Taiwan Number 1

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Taiwan Number 1

Let us English: Feb 21, 2004; Actual photo of Let Us English, probably seen here waking his wife up in the morning talking about chemical formulae when all she wants is a hot cup of shhhhh

Falun Bong Refugee posted:

You know this is the chinese thread and not the weeaboo thread, right?

I am a dumb white man and only speak American. I cannot tell the difference. But no seriously, the claim was that if you don't think investing in infrastructure for Mandarin education is worthwhile, you must be a monolingual white supremacist who only promotes white people languages like French or Spanish. I am demonstrating that's not the case. Try to keep up here.

This is also starting to poo poo up the thread so I will attempt to make amends with worthwhile content, not accusations of racism.

-----------

Histrionically themed restaurants are a huge thing in China right now. The one nearest me is a pretty good Sichuan place that tries to evoke the good years between Mao coming to power and the Great Leap Forward. There's also one nearby that's Cultural Revolution themed. The CR joints like to advertise that they have actual Red Guards working and guests will occasionally get the teacher treatment complete with dunce cap, but I think they skip putting people in stocks and throwing food at them.

A video of such a restaurant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJRhdDIJqs0

# ? Oct 26, 2016 07:20

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# ? May 15, 2024 05:20

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

UltraRed posted:

I'm going to do an effort post on why I agree with GBM that learning Chinese is a waste of time:

I started learning Chinese ten years ago. I speak it fairly fluently but am not the greatest...especially now. My reading/writing has decayed from disuse, but I still can do it.

The trap of Chinese language learning is that it's very difficult, the characters are cool, and the perceived value of it is very high. Certain types of people can get very, very sucked in by Chinese--and I am that kind of person. I think I spent a good 3-4 year period where my primary recreational activity was "studying Chinese." It was the thing I did if I had extra time. I'd drill characters for hours at a time, I'd watch Chinese TV shows that I could barely understand with Mandarin subtitles and no English as semi-immersion training. I'd go out of my way to find Chinese people just so I could speak Mandarin in a real situation.

I ended up getting quite good at it very fast--but only because I sunk so much time into it. I self-studied so much over a summer that I tested out of Intermediate Chinese so I could get into the more advanced classes quicker. Studying Chinese basically became the thing I wanted to do and base my entire career around. Of course I didn't know what, exactly, that career would be. Going back to the "high perceived value," when you are studying Chinese everyone you talk to about it acts like it's some great and valuable thing you are doing, and you start to really buy into that as well. I might not have known how exactly "being good at Mandarin" was going to benefit me in life or set a career path for me, but I knew that it would all work itself out.

So from age 20 until 24 or so I was just nerding out and studying Mandarin obsessively before even ever going to a Chinese-speaking country. I was planning to go live in China after I graduated to finish "getting good" at Chinese and becoming really really fluent etc.

I think back on this period and on all the actually useful skills I could have learned in this time. I was working between 15-20 hours per week at my university and online, and I had a scholarship paying my tuition. I had shitloads of free time that I was sinking into learning Chinese. I could have been learning any number of actually valuable skills like writing, coding, math, etc. I could have been learning one of the skills that you can pair together with being super fluent in a language to create real value rather than perceived value. What I failed to realize at the time is that for "being good at Chinese" to actually be a useful skill that is worth the time you put into it, you have to have a base skill and thing you are good at to combine with Chinese fluency. Without that, you are a dumbass who wasted all his time learning a language who has no actual skills. There are millions of people out there who speak Mandarin and English better than you simply because they grew up with both languages. You can work really loving hard for ten years to partially overcome that, and if you are one of the rare people with a REALLY good ear, you MIGHT have pronunciation as good as an American-born Chinese. But you'll never look Chinese enough to overcome being a laowai.

