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Mandarin Chinese as business language.
A prim twenty-one
year-old with a perpetual
smile, Yumi is quick-witted,
energetic, and thus, one
would think, eminently
employable. But the Japanese
job market, tough for a
young woman in the best of
times, has been downright
forbidding in the past few
years of economic slow-down.
So Yumi has ventured to
multilingual Singapore to
improve her job prospects,
betting that foreign
language skills will raise
her chances.
There are many young
Japanese women with similar
intentions at Yumi's
language school. There are
also students - teenage,
college-age, and middle-aged
- from around the world. A
thirty-something husband and
wife from Korea; a pair of
middle-aged sisters from the
Philippines; academic
exchange participants from
the United States,
Australia, Europe, and even
Russia. But when these
foreign students pass in the
hallways it isn't with the
typical English greetings
hello or what's up but
rather the Mandarin Chinese
ni bao (are you good?) or
zenmeyang (how's it going?).
For these individuals, like
thousands of others in
university
and commercial classes
throughout Asia, are
betting that Mandarin
Chinese will be the next
business language of the
Pacific Rim.
Will the economic
transformation of China
spread the use of
Chinese language
throughout the Asian
region,
as these students
expect? Could the
increasing utility of
Mandarin erode.
English as the second
language of choice in
Asia? And now that the
sushi, sumu,
and karaoke crazes have
subsided, is the world
turning not Japanese but
Chinese after all? |
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Despite the growth of
Mandarin language
instruction in Asia and
elsewhere, these
questions may still seem
farfetched from an
Anglo-American point of
view. We have become so
accustomed to English as
the global language of
commerce, science, and
entertainment that no
alternative seems
practicable. English can
be heard, read, and
spoken from Buenos Aires
to Brussels to Beijing,
and it is commonplace to
overhear a Thai and
German, or Indonesian
and Japanese executive
conversing in English
within the lobbies and
lounges of Asia.
But commonplace is
not always common-sensical.
The initial momentum
toward English as a
global language was
provided by two
conditions no longer
evident: the British
Empire and U.S. postwar
economic predominance.
The language itself is a
frustrating one to
master through study.
Compared to most
languages, English uses
an enormously large
vocabulary. It has
numerous phonetic and
grammatical
inconsistencies. As one
Chinese professor in
Beijing confesses, "I
have been studying
English for fifty years,
and still I'm afraid of
your prepositions."
Chinese is no picnic
either. Spoken
Mandarin may have
relatively simple
grammar and an
economical use of words.
But the reading and
writing of 2,500 to
3,500 essential
characters or ideographs
is a daunting task even
for native speakers. In
any post office in China
one can hear appeals for
help: Hey, how do you
write Harbin (a northern
provincial capital)?
Which is the Shan of
Shantou (a southern
coastal city)?
In many respects,
however, computerization
of Chinese will
facilitate commercial
functions, and the
race is already on,
among start-up firms and
corporate giants alike,
to produce the software
of choice for the
Chinese language market.
The english term
"Mandarin" refers to the
northeastern Chinese
dialect that China's
rulers have long
promoted as a unifying
language. Within
China this dialect is
referred to as "standard
speech" (putonghua);
outside China, it may be
called "country
language" (guoyu) or
simply "Chinese" (huayu).
Most Taiwanese speak
fluent Mandarin, as do
most educated
mainlanders. Large
numbers of Hong Kongers,
who traditionally speak
Cantonese dialect, are
brushing up their
Mandarin for post-1997
PRC rule. Similarly,
business and cultural
ties with China and
Taiwan are
reinvigorating Mandarin
usage among the twenty
to twenty-five million
ethnic Chinese
throughout Southeast
Asia.
Mandarin has always
been the language of
high culture among the
Chinese within China and
abroad. It is now
becoming the language of
pop culture as well.
Taiwanese and Hong Kong
movies, television
shows, and music
formerly produced in
dialects, like Cantonese
or Hokkien, are
increasingly made for
distribution to the
wider Mandarin market.
The international
success of Chinese
artists such as
filmmakers Chen Kaige
(Farewell My Concubine)
and Zhang Yimou (Raise
the Red Lantern; To
Live) adds to the allure
of Mandarin among the
young.
Until recently the
designation of Mandarin
as the world's most
spoken language was
mainly due to the size
of the population of
China itself (1.2
billion and climbing).
But now Mandarin may be
poised to spread beyond
the Chinese world as a
language of commerce and
influence among the
elite and professional
classes of Asia. The
economic impetus is
clear: Trade within the
region is expanding
twice as fast as Asia's
trade with other
regions. And if
reformist policies are
sustained, the growing
China market stands near
the center of those
trade flows. China could
also become Asia's
largest source of
tourist revenue. In 1995
PRC citizens represented
the third largest group
of Asian tourists, a
relatively new and
growing phenomenon.
The potential for
Mandarin as an Asia-wide
language rests on
historical as well as
economic foundations.
Japan, after all, was
the major source of
finance and tourist
revenue in the region
for two decades until
its recent recession.
Yet the Japanese
language never did catch
on. The legacy of the
Second World War threw
up some obstacles, as
did the peculiarities of
the language itself.
More fundamentally,
however, Japanese
language offered other
Asians access only to
Japan, not the wider
region. Japan is a
unique cultural entity
centered on itself; by
contrast, Chinese
influence has long
circulated throughout
East and Southeast Asia.
