Should You Learn Mandarin? Probably Not.

Let me preface this by saying that I think learning multiple languages is one of the most important skills a person can develop in life. I myself know a few, and can get by in a few others. Some languages can even make you more employable. According to CNBC, however, Manadarin Chinese isn't one of them.

Is it Possible to Learn Mandarin Chinese?

I personally believe that learning Chinese will be very helpful over the coming decades, but the article makes several very good points. I know it was targeted at Europeans learning Mandarin, but the same applies to North Americans. Unless you are relatively young (no older than mid-20s) and have a couple years to devote to it, you should probably give Mandarin a pass - at least if you're only learning it to get a job in China.

Why is it so Difficult to Become Fluent in Mandarin?

The issue is that it Mandarin is an extremely difficult language to learn, with much different tonalities than Western languages. Additionally, without a written alphabet per se, there are more than 3,000 Chinese characters that must be memorized for any kind of written language proficiency.

"It is impossible to reach fluency in Mandarin without spending 3-4 years on the ground in China. So unless you are in your early twenties and want to make this significant time investment, it doesn't make much sense career-wise," said Alex Berghofen, the managing partner of HELEX Asia, a pan-Asian recruitment firm for management consultants.

I have a friend who spent six months in language school before moving to Beijing, and he tells me it was pretty much useless. And this is a guy who has lived abroad for the past decade and already knows a few languages. Which is somewhat discouraging because I've long thought about taking a crack at the language myself.

What’s the Best Way to Learn a Foreign Language?

For any of you who have done it: what's the best way to learn the language? Rosetta Stone? And does it give you any real level of proficiency, or is the article correct that you really must spend a couple of years on the ground in China?

I can tell you that languages get tougher to learn as you grow older, too. Russian was a bee-yotch for me to learn at 38, and I never even bothered to try reading or writing Cyrillic. I had a private tutor I met with several times a week and I studied my ass off when we weren't together and I'd still get quizzical looks from my kids every once in awhile when I'd speak to them in Russian. I imagine Chinese would be ten times harder.

But you guys tell me. Do you think it's possible to learn passable Chinese off-site? Do you think it opens any doors job-wise, or is the fluency just not there? And is Chinese going to be the most valuable language to learn in the 21st Century?

 

I believe that Spanish is much easier to learn than Chinese (Mandarin - though I think Cantonese is much harder)...of course, I have no real experience in Chinese. That's an impression I get from listening to other people in the business of teaching languages.

You are right...Mandarin is the next boom language, the one that will be in most demand (according to the experts) in a few years.

But in the Western Hemisphere, yeah, Spanish has more speakers. You are much more likely to find friends to practice with nearby.

So, I guess, the real question is, which are YOU more interested in, assuming you don't want to do both? Are you interested in Chinese culture? Could you see yourself travelling, maybe living for a while, or even settling in China? If you said yes to any of those, you should seriously consider learn Mandarin, and Hanbridge Mandarin offers the live and native teacher online for Chinese teaching. On the other hand, if your answers are a resounding NO, and your only interest is learning the language that is most marketable, you will probably lose interest pretty quickly.

 

with so many chinese clients, knowledge of mandarin can be useful in germany, austria, switzerland etc. where they are massively buying companies, knowledge and people atm in PE and IB world.

however, it only works if you are a native speaker... if you know it really well it might prove beneficial to you, but tbh in business world, only native speakers are looked for

 

"According to CNBC" isn't a particularly good sign but there are some good points there. I had a roommate in grad school in Milan who was majoring in Chinese and actually landed a job in China after a couple years of studying and some networking. Presumably he's pretty decent at it. As hard as it is, Mandarin is probably like any language. If you seriously study it for a few years (3/4+) at university-level you should have a shot at landing a job in certain fields/jobs but to be fluent you'll have to live onsite for a couple years. And if you're old enough to be reading this site, you can forget about ever sounding like a native speaker.

 

I still believe Spanish is the way to start - it's very easy and you can go to other romance languages after that. The sheer number of speakers on earth is larger, and romance language speakers exist all over the world thanks to colonization. Chinese is only useful to Chinese people, most of whom are in China. If you really think China is going to dominate the next 100 years, I guess pile your chips in, but I'm not convinced.

My drinkin' problem left today, she packed up all her bags and walked away.
 

