which language is the best one in the word?

In terms of usefulness:
English (Access to 3/4 Earth)
Chinese (On the rise, common also in East Asia, you can compare it to English in the rest of the world and Spanish in Latin America.)
Spanish (Latin America)

In terms of learning:
easiest:
-Mandarin/traditional (Pinyin really helps, especially when you speak a Latin-Greek/Germanic language, there is also none of that gender or "s" crap or -irregular words. (I hate that gender and plural crap! And irregular words can go abyss)
and in writing, traditional is derived from shapes and parts that are interchangable, so as long as you knew the symbol, you'll know the word.)
-Korean (Its semi-alphabet setting with characters depending on sound makes it easy to read, and helps in speed writing, where germanic words can be long as hail.)
Hardest:
-English (What's the idea with the "s" anyway? I kept losing my breaks back in primary school because what I wrote was ebonics!!! )
-Chinese overall (The PRC has to be responsible for part of this......Inventing the simplified helped with learning, but since the PRC is now the only body, yet it accounts for the most Chinese speakers, so basically, you just divided the language in half and mess things up for every foreigner out there.....
Then there are the dialects, which really ruins it for China. Especially for Guangdong, since Cantonese sounds really different, and is very difficult to distinguish. I have a lot of misses myself when I speak it, just try saying "dry", "river", and "light" in Cantonese...........
Traditional might be easy to observe and analyze, but writing it takes a whole lot of time with the strokes.......)
-Any Germanic language where there is no neutral gender..............."buenos noche.", "No, it's buenAs noche"
....................-.-".............wth?

Gollevainen said:

Its rich and unique language, the best one for lonely wondering in the woods and you have name for everything you see in there, something that 'urban' languages like all indo-european ones can never achieve...

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Yea, as unique as Gaelic.:nana:
No offence to the Finns or Irish people, just a joke.

In english you say, In the house, from the house, to the house, of the house and so on (i used the colours to indicate which part of the word is what)

Now for finnish the house is Talo, and here's the same forms: Talossa, Talosta, Taloon, Talon

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Yea, but are there irregular words? Like how you are suppose to add "s" for plural but not for words like "meat"
And man, I just hate irregular words!!!

But foreigners (especially Europeans) find it difficult to learn Hindi because it assigns gender to every thing.

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??? What you mean? Spanish, German to my knowledge, and most other Euro-Lit assigns gender to everything too.

That's one of the reasons why Chinese os so hard to learn...There's about 5 or six differnet types of Chinese. Mandarin, Cantonese, Fujianese, Sichuanese, whatever it is they speak on Taiwan, I guess it would be Taiwanese. In English there is no "British", "New English", "Texan", and "Californian". No matter where you go, it is easy to get around reigonal accents and slang. Well, maybe there is a Texan

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Howdy, mate,
There are variations of English too. The British have "U"s in words like Color and Armor, and takes a dish of food as plural, you feel me?

By the way, does Manchu still exsist? I find that is a large gap in my knowledge of Chinese history that I do not know what hapened to the Manchus after 1911. Where did they go? Are there still any around? Maybe I'll make a thread about this in the history forum.

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I am mixed, part Manchu. The real Manchus are located mostly China's New England (Manchuria) in the 3 provinces up there.

I don't find the different dialects difficult, since everywhere in China Chinese is taught in Mandarin, so theoretically I could go to GuangDong or Hainan and speak Mandarin and they'd understand? I don't know, never been there. But I have been to Xi'an, and they speak Mandarin very well...

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Well, people from Guangdong(urban), Hainan, and Guangxi(urban guangxi) learn their share of mandarin, but speak Cantonese primarily. So you will always see a Mandarin speaker there, but their quality can be a little.....er.....And there are exceptions and people who don't know it at all, but its rare. But in Guangdong, there is yet another, county/city level of levels....... Like in Taishan, there is TaishanHua. (If you come to San Francisco, The Chinese population here speaks either Cantonese or TaishanHua, while people around San Jose speak Mandarin.)

MIGleader said:

The language of the future is English. Chinese is an extremely difficult to learn becasue it involves memorizing extra parts: The definition, the pinying, the and the word itself. Latin based languages only involve two. English is ver easy to learn, and is already rooted everywhere. if Chiense is the language fo the future, then why is it mandatory in china to learn English?

People argue since China makes up 1/5 of the world population, Chiense shoudl be a future language. But really, those chiense will be speaking english in transactions with foreigners

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obivously you have not take chinese in china ( or maybe eles where for that matter)

3-4 years of basic education will alllow you to read fluently and write so I dont see how its hard compare with english.

