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.

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.

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...

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...

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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.

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]

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.

Another one from Argentina. Nice ♥

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 (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

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 ). 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 >.>

[newy]

...

It might be true that China is the first trading partner for those that you mentioned. But you do know that China is keeping the exchange value of the Yuan low artifically to make their exports cheaper? And that will have unforeseen consequences if they keep that up.

And lol about "colonialism" and English being spoken in the US. You are lucky that not German became the official language in the States thanks to the death of a majority of the German immigrants in the US. Otherwise the referendum to choose the official language in the 1900s(?) (or was it 1800s?) would have ended differently.

[duskfairy]

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.

(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.

Well, it is racism when we distinguish in terms like "we" and "them" till that extent that some think that "they" shouldn't living in the same area as "ourselves"; you saying "they" wish to group together ethnically... and that they doesn't have any job... Wonder why they doesn't have any jobs? And wonder why your last name decide how the locals will treat you? HM... who's the culprit here I wonder...

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.

LOL. Since none of us are gods we can never know everything about anything.
"Don't feel like" and "doesn't have the opportunity for" is a big different; for Americans not everyone have education, lesser and lesser in fact goes throughout basic school.
No I didn't side tracked cause you can't speak about languish without speaking about countries/ cultures/ society etc... I ahve to admit I did turned the conversation into a deeper discussion, but it's still within the theme and also interesting ^-
 

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.

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.

LOL, again. It's not about hating this or that; I'm an European myself so that doesn't make any sense; and actually I doesn't care cuz I'm more interested in the global changes than about whom I should or shouldn't like...
And dunno if i should cry or launch at your silly comment about "losers from 3rd world countries like Pharismo". Honestly; because of whom are they this so called 3rd countries? And what and which do you actually mean by "3rd countries"?
We were talking mainly about Chine before; China definitly aren't a 3rd/ developed country.

Here's some texts that might be of interest...or starters at least...

(click to show/hide)

Alvstam, C., Ström, P. & Yoshino, N. (2009) “On the economic interdependence between China and Japan–
challenges and possibilities”. In Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 50(2). pp. 198-214.

Andreosso-O’Callaghan, Bernadette (2009) How is the EU-ASEAN FTA viewed by ASEAN stakeholders? In Asia
Europe Journal. Vol. 7, No. 1. pp. 63-78

Business Week (2005) A New World Economy. The balance of power will shift to the East as China and India
evolve. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_34/b3948401.htm

Huang Yukon and Alessandro Magnoli Bocchi (2009) Reshaping Economic Geography in East Asia. The World
Bank: Washington D.C. Yukon. Cpht.20. http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default
/main?pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&
searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000333037_20090127230524&
searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679

Marshall, Richard (2004) “Asian Megacities”. In Robbins Edward & Rodolphe El-Khoury (eds.) Shaping the city: studies in history, theory and urban design. Cpht. 10. New York, NY : Routledge. pp. 194-211.

xfreidax, well written post!

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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.

some more random articles that's worth reading...

(click to show/hide)

http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-consumer-investments-2010-3# and http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-consumer-investments-2010-3#dont-miss-20

http://www.chinese-culture.net/html/chinese.html

[xfreidax]

...

It might be true that China is the first trading partner for those that you mentioned. But you do know that China is keeping the exchange value of the Yuan low artifically to make their exports cheaper? And that will have unforeseen consequences if they keep that up.

(click to show/hide)

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/feldstein32/English

This article points out certain things about Chinese Yuan manipulation that makes the issues less clear cut.

Of particular interest,
"A stronger renminbi would reduce the import bill, including prices for oil and other production inputs, while making Chinese goods more expensive for foreign buyers and foreign goods more attractive to Chinese consumers. This would cause a shift from exports to production for the domestic market, thereby shrinking the trade surplus, in addition to curbing inflation.

China’s trade surplus and the renminbi’s exchange rate were high on the list of topics that President Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama discussed when Hu visited Washington earlier this month. The Americans are eager for China to reduce its surplus and allow its currency to appreciate more rapidly. But they should be careful what they wish for, because a lower surplus and a stronger renminbi imply a day when China is no longer a net buyer of US government bonds. The US should start planning for that day now."

Is China's undervaluation of the Yuan a problem? Yes it is. But it's not nearly as big a problem as the politicians would like you to believe. Much of that is rhetoric, to deflect the attention from internal malaise which is politically hard to address. So the easy way out? Look for a bogeyman, preferably someone foreign.

Why, for the amount of attention it's getting, is China's Yuan peg not acted upon by US or EU for example? Why no significant retaliatory measures? Because they fear a trade war? No.

It's because the politicians know it's rhetoric. Even if the Yuan was allowed to float, the jobs that the West have been losing will not flow back home. They will just go to the next huge supply of cheap exploitable labour of which there is no lack of in the world.

[fohfoh]

...

It might be true that China is the first trading partner for those that you mentioned. But you do know that China is keeping the exchange value of the Yuan low artifically to make their exports cheaper? And that will have unforeseen consequences if they keep that up.

(click to show/hide)

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/feldstein32/English

This article points out certain things about Chinese Yuan manipulation that makes the issues less clear cut.

Of particular interest,
"A stronger renminbi would reduce the import bill, including prices for oil and other production inputs, while making Chinese goods more expensive for foreign buyers and foreign goods more attractive to Chinese consumers. This would cause a shift from exports to production for the domestic market, thereby shrinking the trade surplus, in addition to curbing inflation.