I went the other route and learned French first but then ended up living in a Spanish speaking country (Mexico). Spanish was fairly easy to pick up after learning French.

That said, since moving to France my Spanish is absolute garbage. I had no idea how much damage a next door neighbor's language could do. Every time I go to Spain it's a struggle for me to find the right word without mixing it up with French. Not to mention I learned Latin Spanish and that's a bit different from Spain Spanish.

 
Edmundo Braverman:

I went the other route and learned French first but then ended up living in a Spanish speaking country (Mexico). Spanish was fairly easy to pick up after learning French.

That said, since moving to France my Spanish is absolute garbage. I had no idea how much damage a next door neighbor's language could do. Every time I go to Spain it's a struggle for me to find the right word without mixing it up with French. Not to mention I learned Latin Spanish and that's a bit different from Spain Spanish.

This rarely gets mentioned. I learned Spanish and Italian as a kid so I was able to keep the two apart. My father on the other hand learned Spanish later in life and became fluent, but when we moved to Italy and he learned Italian it wrecked his ability to differentiate between the two. Now he speaks a weird mix of Spanish and Italian and no one knows what the hell he's saying.

 
Kenny Powers:

I still believe Spanish is the way to start - it's very easy and you can go to other romance languages after that. The sheer number of speakers on earth is larger, and romance language speakers exist all over the world thanks to colonization. Chinese is only useful to Chinese people, most of whom are in China. If you really think China is going to dominate the next 100 years, I guess pile your chips in, but I'm not convinced.

Agree 100%. Spanish is a great gateway language and also helps with communication abroad and within the US. Let lesser people bitch about what "should or should not be": the simple reality is that a huge amount of people speak Spanish within our borders and it's a pretty good idea to be able to communicate with them or at least have an inkling of what they're talking about.

That Mandarin isn't more easily disseminated is just another major dealbreaker for the expansion of Chinese culture. English is the official language of more countries than any other, and far more English is spoken as a second language than Mandarin. The overwhelming majority of Mandarin is spoken in China only. Also realize that the elites in China typically speak at least some English, and if you don't speak it as a native they won't accept you, and even then....you're not Chinese and they don't accept you beyond a certain point no matter what they say.

Here are some stats. These numbers vary depending on source, so I lowballed them to be safe:

600MM people speak English as a first language 375MM people speak English as a second language 125MM people understand some english (very rough estimate) 400MM people speak Spanish as a first language 50MM people speak Spanish as a second language

= 1.55BB people speak either Spanish or English, so learning one / the other / both has the broadest reach, and you can become fluent in both in far less time than Mandarin. Current estimate is that, all in, one billion people are currently learning English in one capacity or another, with the majority being outside of America and the UK. Compare this with a puny 50MM for Mandarin being learned outside of China, and a total of only 150MM people who speak Mandarin as a second language. Also realize that there are numerous dialects that can be difficult to understand among provinces and become totally unintelligible to foreigners. There's almost no comparison in overall global utility.

......next best language to learn for international use: French, then Russian, then Portuguese

*** fun sidenote: while the US has no official language, Hawaii's official language is Hawaiian. (this note from CIA factbook)

Get busy living
 

My dad's friend has lived and has done business in China for 20 years. He told me that unless you were born in China and grow up as a native speaker you will never be fluent. You can get really good...but not fluent. He also told me that learning Mandarin is a waste of time lol.

Please don't quote Patrick Bateman.
 

Even if you get fluent, it doesn't matter because of the xenophobic culture in China. It's not just about being fluent in Mandarin, but you'll have difficulty getting hired because you have to also BE Chinese. Hong Kong and American born Chinese get discriminated against, so what chance does a gweilo have? Disclaimer: grew up in China and this applies to financial services recruitment

 

I took Mandarin for 5 years during high school and college and still am not fluent. It is a very difficult language, the writing and reading is the easy part.

Frank Sinatra - "Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy."
 

This was my reasoning. The payoff is not worth it for the time invested. Thousands of hours to learn a language vs...a CFA? a master's degree? a ton of extra work experience?

Not to mention there are a massive number of people who are bilingual already - mainly Chinese students who came to the US for college. You're competing with them - and they can speak English way better than you can speak Mandarin.

 

Spanish and English is a pretty good combo as others stated. Covers a whole lot of people for way less effort. I dont know if french, russian or german is worth it...unless you're living in that country.