When I got to China, I sort of loved it at first. I felt frustrated though when very few people on the street actually spoke Mandarin in Chongqing. I had just spent all of my time learning Mandarin, only to realize that Mandarin really is a "common language" in that it's something educated people will use to reach a common ground. It's not what is widely spoken all across China in day-to-day interactions. Even my friends in Chongqing who were educated spoke in a mishmash combination of Mandarin and Chonqing dialect, meaning that my immersion and picking up new words was pretty compromised because I could never tell if the tone or sounds of the word I was learning were Mandarin or not.

Skip ahead to the end of my time in China, and I hated it. If you're non-Chinese, you will never be treated like a non-oddity. You will always be a foreigner, regardless of your Mandarin ability. You will always have people shouting "HALOU" at you, you will always have people talking about your nose shape and other super racist stuff right in front of your face as if you can't understand them. Mainland China kind of loving sucks (I can't speak for Taiwan or HK), and learning Mandarin to better understand mainland China will only make you see its faults much more clearly. Keep in mind that you can live and have a decent life in China even if you don't speak Mandarin. Sinking tons of effort and years of your life into becoming proficient at Mandarin is not like learning French or German. It will not allow you to move through society like everyone else and become more integrated. You will NEVER integrate into Chinese society, and you'll probably always have to fight to get people to actually speak to you in Mandarin rather than English.

Add in the fact that Chinese media and entertainment is totally poo poo, and there is even less reason to learn Mandarin. It's almost entirely ripped off from Korean and Japanese pop culture, and anything that isn't is insanely, racistly anti-Japanese. I hope you like watching cartoonish and racist historical accounts of WWII where a lone Chinese hero eviscerates 10 Japanese dogs who piss their pants at the sight of him. There's a few good things in Chinese film and literature, but they are so comparatively far and few between that they cannot possibly justify the time investment.

There are a few highly specialized fields where learning Mandarin would actually make sense. More likely than not learning Mandarin is an awful trap that will very likely waste many years of your life for very little gain. When I got back from China, I was fluent in Mandarin and had a B.S. in Linguistics with no other real skills, so I couldn't find a job and had to work at a grocery store until I found a lovely office job that I worked for five years. My Mandarin ability in that job allowed me to have to deal with more Chinese people (a disadvantage) while not receiving any extra pay over my monolingual coworkers.

Finally, ten years later, I've almost completely disentangled myself with Mandarin and have no interest in getting better at it or speaking it. My wife and I only ever speak English, and her parents speak a lovely dialect that I can't speak or understand, so Mandarin didn't even help me there. I finally also have a job I like that pays well and has nothing to do with China or Mandarin. I could have reached this point in my career path like...eight years earlier...if I had just never bothered learning Mandarin.

If you are learning Mandarin or thinking about learning Mandarin, think of how many skills there are out there that will result in like...$70k+ annual salary after two years of hard work acquiring the skill. There are A LOT of skills like that out there, and Mandarin is not one of them. After two years of hard work on Mandarin, you will be firmly at the "can barely hold together a stilted conversation, and you're proud as gently caress of it" phase of language acquisition.

Are you permabanned poster Nongstomper58?

# ? Oct 26, 2016 07:21

Nanomashoes: Aug 18, 2012

THE PWNER posted:

if you're learning a language as your primary pursuit in life you're bad at language learning mate. I am learning three disciplines at once, one of them is a language. Not tough... Mate.

But then again all native English speakers are bad at language learning.

*sighs, unsheaths katana* I'm learning three disciplines at once *teleports behind u* Your filthy gwailo brain cant even comprehend my superior language learning *cuts u in half* foolish foreigner, now your remains plunge the earth.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 07:23

Stringent: Dec 22, 2004; image text goes here

THE PWNER posted:

if you're learning a language as your primary pursuit in life you're bad at language learning mate. I am learning three disciplines at once, one of them is a language. Not tough... Mate.

But then again all native English speakers are bad at language learning.

But your English is terrible?