Classical Chinese
characters provide the
foundation for written
Japanese and, to a
lesser extent, Korean
languages. The Korean
President Kim Young Sam
has called for efforts
to standardize Chinese
character usage in East
Asia, thus facilitating
document translation and
second language study.
While Chinese characters
no longer occur in
written Vietnamese,
spoken Vietnamese still
contains a large
percentage of Chinese
loan words from the many
centuries (111 B.C. -
939 A.D.) of Vietnamese
tributary status. This
means that native
speakers of Korean,
Japanese, and Vietnamese
may find the study of
Mandarin easier and more
stimulating than that of
English.
In Singapore, where
78 percent of the
population is ethnic
Chinese, the
government's "Speak
Mandarin" campaign
has been in force for
seventeen years.
Originally intended to
unify the many Chinese
dialect groups in
Singapore, both
culturally and
politically, the
campaign now touts
Mandarin as the key to
business success in
Asia. Not surprisingly,
a growing number of
minority citizens in
Singapore (Malays,
Indians, Eurasians) are
petitioning to have
their children admitted
to Mandarin courses.
The potential for
Mandarin elsewhere in
Southeast Asia is still
problematic and yet
is progressing. Chinese
minorities have long
been viewed with
suspicion by the
dominant ethnic groups
for their cliquishness
and business acumen.
Indeed, suspicions have
intermittently erupted
into hostility, as with
the post-coup chaos of
mid-1960s Indonesia.
However, this has not
prevented Southeast Asia
from having two national
leaders of partial
Chinese ancestry in
recent years - former
President Corazon Aquino
of the Philippines and
former Prime Minister
Chuan Leekpai of
Thailand. Similarly,
while private Chinese
language schools were
barely tolerated in
Southeast Asia three
decades ago, now they
are prospering.
Commercial Mandarin
study is on the rise in
Thailand and the
Philippines among
students of both
indigenous and ethnic
Chinese backgrounds. The
Malaysian government is
expanding the study of
Mandarin as a third
language (after Malay
and English) in
government schools. Even
in Indonesia, where
resentment of Chinese
commercial influence
runs deepest, there has
been a relaxation of
long-standing Chinese
language prohibitions.
Two Indonesian
universities now have
Chinese language
departments, and a wider
circulation of Chinese
newspapers and tourist
brochures has been
permitted to stimulate
commerce and tourism.
The mates down under
are also in on the
trend. The
Australian government
has launched an Asian
language campaign as
part of an ambitious
effort to integrate
Australia with the Asian
economies. Their target
is for 60 percent of all
secondary school
graduates to be
functional in one of
four Asian languages
(Mandarin, Japanese,
Bahasa Indonesia, or
Korean) by the year
2006. The Australian
military has also
announced that it will
use Asian language
fluency as a promotion
criteria.
The question of
whether more Mandarin in
Asia will mean less
English is a complex
one. Many societies
pursue successful
bilingual education
programs, but trilingual
communities are rare. A
remarkable number of EU
citizens do speak three
or four languages with
virtual fluency, yet
these languages have
basic similarities. Some
Hong Kongers and
Singaporeans function
effectively in three
languages, but many more
fail in the attempt.
English will clearly
remain the predominant
global language, even as
Mandarin usage spreads
in the Asian region.
There is too much
momentum behind English
for it to be easily
displaced. Yet a growing
number of aspiring young
Asian professionals,
like Yumi and her
classmates, will be
weighing the relative
advantages of English
against Chinese as they
chart their careers.
"Can I master both
English and Chinese?"
they will ask
themselves. And for
those who cannot there
will be a further
question: Which is more
useful, appealing, and
easier to learn?
At the same time,
Asian government
officials and educators
will be pondering
different questions
around the same issue.
And their assessments
will be affected by
geopolitical and
macroeconomic trends. Is
China becoming a more or
less responsible actor
in the region? A more or
less coherent economy?
Are the United States
and other English
speaking economies
integrating more or less
closely with Asia? And,
last but not least,
which language is least
upsetting to the
existing political and
social order? The
answers to both sets of
questions, in English
and/or Mandarin, will be
heard in the hotels,
airports, and classrooms
of Asia for decades to
come.
Robert M. Pease, a
director of the Compass
East-West Group, was a
Fulbright scholar in
Singapore during
1993-94.
COPYRIGHT The National
Interest, Inc. & Gale Group
Mandarin Chinese is a
very interesting
language to learn to
speak and write.
It is also relatively
simple to learn to speak
Mandarin Chinese as
well as learn to read
and write Mandarin
Chinese at a fundamental
level of understanding.
Mandarin Chinese is
based on a simple
structure language and
learning the Mandarin
Chinese character
structure helps a lot in
learning to speak
Mandarin Chinese. The
Mandarin Chinese
language uses varying
tones to give different
meanings to a word. As
soon as you start to
learn the Mandarin
Chinese language, you
will realize that it is
not just a language.
When you learn to speak
Mandarin Chinese you are
shown a deeper
understanding of Chinese
culture and way of life.
Mandarin Chinese is
the main language in
Mainland China.
While there are a number
of dialects spoken
throughout the Chinese
provinces, it is best to
learn Mandarin Chinese
because it is the most
recognized dialect.
Mandarin Chinese is used
on a day to day basis by
over 50% of the
population. The number
of users of Mandarin
Chinese is constantly
growing which is why you
should learn to speak
mandarin Chinese rather
than learn to speak
another dialect of
Chinese. |