Mine the only ones not learning Mandarin?

great_lakes_mom
Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:51:15 +0000

Having lived in Asia, and played around with learning a functional vocabulary in various Asian languages years ago, I was determined that my kids learn an Asian language early in life. Once you learn one Asian language, things make sense in others. Many cognates, as with most European languages. But, the school started them on French in middle school, and their knowledge and enthusiasm flourished throughout HS. Our HS taught no Asian languages, though others in the district do (grrr). They (twins) both may major in French in college. Both have easily added Spanish in recent years. Despite Japanese camp and Asian family, their interest in Asian languages is minimal. Too much early exposure? Who knows.

But the point, is that language learning should perhaps be in line with interests, affinities and career goals. For many, many jobs, as well as lives lived predominately in the USA, Spanish is a necessity. And a very good entre into the job market for some. I’ve also heard Spanish put down in certain business related circles as ‘of no import.’ Perhaps that is true, looking toward Asia and Europe. But here in the upper midwest, far from Mexico, it is becoming essential.

Do those of you living on the coasts have an opportunity to use Chinese, either Mandarin or Cantonese? Or is much of that population English speaking? I ask, because I don’t see a use for it here, despite a fair sized Asian population, and finding a place and reason to speak adds greatly to learning motivation. Most of the Asian population in our area tends to be quite well educated, and English speaking.

After a certain amount of travel, I’ve come to the realization that the places where knowledge of another language is essential are the large monolingual land masses. China, S. America. Though perhaps that is less true with the explosion of English teaching in China. I haven’t been in China in decades. But my S is teaching English teachers this year in Shanghai, and he has found their English level to be surprisingly low.

The US govt is waking up to the fact that there are serious deficits in the number of citizens with a working knowledge of less commonly used languages in this country. The languages of Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and, surprisingly, Korean. Some money and intent is being given to rectifying that problem.