Today english is the international language because of the importence of America and privously Britian. to catch up with the international stander english is mandatory in china not because its easily to learn. thing like computer IT etc require the english langauge in order for china to suced in these field ebglish is a must not option

pinying is only for forgeiners to learn not chinese them self. as china rise to promince chinese will become more pouplar just as English rose to importence in the age of imperalism.AS china become more importently econoemicaly and politicaly chinese will become more importent. visit china some time and you will get the idea

already in Nation near china chinese is becoming a importent language maybe it wont spread to the west but definately in asia chinese will become the most importent langauge

Yea, as unique as Gaelic.
No offence to the Finns or Irish people, just a joke.

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well more uniquer in terms of orgin...but finnish isent dying language in same extence as many smaller languages are....

Yea, but are there irregular words? Like how you are suppose to add "s" for plural but not for words like "meat"
And man, I just hate irregular words!!!

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well No irregulars...theu have pissed me off too in germanic languages like in swedish and English...but then again, most of the forms that you have to twist the words, comes in unique shape according to diffferent words, and there isent always direct ending to add, just an universal impression of the ending....?? Could we dare to discuss about identity issues whit the languages or is it too painfull?

Could we dare to discuss about identity issues whit the languages or is it too painfull

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?

Not quite sure what you mean Golli. If it means what I think you mean, I gues it should be safe. Most of us here aregood enough friends and comfortable in our own identities without being threatened by those of others. Bearing in mind that many of the participants here are Mods of one sort or another, it should not get out of hand.

I hope so...what I meant, was that how those guys that have propaly born in china but came to live in west before school age have build their national identity, what languages have their home used and how have they adjusted to the 'foreing' languacic outside world...from my experiences whit htis forum, it almoust seems that strongly represented chinse-nationalism (as blindtied as all nationalist brusts comes) by these 14-17 years old outside chinese could be somesort of counter mechanism to the immigrant/alien situation where they currently live....if it isent the case, feel free to correct me...but do confess about when and why did the chinese identity of yours to begun to build, or was it there from the beging

Obcession, I would be surprised to learn that for Chinese Airline pilots 80% of the time their accent is so deep that you can't understand a thing. The reason is I work for a Chinese Airline and a lot of pilots have very good English. There are some problems with ex-military pilots but I have no problem having a conversation with most pilots who are under 30. Many of them have trained in America and everyone has to study English and pass recorded voice tests, even I had to do the tests, and out of interest an American failed it in my sitting!!!. They are also on the whole VERY VERY keep to improve there English otherwise after 2008 they are not allowed to fly international routes.
I can not see Chinese becoming the international language because, one its too dam hard to speak it correctly for many people, because they are used to speaking a western type language, too English has already been chosen as the international language for just about every important international language system. For it to change would be very complex and more importantly very expensive.

Oh, and on the gender issue, French assignees gender to almost everything also, so we do have a gender language in Europe

Well, I think we understand each other now. I say that their accents are really deep from my own experiences with the Chinese air lines.

As I previously stated, Chinese may prove to be too tough a language to learn for Westerners, but Chinese is rising to prominence amongst Asian countries, especially the ones that it border (I gave examples earlier). To my knowledge, 3 or 4 of the high schools that my friends are in right now all offer Chinese as a second language course inside the school schedule (as opposed to being on saturdays and sundays, mainly for the people that can't get by with their Chinese skills in the regular courses). I'm taking Chinese class right now for my required second language in IB. (I live in Canada BTW) (God I should limit my use of brackets )

I agree with Darth and KYli. Chinese isn't very hard if you receive 3 or 4 years of basic training, and you can speak, read, and write fluently at that. I've had 4 years of basic education in China, and that's enough to read your average newspaper and contemporary work (It takes more to read old works like the full versions of Shi Ji and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but of course, being the literate man that I am I've studied some of the old works on my own time).

To Goll: I think the development of the Chinese identity of the youth actually develops after you come to the West. Before, you never ask yourself, "what makes me Chinese?" But after (from now on I'm telling my own story) I came to Canada, and you know how Canada encourages multiculturalism and diversity and individuality, you see all these people that are so different from you, yet equally accepted, you think, "hey, this is what it means to be Chinese, ________". I must say I never felt a special feeling of belonging or pride in China, but after I've moved to Canada I developed these feelings. But I'm equally Chinese as I am Canadian now.