 

MDBG.net is a godsend when I was learning the language, although Google Translate has gotten pretty good over the years.

The difficulty with the language doesn't stop with the sheer amount of characters, though. It's the history and the Confucian/Daoist/Chinese sayings that are really difficult to learn.

 

I am surprised no one has mentioned Portuguese as being extremely useful. Considering Portuguese is one of the first languages derived from Latin and with emerging markets like Brazil could become an incredible asset.

Father was born in Portugal but decided not to teach me sadly.. he has made moves though with his language abilities (English, Portuguese, German, Spanish)

Frank Sinatra - "Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy."
 

I always believed that children learning languages faster/easier than adults is somewhat of an illusion. My theory is that children appear to learn faster because they have an environment that is more conducive towards language acquisition. Generally speaking, adults tend to be more patient with children, speaking slower and using easier vocabulary. On the other hand, when an adult learner encounters a native speaker of the foreign language he is learning, that native speaker is often times not going to be accommodating (e.g. speak slower, use easier vocabulary) and the result often is a native speaker who is frustrated/impatient at the foreigner who in turn is also frustrated at their attempt at meaningful communication with a native speaker.

I see this all the time in the US when local Americans deal with foreigners. The other day, I saw a store attendant say something to a foreign customer. The customer clearly did not understand what the store attendant said, but instead of repeating the sentence slower or rephrasing her sentence to something easier for a foreigner to understand, the rude store attendant simply repeated the exact same sentence she just said except much louder (almost as if she was speaking to someone who was hard of hearing).

When people are hostile towards your language learning/acquisition, it makes the process that much harder and require that much more time. On the other hand, if you have a supportive environment that is conducive to language learning, you will get results much faster. That is why people who have relationships with native speakers of the language they are learning can pick up the language so fast. Since your girlfriend (or boyfriend) presumably likes you and wants to support you, they are going to be much more patient with you as you bumble along or downright butcher their native language, and they will speak slowly, repeat themselves and using easier vocabulary, etc.

One anecdote I can provide is my own language learning experience in China. About a dozen guys in my program went to China for a year. We all received the same amount of instruction (6 hours a day, Mon thru Fri) plus a one-on-one session with an individually assigned tutor (who was purposely a male, to make sure we wouldn't end up sleeping with them). By the end of the program, there was a very wide gap in spoken abilities. Generally speaking, the more introverted and studious-types who diligently attended class and put in a lot of time outside of class developed good reading and writing skills, but spoken communication was still kind of poor, whereas the slacker-types who skipped class and didn't put in much time outside of class had much better speaking abilities because they had "sleeping dictionaries" (Chinese girlfriends).

 

I tried taking a few classes in Mandarin and even forked out for a personal tutor. I gave up after a few weeks, it was incredibly difficult and I realised it would take me several years to achieve fluency.

As an aside, I find Duolingo to be an excellent tool to learn a language. Not sure if anyone else has tried it.

 

As a native Chinese speaker, I learned the language at an early age compared to my peers and got a huge leg-up in my education early on. It definitely influenced me to become a visual thinker because I had to scramble my brains to think of which strokes to put down when writing a word.

Now I just need to find a "sleeping dictionary" to help me learn French...

 

This. Have French friends and a French ex (from Quebec, not even the real deal), and they'd literally start crying when I tried to learn French. And I know Portuguese so my accent wasn't even that bad...

My drinkin' problem left today, she packed up all her bags and walked away.
 

I wouldn't advise taking a college course in chinese unless you 100% sure the Prof is amazing. I signed up for an intro course and about 80% of the class was second or third generation Chinese-americans who were looking for an easy A. I dropped it after the first week. It made it really hard to learn when you have people saying basic words perfectly.

They did meet with the head of the department to test their fluency, because during a class the professor mentioned something about how they should be in the next level. However it was their decision whether to move.

I realize this might be an isolated experience, but I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of learning is similar at other schools.

 

You can learn Chinese, but they'll always treat you like an "other" or "outsider". On top of that, Latinos/Lusophones have always been extremely awesome to me, so choosing Spanish/Portuguese over Mandarin was easy.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." --Abraham Lincoln
 
OkComputer:

You can learn Chinese, but they'll always treat you like an "other" or "outsider". On top of that, Latinos/Lusophones have always been extremely awesome to me, so choosing Spanish/Portuguese over Mandarin was easy.