# ? Oct 26, 2016 07:27

Blistex: Oct 30, 2003; Macho Business
Donkey Wrestler

Grandma Panic! posted:

So is this obviousness, or face-saving, or wtf?

"How can white woman learning Mandarin? Not even real people!"

It's basically the belief that you have to be ethnically Chines to speak Mandarin, and a refusal to process the very obvious evidence to the contrary. Most Chinese people know that it's not true when they think about it, but subconsciously they assume it must be impossible to do unless Han blood is flowing through your veins.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 07:28

Pirate Radar: Apr 18, 2008; You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!

My friends and I went out of the city last weekend and it was a novelty for us to have people turning their heads ("look at the waiguoren!") and having kids run up to us like "Good morning!"

A few weeks ago I was using the MRT and a lady turned to me and said something and I had already gotten all the way through my reflexive "duibuqi wo ting bu dong" before my brain caught up and said "she asked a question and the answer's yes, say dui or hao or something."

My supervisor speaks pretty good Mandarin though and every so often he still gets people being like "ohhhhh wow your Mandarin is so good!" or just acting like they forget he's speaking it and replying to him in broken English.

e: I would say that part of the reason--not all of the reason--I'm studying it on my own time is that I don't want to go home for a visit and be like "nah I haven't actually learned the language of the place I live," as a foreigner you can totally get by not speaking it even if some of the locals and other expats are gonna think you're lazy.

Pirate Radar fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Oct 26, 2016

# ? Oct 26, 2016 07:29

Let us English: Feb 21, 2004; Actual photo of Let Us English, probably seen here waking his wife up in the morning talking about chemical formulae when all she wants is a hot cup of shhhhh

Blistex posted:

"How can white woman learning Mandarin? Not even real people!"

It's basically the belief that you have to be ethnically Chines to speak Mandarin, and a refusal to process the very obvious evidence to the contrary. Most Chinese people know that it's not true when they think about it, but subconsciously they assume it must be impossible to do unless Han blood is flowing through your veins.

This seems to be a pan-Asian thing, but I actually think it's better in China than Korea or Japan. At least where I live, people assume I speak Chinese and speak to me in Chinese first. In Japan that almost never happened unless I spoke first.

Life in Japan/China/Korea.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLt5qSm9U80

# ? Oct 26, 2016 07:35

ninjoatse.cx: Apr 9, 2005; Fun Shoe

I opened the tab I copied that from and I thought AO came back. :smith:

# ? Oct 26, 2016 07:48

ocrumsprug: Sep 23, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

I doubt California has anywhere near as many Mandarin speakers as Vancouver does, but even here Mandarin doesn't even make top 10 of useful languages to know.

Portuguese would rank higher. I am sure California can find a better use for the $8 they have budgeted to education than Mandarin classes.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 08:10

Imperialist Dog: Oct 21, 2008; "I think you could better spend your time on finishing your editing before the deadline today."
\

Let us English posted:

This seems to be a pan-Asian thing, but I actually think it's better in China than Korea or Japan. At least where I live, people assume I speak Chinese and speak to me in Chinese first. In Japan that almost never happened unless I spoke first.

Life in Japan/China/Korea.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLt5qSm9U80

I like this video because it has happened to me.

Also, 尊皇攘夷

# ? Oct 26, 2016 08:13

Let us English: Feb 21, 2004; Actual photo of Let Us English, probably seen here waking his wife up in the morning talking about chemical formulae when all she wants is a hot cup of shhhhh

Imperialist Dog posted:

I like this video because it has happened to me.

Also, 尊皇攘夷

Fantastic username/post combo.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 08:14

Power Khan: Aug 20, 2011; by Fritz the Horse

UltraRed posted:

I'm going to do an effort post on why I agree with GBM that learning Chinese is a waste of time:

I started learning Chinese ten years ago. I speak it fairly fluently but am not the greatest...especially now. My reading/writing has decayed from disuse, but I still can do it.