China’s trade surplus and the renminbi’s exchange rate were high on the list of topics that President Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama discussed when Hu visited Washington earlier this month. The Americans are eager for China to reduce its surplus and allow its currency to appreciate more rapidly. But they should be careful what they wish for, because a lower surplus and a stronger renminbi imply a day when China is no longer a net buyer of US government bonds. The US should start planning for that day now."

Is China's undervaluation of the Yuan a problem? Yes it is. But it's not nearly as big a problem as the politicians would like you to believe. Much of that is rhetoric, to deflect the attention from internal malaise which is politically hard to address. So the easy way out? Look for a bogeyman, preferably someone foreign.

Why, for the amount of attention it's getting, is China's Yuan peg not acted upon by US or EU for example? Why no significant retaliatory measures? Because they fear a trade war? No.

It's because the politicians know it's rhetoric. Even if the Yuan was allowed to float, the jobs that the West have been losing will not flow back home. They will just go to the next huge supply of cheap exploitable labour of which there is no lack of in the world.

Supposedly.... Pushing low currency

China did it
Japan did it
USA also did it
Brazil wanted to do it, wasn't allowed to, so bitched about it.

Seriously though, start a thread in the politics forum, you guys are way off topic.

[Burkingam]

Native: French
Fluent: English
Learning: Japanese

[harpy]

It might be true that even more Chinese people will come here (well they will, their numbers are already increasing, but it not just Chinese people) and they do try to do that all shift from European culture /.../ BUT there is just no way that we will fully shift from English/French/German/Spanish/Russian to Chinese. /.../ it will be after we are dead and most likely after our children are dead.
What sane person would turn from a most used alphabetic system that is proven to be quite good for not only one but most part of the world to hieroglyphs...

Chinese and other Asian ppl IS spreading, but what's bad with that? As I already stated beore; that's globalization (that has it's root in colonialism, as the Europens started; so go ahead and blame China for a second wave of colonialism. OFC they all doing it for their own sake, more than often because of money and power. 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...
Look at many countries in Africa for example; many chinese living there peacefully - they rather working in and owning whole or parts of company's than trying to forcefully taking their land, their womens and so on brutally like the europeans did... and we in west calling ourselves 'democracy'... hm.

So well; as I wrote before; in the future - and yeah even if it's hundred years from now it's still not to early to start thinking about it, althougt I think it will be faster than 100 years.

And I thought we were speaking about need to learn Chinese language and not the fact that they are spreading. Asian country do have most promising economic right now (not all of them, some of them), but not even all of them speak Chinese. Not even all people in China speak the same Chinese, so talking about English/German/French language to Chinese is a bit silly at this point. And I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT CHINESE OR ASIAN PEOPLE COMING OUT OF THEIR COUNTRY NOW. I have never been talking about that, I was talking about language....tsk...p eople....

..
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).
 ..

one can not understand ther own native language if it's spoken like that
I have this friend who lives in the same apartment with a hyperactive person and when ever this hyperactive person gets exited and starts to speak I feel like he does not speak my native language....

[arsa666]

Norwegian is my native language.
Fluent in English and, not so bad in Swedish either.
Understand a bit of German and Danish too.
Had French in school, hated it, but some of it stuck.

Currently learning Japanese (shock ). A friend of my brother is a teacher in Japanese, so he is teaching it too us. We`re going to stay in Japan 3 weeks in April, can`t fucking wait

[Burkingam]

It's funny how everyone hate French. Even I hate it and it's my first fucking language.

[Fool010]

It's funny how everyone hate French. Even I hate it and it's my first fucking language.

I don't hate it, I just happen to hate most people talking it 

[BrownMasterV]

Even though it's one of the "romantic" languages, I think French is fucking ugly.
Of course, I have nothing against the people

[1000mAh]

^ I copy what Brownsy said

P.S. French sounds gay xD It is a language that was made to blow up your brains.

[brunoais]

I can speak 2 languages with the same fluency, Portuguese (that's also Brazilian) and English (I'm more like american english then the others). I can also speak reasonably Spanish (enough to be understood and to understand), I know some French (enough to ask some simple help and directions and to understand if they talk slowly). That's all.

P.S. French sounds gay xD It is a language that was made to blow up your brains.

Some say it's the language of "l'amour"

ADD: My japanese resumes to little understand what I am hearing and is mostly learned though anime & internet noob guides and basic understanding on how it works.

Other languages (As an Idea from a friend) (after he told me this I just couldn't resist):
C/C++ fluently
Java fluently
(x)HTML fluently
XUL fluently
CSS fluently
javascript fluently
PHP fluently
MySQL fluently
Hasckell fluently
PASCAL some good ideas
Assembly some good ideas
ASP some good ideas


As you can see, I know a lot of languages

[harpy]

It's funny how everyone hate French. Even I hate it and it's my first fucking language.

well we did not like that we hate it, we expressed that we dislike the sound of it....
I would be all into French culture if it did not sound like it does >_< oh and now ever famous is French philosophy IT JUST GIVES ME HUGE HEADACHE, in trying to make it understandable to reader they have made it even more not understandable, the emotional expressions are great, but grasping the idea is just a huge headache....

[NELiXERY]

How can people not like French? The girls sound hot and the guys sound funny.

I speak English of course and Vietnamese kinda.

[Fool010]

^ I copy what Brownsy said

P.S. French sounds gay xD It is a language that was made to blow up your brains.

Meh, most nordic languages sound like the guy you're talking to is preparing to spit in your face.