Should we be learning the Chinese Language?

My mother tongue is Chinese. I was exposed to English starting from 8 yrs old. My observation on those who grew up in a dual language educational system is, either that they master one or them, or they aren’t good at either.

The breadth of thinking is often influenced by the variety of experience the person has had. The depth, is often limited by how much command the person has of his most dominantly used language. Of course, this is a controvasial opinion, but it’s what I have observed.

Of course there is more to Singapore’s education system to discuss about other than the multi-language nature, but you can’t deny that mixture of grammar and accent of english, mandarin, malay, hindi and the various chinese dialects has been a major issue. It’s ironic that some of them even think that Americans have strong accents.

For me, I used to hover abut the border between pass and fail during English examinations no matter how hard I tried. When I came to the US, I aced in all the English classes. It’s not that the standard of taught English language is lower here, but the change in environment allowed me to understand the logic of how the language actually works, so it was much easier from then on.

Actually the current generation of kids have a problem with mandarin, they find it too difficult. My generation is generally fine with either language, though we are definitely stronger with english, especially when speaking business. English terms pop up in the middle of all chinese conversations all the time. Almost sounds japanese.

But you are right, fluency is largely dependant on their environments.

So what I hear is…Mandarin if you want to do business…

Unless The US starts acquiring more land…we will never catch up to China or India…

We have truly arrived to the digital age…

I will have to keep learning something new everyday if I want to stay at least par with the world as an educated designer…

It doesn’t matter what language you speak…as long as you can speak at least four different ones…

Thank you this has been most interesting…

I am asking myself the same question. The thing is that China in the future (and probably already) plays 2 roles in teh contemporary industry and market.

a. almost everything is built there.
b. it’s one of the biggest (and maybe it will become the biggest) market.

so, in one way or another almost any industry is dependent from China and therefore i would think that if a designer (not Chinese) could speak Chinese in the future (the very near one) will have a competitive advantage.

about a year ago i was in Hong Kong (in HK people do speak english so no major problem) + China and last January i was in Japan. i really loved Japan and i would really consider to move there and work at least for some years. An interesting difference i found was thet wesetrns in HK were were NOT speaking Cantonese or Mandarin but it were the locals who had to speak english. In contrast, in Japan it were the wesetrns who would speak Japanese. If you want to survive in Japan you HAVE to speak Japanese…so… how about learning both Chinese and Japanese :laughing: :open_mouth:

Alexandros,

Because of your point “b”, be careful of how much longer point “a” will continue to be true. Very soon there will be a great inward turning of Chinese manufacturing to the Chinese markets. I hope other countries have a plan for this, and the idea that you can just move to another country and find another “China” will not work either. At least not in low cost Walmart/Carrefour market system.

You are not required to speak Chinese when dealing with Chinese manufacturers because it’s them who are trying to sell you stuffs. When you are trying to sell them your designs, that will be the time when you need to speak their language.

Language is the main key to understanding a culture. To learn a language, you cannot do it by textbook or remotely. You have to find ways to understand the culture or else the language will never make sense to you. Therefore, in order to design for the “largest market in the world”, you gotta learn the language.

ive been travelling to China quite frequently over the last 6 years (about 100 days per year- footwear industry), but sadly havent had the opportunity to lear to much Chinese (Mandarin). I can count to twenty, know some colors, usual “hello, goodbye, thank you, tec.” a few technical words and lots of drinking games, but not much more.

when i first started travelling with my boss who had been going to china for more than 20 years I was suprised that hi didnt know much beyond “hello/thank you”. but now i see how much more difficult it is to learn of you are dealing in business with people that can speak english very well and need to efficiently communicate (ie. can spend 10 minutes flipping through a dictionary or trying to learn in the midset of getting stuff done).

still, if you have the opportunity, i would say it could be a big plus.

I used to work with a tech guy from india who could speak pretty fluenty about all things technical, daily use (food, directions, etc.) and get by in all ways. I dunno how he did it (spending more than 200 days in China/year probably helped a lot), but more than anything saw the respect he commanded when working with suppliers.

As for young children learning multiple languages, I think its been shown in studies that the young mind can much easier process the requirements to learn different sounds and grammar structures much easier than adults. If there’s anyway I could teach my kid Mandarin (when i have a kid) i would.

Interesting sidenote is the number of languages most europeans speak compared to north americans. Its not unsual for many europeans to know fluently at least 3-4 languages (ie. German, english, french) with a working knowledge of maybe 1-2 more (ie. spanish, scandinavian languages, etc.).

In business it never hurts to be able to speak the language of your business partner/suppllier even just to make them feel more at ease.

Good point though by TimF about the thinking difference in cultures west vs. east. I would also agree that this is as important or more important than langauge esp. as more asian cultures are now learning english, but very little in the way of western culture/business practices.

R

I’ve heard this issue over at other forums and a lot of people appear to think cantonese is important too… mandarin will be the common language of all Chinese. And yes I think Chinese will be dominant. For now, both English and Chinese are dominant languages.