The trap of Chinese language learning is that it's very difficult, the characters are cool, and the perceived value of it is very high. Certain types of people can get very, very sucked in by Chinese--and I am that kind of person. I think I spent a good 3-4 year period where my primary recreational activity was "studying Chinese." It was the thing I did if I had extra time. I'd drill characters for hours at a time, I'd watch Chinese TV shows that I could barely understand with Mandarin subtitles and no English as semi-immersion training. I'd go out of my way to find Chinese people just so I could speak Mandarin in a real situation.

I ended up getting quite good at it very fast--but only because I sunk so much time into it. I self-studied so much over a summer that I tested out of Intermediate Chinese so I could get into the more advanced classes quicker. Studying Chinese basically became the thing I wanted to do and base my entire career around. Of course I didn't know what, exactly, that career would be. Going back to the "high perceived value," when you are studying Chinese everyone you talk to about it acts like it's some great and valuable thing you are doing, and you start to really buy into that as well. I might not have known how exactly "being good at Mandarin" was going to benefit me in life or set a career path for me, but I knew that it would all work itself out.

So from age 20 until 24 or so I was just nerding out and studying Mandarin obsessively before even ever going to a Chinese-speaking country. I was planning to go live in China after I graduated to finish "getting good" at Chinese and becoming really really fluent etc.

I think back on this period and on all the actually useful skills I could have learned in this time. I was working between 15-20 hours per week at my university and online, and I had a scholarship paying my tuition. I had shitloads of free time that I was sinking into learning Chinese. I could have been learning any number of actually valuable skills like writing, coding, math, etc. I could have been learning one of the skills that you can pair together with being super fluent in a language to create real value rather than perceived value. What I failed to realize at the time is that for "being good at Chinese" to actually be a useful skill that is worth the time you put into it, you have to have a base skill and thing you are good at to combine with Chinese fluency. Without that, you are a dumbass who wasted all his time learning a language who has no actual skills. There are millions of people out there who speak Mandarin and English better than you simply because they grew up with both languages. You can work really loving hard for ten years to partially overcome that, and if you are one of the rare people with a REALLY good ear, you MIGHT have pronunciation as good as an American-born Chinese. But you'll never look Chinese enough to overcome being a laowai.

When I got to China, I sort of loved it at first. I felt frustrated though when very few people on the street actually spoke Mandarin in Chongqing. I had just spent all of my time learning Mandarin, only to realize that Mandarin really is a "common language" in that it's something educated people will use to reach a common ground. It's not what is widely spoken all across China in day-to-day interactions. Even my friends in Chongqing who were educated spoke in a mishmash combination of Mandarin and Chonqing dialect, meaning that my immersion and picking up new words was pretty compromised because I could never tell if the tone or sounds of the word I was learning were Mandarin or not.

Skip ahead to the end of my time in China, and I hated it. If you're non-Chinese, you will never be treated like a non-oddity. You will always be a foreigner, regardless of your Mandarin ability. You will always have people shouting "HALOU" at you, you will always have people talking about your nose shape and other super racist stuff right in front of your face as if you can't understand them. Mainland China kind of loving sucks (I can't speak for Taiwan or HK), and learning Mandarin to better understand mainland China will only make you see its faults much more clearly. Keep in mind that you can live and have a decent life in China even if you don't speak Mandarin. Sinking tons of effort and years of your life into becoming proficient at Mandarin is not like learning French or German. It will not allow you to move through society like everyone else and become more integrated. You will NEVER integrate into Chinese society, and you'll probably always have to fight to get people to actually speak to you in Mandarin rather than English.

Add in the fact that Chinese media and entertainment is totally poo poo, and there is even less reason to learn Mandarin. It's almost entirely ripped off from Korean and Japanese pop culture, and anything that isn't is insanely, racistly anti-Japanese. I hope you like watching cartoonish and racist historical accounts of WWII where a lone Chinese hero eviscerates 10 Japanese dogs who piss their pants at the sight of him. There's a few good things in Chinese film and literature, but they are so comparatively far and few between that they cannot possibly justify the time investment.