I'll be interested to see that list of "classifications" by difficulty. I'm surprised Spanish is considered easy, from the tales of grammar tests my friends told me, it seems not that way. But again, all natural languages are just arbitrary mish-mash that are more complicated than necessary, as any computer scientist trying to build a natural-langauge parser will tell you

One of the big differences between languages is the use of word ordering and inflection. Some langauges (like Russian?) use inflections (prefixes or suffixes) to indicate what job a word plays in a sentence, and the ordering is not important. On the other extreme, Chinese has no inflections in general and uses more words or word ordering to imply meaning. So people who learned langauges on one extreme will have extreme difficulty with languages on the other extreme. This is perhaps why some langauges are easier to learn as a 2nd language given your first langauge. I think English is somewhat in the middle. It uses ordering, but also has inflections to denote things like verb tense, adjectives/adverbs, and plurality, but not to the extent of, say, German or Russian.

So really, the function assigning difficulty to a langauge should have its form as
language x language -> difficulty
instead of
langauge -> difficulty
Because it's really a function of both the language your trying to learn and your native langauge.
I.e. Difficulty(English,Spanish)->Easy
Difficulty(English,Russian)->Hard
Difficulty(Chinese,Japanese)->Easy
Difficulty(*,Sanskrit)->Hard

And like I said, the easiest language is the one your mother taught you when you were a baby.

Pragmatically speaking, English will be dominant for awhile. Even if Chinese has more speakers (this "fact" I'm not sure about) it is largely confined to China and SE Asia, while English can be used widely around the globe. But if a business person already knows English, Chinese would likely be the most pragmatic language to learn next.

Gollevainen said:

I hope so...what I meant, was that how those guys that have propaly born in china but came to live in west before school age have build their national identity, what languages have their home used and how have they adjusted to the 'foreing' languacic outside world...from my experiences whit htis forum, it almoust seems that strongly represented chinse-nationalism (as blindtied as all nationalist brusts comes) by these 14-17 years old outside chinese could be somesort of counter mechanism to the immigrant/alien situation where they currently live....if it isent the case, feel free to correct me...but do confess about when and why did the chinese identity of yours to begun to build, or was it there from the beging

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I am born in China Fujian, and move to HK when I were six. I come to US at ten. I use Cantonese and Fujianese at home. I don't know if I can qualifield as nationalist or not, but I don't mind others think that I am . I don't know when my chinese identity begun to build, since most of my education is either anti-CCP or anti-China. My guess is since my family is sort of traditonal chinese family, so it has somewhat affect me. Many of my teachers in Hk are supporter of KMT, but they are also nationalist. It might be because they has been suffered from the western imperialism and WWII Japan. So yes eventhrough the HK education is pro-west, and most Hk people are pro-west. I am sort of pro-chinese .

And I think Obcession say it very well, you will only find out you are different until you are in foreign land. That why I become interest in Chinese history and culture when I am in HK and US. i felt I knew nothing about chinese history or culture. I took a lot of time to read. It is not a pleasure thing, since history is very bloody for a seven-ten years old. And I think some of the chinese novels and TV series have also impact me somewhat, the strange thing is I like japanese cartoon but I never delevop a pro-japanese from it.

I did have some of struggle when I am in US. My chinese identity has became an issue. There are some sort of racism and culture barrier, but that is not as important. The biggest issue for me is that when I make the decision not to apply US citizenship, I know i am stupid and many people said I am. But I just felt that eventhrough I lived at US for over fifteen years, I am still more Chinese than anything else. oh well hopefully Popeye and Seadog will not come in here and call me traitors.

Golly, if you have more question, feel free to ask. I don't have problem to answer even more sensitive questions. I am old enough and wise enough to not give a damn about what other people thought, and certainly I will not have problem with different point of view.

i would hate to learn indian languages beside the point they are extremely hard.. they got so many languages. every state have one, indianfighter, how many of those languages can you use fluently??? i got friends from pinjab, and can speak hindi and pinjabi, then guys from somewhere in south india that speaks their language, tamil, and a bit of hindi.. in the end they only converse in english because no one's hindi is too good to use fluently. sanskrit is good for programing, it makes C++ and java look so easy after learning it.. except the fact it's just so hard to learn. i don't even want to try.

Redmercury: you are right with the depending on first language, second language difficulity thing. my girlfriend is from brazil, so she can speak portugese very fluently, but can also understand spanish easily (but spanish speakers can't understand portugese). so for her to learn spanish it would be very easy. and for her italian is easy too, since portugese and italian are both latin based, and she understand some of it.

Obcession: aren't you the one that goes to Churchill?? if you are Ms. Chan is not exactly the best chinese teacher, i played (chinese) computer games in her class in grade 10, didn't learn a thing.