I come from Shanghai, China and working in a Korea Company now.
For me, languange is just a tool of communication and culture itself. Even we say same language, we also have some misundersatand.
Understanding one culture and repecting it is more improtant I think.

Even in China, it has so many languages different from Mandarin that I cannot understand either, ex Cantonese.^^

I think you’re right here yecc…I think understanding one’s own culture and learning about the cultures around us is crucial…especially if you’ve chosen to be an Industrial Designer…I am of the thinking that products should be designed for specific cultures…who’s going to use this product and what type of culture do they live in?..

Well, No.2, this kind of situation depend on the which kind of product they use and the live condition they have. To read the culture, especially to a new guy or foreigner, observation is the key method.

I think it’s interesting when interviewing a user about a certain object, if they know more than one language they usually use two or three different words for the same object. For example I know both English and Spanish. So to me when I read or say the word “table” I’m also thinking “mesa”. That goes for all things…I usually name my projects by word I use to describe it…so if I design a table I might name the project MESA, Spanish is my first language so I usually care more about an object if the words to describe it come strictly from the Spanish language, sometimes even the dialect.

Does this make sense? Is it unusual to use more than one name for an object?

…For Example in English sometime people will replace the word for the object with the brand name…Instead of saying “my laptop”…they might say “my Dell” …and so on…

What do you gals and guys think?

Over the past few years I’ve been picking up words here and there over the past few years like Hello, thank you, too much, full, fart, F-you, knife… a random assortment, but its fun and I think the factory crew gets a laugh out of me trying to learn… somehow it seems o help when I say I have 5 tooling changes to make…

I think it is great to make the effort, but as stated, most of the people we deal with have very good English skills, in addition to probably speaking a 3rd language as well. It amazes me.

sure, never hurts to make an effort, even just for the humility of it all. i’ve got covered most colors, counting to 10, hello/goodbye a few technical words and some dirty phrases for good measure.

that being said, i used to work with a technician who could pretty much converse in mandarin…and he was actually from India! Very impressive and got a lot of respect from the factories and was able to cut down on a lot of the “OK, no problem sir” BS.

R

In a previous lifetime I pursued two degrees in Asian Studies with a focus on Chinese history, culture, and Mandarin. I’m not using it quite yet in my capacity as business development person for a New Hampshire-based product development firm, but I tell people all the time that the future has black hair…whether it speaks Hindi or Mandarin. I don’t think it can hurt to be able to shuo Putonghua when the situation calls for it.

mothy / Li Fashi

I think most people will accept anglo-americans not speaking their language. After all, it’s common knowledge that our brains are smaller than theirs…what else should they expect?!

yes ,I also think language just a tool,like the 3D software,just a tool ,not the soul.There are so mant area language in china.Even each town the language is different.

thanks for the reponses !
Personally I think there are a good number of reasons why a foreign language should be learnt. Other than the humility, learning someone’s language actually brings people closer. I also believe that the best way to learn a culture is to actually know the language while learning about how another race lives. It more effective also to read a native text than a translated one too.

nice effort ! :slight_smile:
but I think you should go beyond the numbers and colours !!
best wishes !

A lot is made of this (usually by Europeans), and tends to portray Americans as stupid, lazy and arrogant (not saying this is true of your post). In reality, it has a lot to do with the fact that the US only borders one country that speaks a different language (two if you count Quebec). Few Americans (as a percentage) ever travel outside the country, because it’s too expensive, too far, and fairly difficult to get a passport. A lot of people here know basic Spanish, especially if they work in hospitality, construction, or farming. But if you learn French in high school (as I did), you get zero chance to ever use it in a practical setting, apart from a trip to France once a decade. I’ve never done business with anyone in France. In terms of effort and reward, learning French was a poor use of my time (and I spent 6 years on it). That knowledge has mostly atrophied away now. In the meantime, I’ve picked up an almost equivalent knowledge of Spanish without any effort at all, because Spanish speakers are a large percentage of the population where I live.

Compare this to say, Germany, where you can cross one border (quickly, easily and cheaply) and encounter Danish, Polish, Czech, Italian, French, Flemish and Dutch. A couple hours more on the train and you hit another 10+ languages. With open borders, you are very likely to encounter people who speak other languages, and likely to do business with them too. It shouldn’t be surprising that Europeans speak more languages. It’s emphasized in school because it’s useful when you get older. More proof is how few people in England learn another language. Most people know a bit of French (look, you can get there easily and cheaply), but that’s about it.

It also helps (or hurts) that so many people around the world speak English. It gives you little incentive to try to learn their language- I can bust my ass for 6 months trying to get a basic working knowledge of Icelandic, but when I go there and try to talk to someone who’s been learning English since the age of 5, guess which language is going to win. Now if you’re Icelandic, you really have no choice but to learn a few other languages, because your native language is only spoken by about 300,000 people.

I am trying to learn Mandarin, but I don’t see it as necessary so much as polite. I don’t expect to ever be able to carry out a detailed technical conversation in Chinese, although that would be extremely helpful. Most of the time the front office people we deal with speak English (sometimes well, sometimes not), but the people doing the actual work don’t speak English at all, so instructions have to be translated by someone who may not really understand the technical part.