I think this is a very valid point that is often overlooked. In China, it is impossible for a foreigner to be seen as anything other than a foreigner. No matter how good your Chinese is. No matter how many years you have lived in the country. No matter how much you understand Chinese culture and history. In the eyes of a Chinese person, you will always be considered an "outsider."

 
Best Response

Legitimate question here for the multilingual on this thread:

After learning Spanish to the point of being conversational during college, I have found that ability slowly but surely dwindling as I almost never make use of it outside of randomly challenging myself to read Spanish subway signs/advertisements. By 2020, more than 2 billion people are expected to speak English. For all intents and purposes, you're talking about the vast, vast majority of first world nations having significant proficiency in English. During my (admittedly not super extensive) international travel in Europe, Central and South America, I've never had a problem communicating in English (I did carry some conversations in Spanish for the mental exercise while in Central America, but it was wholly unnecessary). Almost everyone I've ever interacted with in the business world across the globe speaks English.

Given the significant upfront expense of time, effort, brain power and money required to learn a second/third/fourth+ language, how do you justify that in light of recent and projected future Anglicanization? Is it a cultural goal, or something that you believe is necessary in your career / personal development?

"For all the tribulations in our lives, for all the troubles that remain in the world, the decline of violence is an accomplishment we can savor, and an impetus to cherish the forces of civilization and enlightenment that made it possible."
 

As a native speaker, I think it's definitely not worth learning if you haven't been taking Chinese as a foreign language since high school at minimum. Within Chinese culture, seeing foreigners speak Chinese mostly elicits amusement more than anything else. It's kind of a "nice try, but not quite" attitude since not being fluent equates with being an outsider still. That being said, if you can become 100% percent fluent (which is possible, but rare), I'm sure you can apply it in a business setting.

Basically, don't bother unless you started at an early age or are a native speaker, whether you were born in an Asian country or elsewhere (I'm an ABC). You'll have the best advantage if you're perfectly fluent in both Mandarin and English, with second-best being either fluent English/semi-fluent Mandarin or vice-versa. This applies to Asians only though, because again, you'll always be considered an outsider if you aren't Asian.

 

@NorthSider You're correct, with the notable exception being France. The French fight Anglicanization tooth and nail, and you would have a really miserable time living here if you don't speak French. There are segments of French society that you don't encounter as a tourist but do as a resident who outright refuse to have anything to do with English.

To make matters worse, the English the French are taught in school is horrible. It is such an esoteric version of English that native English speakers cannot pass the Sorbonne English proficiency exam. It's a total joke. It's definitely a cultural thing; the French think the rest of the world is going to one day wake up and realize they've all been doing it wrong and that French will become the world's lingua franca.

As to your other question, I can only speak to my motivations but they were predominantly cultural. Even as a teen I never wanted to be perceived as an Ugly American, so I strove to learn the languages of those countries I was most likely to visit. The Marines contributed to that, because knowing at least a bit of a native language can mean the difference between walking away from a situation or getting shot. I learned Russian because I adopted two older Russian kids who'd never heard a word of English and I didn't think it was fair to put that pressure on them on top of all the other turmoil they were going through.

One thing I'll say about learning languages, if you're looking for versatility and portability you should definitely learn a romance language. Learning French made it much easier for me to learn Spanish and more or less a snap to pick up conversational Italian. The Germans all speak English, but with your English language skills you'll be surprised how much German you can pick up and how quickly.

Some of the more exotic languages I've dabbled in (Tagalog, Arabic) don't correlate well with any other languages, so obviously they're going to be much more difficult to learn. I picked up a fair amount of Japanese living in Japan, but it was really basic stuff like how to feed myself and not be rude and I never really got much of the nuance of their language.

So yes, despite the fact that English will get you by almost everywhere these days, I've long believed that learning other languages opens doors that might not have otherwise been open to you (culturally speaking).

 
Edmundo Braverman:

@NorthSider You're correct, with the notable exception being France. The French fight Anglicanization tooth and nail, and you would have a really miserable time living here if you don't speak French. There are segments of French society that you don't encounter as a tourist but do as a resident who outright refuse to have anything to do with English.

To make matters worse, the English the French are taught in school is horrible. It is such an esoteric version of English that native English speakers cannot pass the Sorbonne English proficiency exam. It's a total joke. It's definitely a cultural thing; the French think the rest of the world is going to one day wake up and realize they've all been doing it wrong and that French will become the world's lingua franca.

As to your other question, I can only speak to my motivations but they were predominantly cultural. Even as a teen I never wanted to be perceived as an Ugly American, so I strove to learn the languages of those countries I was most likely to visit. The Marines contributed to that, because knowing at least a bit of a native language can mean the difference between walking away from a situation or getting shot. I learned Russian because I adopted two older Russian kids who'd never heard a word of English and I didn't think it was fair to put that pressure on them on top of all the other turmoil they were going through.

One thing I'll say about learning languages, if you're looking for versatility and portability you should definitely learn a romance language. Learning French made it much easier for me to learn Spanish and more or less a snap to pick up conversational Italian. The Germans all speak English, but with your English language skills you'll be surprised how much German you can pick up and how quickly.

Some of the more exotic languages I've dabbled in (Tagalog, Arabic) don't correlate well with any other languages, so obviously they're going to be much more difficult to learn. I picked up a fair amount of Japanese living in Japan, but it was really basic stuff like how to feed myself and not be rude and I never really got much of the nuance of their language.

So yes, despite the fact that English will get you by almost everywhere these days, I've long believed that learning other languages opens doors that might not have otherwise been open to you (culturally speaking).

Great perspective. That was certainly my experience of France while traveling there. Interestingly, however, my traveling companion, who speaks some French, was occasionally chastised for even trying to use French to communicate.

"For all the tribulations in our lives, for all the troubles that remain in the world, the decline of violence is an accomplishment we can savor, and an impetus to cherish the forces of civilization and enlightenment that made it possible."
 

So to play devil's advocate here: I think you should definitely learn Mandarin, provided that you believe it will dramatically impact the future enjoyment of your life and your professional value. I'm not going to touch much of the first one in this response, because while some people have a thirst to explore and travel, others do not. China is one of the most amazingly beautiful countries in the world and has an absurd variety of ecosystems. Hot beautiful beaches, deserts, jungles, mountains, prairies, plains, whatever you want is all there. And do be able to travel around comfortably without a guide and to converse with the locals improves the quality of the experience dramatically. But, because this is a biz-focused site, I'll bring it back to professional value.

Surprise, surprise - it's all about trade-offs. If you're a second year analyst at a NYC BB institution, I don't exactly recommend you drop everything and move to rural China to learn Mandarin. But if you're in college and looking for a challenge, definitely give it a shot.

By doing so, you're keeping a door open. Living and China and speaking Chinese that is NOT FLUENT but practical and useful does give me a huge leg up over those who do not speak the language.

Others posting here (and in previous threads) have noted that 'white faces' are always considered outsiders, even if they speak better Mandarin than the Chinese they are dealing with, due to various xenophobic tendencies of Chinese. I fully agree with this. Speaking Chinese does not get you immense respect. The locals will say to you how impressed they are with your speaking ability and proceed to joke about you later with their colleagues, saying, "He's spent X years in China and speaks like THAT? I've never left China and my English is better than his Chinese."

Back to keeping doors open - because I, and many other non-Chinese, can at least participate in the conversation, we have access to far more primary information than a non-speaker. In my work as a PE analyst, for instance, I need to go research a certain product - do channel checks and due diligence, etc. So let's say that I need to research a beef company. How am I going to learn about what kind of beef Chinese like if I can't speak the language? Read an industry analyst report? Ask a colleague to go do the interviews for me?

I'd certainly prefer to do primary research myself, because that's the way I can actually understand the way Chinese think about and approach business, politics, and social phenomena. But that's also because underlying my decisions, I'm going long on China. I'm not saying that the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock markets are going to hit record highs next week, but that over the course of the next 20-30 years, the rise of the Chinese middle class consumer will re-shape the way many companies operate. This is of course, up for debate, and is a new thread in and of itself, but this growth driver in my opinion will create one of the larger business opportunities in the modern world.

If you want to be rolling like a big shot CEO and doing business in China, you probably don't need the language skills, because the people you will be conversing with already have great English. Probably. But in order to position yourself to even have a chance at rolling like a big shot, I would argue that you do need at least some exposure to the language.

Only take the time to learn the language if you want to make part of the comparative advantage you offer an understanding of and access to the Chinese market. If you think you're better suited to 'getting ahead' by studying for the CFA, or reading more investing books, or going to bars and networking, then do it. Enjoyment of life and intellectual challenges aside, it's all a personal decision about how you best can differentiate yourself from other members in the workforce and where you believe future opportunities will lie.

 

This may be a stupid question so excuse me but why is everybody on wso obsessed with getting an IB/PE Job in China as a non-native?

Ive seen multiple threads asking about it and all ive heard about China is that its near impossible to do if your non-native and they pay a lot less. Is there some reason im missing on why a North American/European with great job prospects would spend so much time trying to break in?

 
jss09:

This may be a stupid question so excuse me but why is everybody on wso obsessed with getting an IB/PE Job in China as a non-native?

Ive seen multiple threads asking about it and all ive heard about China is that its near impossible to do if your non-native and they pay a lot less. Is there some reason im missing on why a North American/European with great job prospects would spend so much time trying to break in?

Culture and the women (if they're your type). If you haven't been playing with cheat-codes then go work in China and find out.

 

So this is a question i dealt with and actually decided to move to china for a year to study mandarin. For 12 months i took intensive classes and working part time at chinese company. I have to say it was one of the most rewarding and frustrating experiences of my life. You have good and bad days with it. I only really reached what i would consider a "functional" level meaning i could get around easily. After I returned to America I felt like I had failed because i hadn't really reached the level i had hoped for (being able to conduct more complex business). I felt that way until i started working for an american company that started to do some business in china. I can tell you a year feels worth it when you step off a plane in pudong with 2 american execs and hop in the cab and start bantering with the driver about the laker's slow start and how the fare meter is actually fully functional.

I always thought about what my language skills( and culture skills which are often underrated because they are more difficult to quantify) looked like from a local's perspective and never what they would appear to US co-workers. Two very different perspectives. Anytime anything china related starts to develop the kid who lived in china for a year gets pulled in. So in summary if you are looking to learn mandarin in order to advance in a chinese company i would say you are wasting your time but if you are looking to get a leg up on your american peers its pretty useful.

 

Realistically, it's hard for any foreigner to have an edge against Chinese brought up in mainland / Hong Kong, learned English through their life, came to the U.S. for High-School+ education, and progressed into Ivies. Especially when they pick up another foreign language (German, French, Spanish), speaks perfect English, and has a deep understanding of Chinese and Chinese culture (as well as relationships and probably cash), there is no chance for competition. Maybe someone will give a white guy props for speaking Chinese fluently, but trust me, when it gets down to serious business, these bilingual Chinese will dominate.

 
Franklin:

Realistically, it's hard for any foreigner to have an edge against Chinese brought up in mainland / Hong Kong, learned English through their life, came to the U.S. for High-School+ education, and progressed into Ivies. Especially when they pick up another foreign language (German, French, Spanish), speaks perfect English, and has a deep understanding of Chinese and Chinese culture (as well as relationships and probably cash), there is no chance for competition. Maybe someone will give a white guy props for speaking Chinese fluently, but trust me, when it gets down to serious business, these bilingual Chinese will dominate.

Could not have said it better myself. These types absolutely crush the competition at my school, often finding top IB/PE jobs in Asia before graduating, or going on to do master's at elite institutions.

 

Been learning Chinese for about a year now, in Shanghai. 3 hours of class everyday. I can get around, but I'm faaaaar from being able to deal with customers. As said before, you'll never be fluent fluent, unless you marry a chinese girl and speak chinese with her everyday. 5-6 years with classes everyday and no foreign friend will do the trick.

 

I think it depends on what level of Mandarin you're talking about. The learning curve starts out kind of exponential where it's really hard to get started, levels out for a bit, and then quickly becomes very logarithmic. It's pretty near impossible to get to a perfect high level fluency unless you're native. I'm ABC and very decent at Mandarin thanks to one of my parents never bothering to learn english well. Enough so that most people can pinpoint which province my parents come from and enough so that I got a FT offer. I still have no clue how to increase my fluency. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Memorize lists of idioms and sayings? I haven't even been able to find a good source. Watching movies helps a bit.

The thing is, yes, you will always be an outsider if you don't look asian. You can improve this, however, by making a couple close chinese friends who will introduce you where ever you go or by getting to at least an intermediate level of chinese. If you can get to an intermediate fluency where you can understand enough to follow casual conversation and speak enough to make a few toasts or something, it helps a whole hell of a lot. The thing is, when you're hanging out and drinking with a bunch of native speakers, they will be speaking mandarin. They can probably all speak english too, but asking them to do so only on account of you will just be frustrating for everyone involved. If you can follow the conversation in chinese and respond in a mix of english and chinese, you can at least be part of the group.

My significant other speaks absolutely no chinese and it is the most frustrating thing because she literally cannot/does not interact with a large portion of my friend group.

All of this is, of course, predicated by you actually wanting to live and work in China. It's not really a language to learn "just because". I don't really understand why people want to go to China and do IB and the like. You can find all that stuff here and it pays better. If you want to get into PE/RE/manufacturing/shipping/certain commodities it makes a bit more sense...

 

As a native Chinese speaker who grew up in the states, I am in the opinion there is no professional value in learning Chinese as a non-Chinese person. There a couple reasons why:

  1. Immense difficulty to learn. As many have mentioned, Chinese does not have an alphabet system, and is essentially learned through memorization and practice. I'd you are studying, expanding, and reinforcing your vocabulary 24/7, you will never make strides in the language. If you haven't started an immersion program from the time you are in 1st grade, you are basically unable to get to a truely fluent point without an inordinate amount of effort.

  2. You will always sound like a foreigner. Again, any have pointed out the tonal pronounciation of Chinese words. You think the Chinese guy at work has a horrible English accent? Guess what we think of the white guy trying to speak mandarin? (Hint: it sounds painful as shot)

  3. Stiff competition for China-based jobs. There are 1 billion people who speak Chinese better than you, and eventually a material % of them will speak English as well as you. The number of upper middle class Chinese kids going to college abroad is growing. And the number of them returning to China to work is growing. That's your competition.

As a western person, unless you want to live in China and work in the domestic Chinese market, there is no professional reason to learn Chinese.

 

I think Eddie is right. Unless one is learning it in China directly for several years, it would be very hard to master it. And, besides, if somebody is learning it for only career wise, the level of proficiency gained would not match up with the required level anyway... And for the last question, even if China becomes the wealthiest country in the world within 50 years, most of the business practices came from the U.S. and most of countries still and will follow the U.S. system at least in the foreseeable future. We can easily observe this trend, even in China, where ambitious students are striving to learn English so bad.

 

If you agree with the notion that we are living in "The Century of China" then the answer to OP's question "is Chinese going to be the most valuable language to learn in the 21st Century?" has to be yes.

As an aside, I don't understand the continued insistence on learning Spanish. Look at the list of countries where Spanish is the national language:

Spain2 Colombia3 Peru4 Venezuela5 Ecuador[6] Guatemala7 Cuba8 Bolivia9 Honduras10 Paraguay11 El Salvador 12 Costa Rica 13 Panama 14 Equatorial Guinea [15] Mexico17 Argentina[18] Chile 19 Dominican Republic [20] Nicaragua 21 Uruguay 22 Western Sahara

Not exactly a list of power players.

 
Amphipathic:

If you agree with the notion that we are living in "The Century of China" then the answer to OP's question "is Chinese going to be the most valuable language to learn in the 21st Century?" has to be yes.

As an aside, I don't understand the continued insistence on learning Spanish. Look at the list of countries where Spanish is the national language:

Spain2 Colombia3 Peru4 Venezuela5 Ecuador[6] Guatemala7 Cuba8 Bolivia9 Honduras10 Paraguay11 El Salvador 12 Costa Rica 13 Panama 14 Equatorial Guinea [15] Mexico17 Argentina[18] Chile 19 Dominican Republic [20] Nicaragua 21 Uruguay 22 Western Sahara

Not exactly a list of power players.

The list of countries where English is the official language is even worse:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_English_is_an_of….

(The USA, UK, and Australia do not consider English an official language)

 

Chinese is my fifth language and I hope I will be able to learn to become at least fluent. I am planning to go to China for sometime. Practicing with Chinese friends on a daily basis helps me develop conversational skills. Writing is really hard and intonation even harder. Since it's my 5th language I've already went through the learning state in the other 4 and it seems easier.

 

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