There are a few highly specialized fields where learning Mandarin would actually make sense. More likely than not learning Mandarin is an awful trap that will very likely waste many years of your life for very little gain. When I got back from China, I was fluent in Mandarin and had a B.S. in Linguistics with no other real skills, so I couldn't find a job and had to work at a grocery store until I found a lovely office job that I worked for five years. My Mandarin ability in that job allowed me to have to deal with more Chinese people (a disadvantage) while not receiving any extra pay over my monolingual coworkers.

Finally, ten years later, I've almost completely disentangled myself with Mandarin and have no interest in getting better at it or speaking it. My wife and I only ever speak English, and her parents speak a lovely dialect that I can't speak or understand, so Mandarin didn't even help me there. I finally also have a job I like that pays well and has nothing to do with China or Mandarin. I could have reached this point in my career path like...eight years earlier...if I had just never bothered learning Mandarin.

If you are learning Mandarin or thinking about learning Mandarin, think of how many skills there are out there that will result in like...$70k+ annual salary after two years of hard work acquiring the skill. There are A LOT of skills like that out there, and Mandarin is not one of them. After two years of hard work on Mandarin, you will be firmly at the "can barely hold together a stilted conversation, and you're proud as gently caress of it" phase of language acquisition.

Did you just copypaste AO's post from way back?

E: you did. Very chinese. Every coin has two sides.

Power Khan fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Oct 26, 2016

# ? Oct 26, 2016 08:21

Haier: Aug 10, 2007; by Lowtax

I learned Hindi for a while. It's the most common language in India outside of English, especially in the tech industries. Southies are getting pretty upset that they are having to learn Hindi for work when English was fine in most cases. Anyway, Hindi was a bust because the best part is that due to English being so prevalent in India you can just be like "aap going to the store hai?" and then you realize you don't need to use any Hindi at all. I quickly forgot everything except words needed for taxis, shopping, and eating. Reading and writing mostly remained and I had/have more fun trying to read signs and put the vocabulary together than trying to speak it.

I still think Bengali script owns the most out of the others. Something about the hard angles looks cool to me.

That's one of my favorite things whenever I am there: Getting off a long train ride and suddenly all of the signs are in a different script and everyone is speaking something that sounds vaguely familiar, yet different in most ways.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 08:32

staberind: Feb 20, 2008; but i dont wanna be a spaceship; Fun Shoe

Peculiar, I lived and worked in Japan for 7 years, at first studied Japanese six months on, took a six month break, and then studied another six months, I could have a conversation in Japanese, and was doing ok, teaching English (har har, even worked for nova.) & sometimes working two jobs.
Obviously, studying a language when you live in a country it is used is the most desirable, but really, the best I can say is start as young as you can.
I'm half French though, and my French is terrible, so ymmv.
Btw, I hosed before I went, I hosed during, and I hosed after I came back, and that's a normal thing.
Just because you have an opinion of sex not everyone has the same opinion, so simmer down Beavis.
Otherwise, The stories I am reading about different facets of Chinarlife are interesting, please carry on.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 08:35

champagne posting: Apr 5, 2006; YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

JaucheCharly posted:

We need that greentext reposted, warning not to learn mandarin.

Here you go, heed the wall of green text: http://imgur.com/lrNHGbS

# ? Oct 26, 2016 08:38

Ibblebibble: Nov 12, 2013

Tupperwarez posted:

The effort-to-success ratio for ESL in East Asia is at once puzzling and hilarious. South and Southeast Asia have the same issue, but to a much lesser extent, I think. Then again I'm from Malaysia, so we've got that former British colony thing going. I guess it's a matter of how English is taught, and exposure/availability of English-language media?

Hi fellow Malaysia goon. I'd definitely say it's more of a commonwealth thing, Malaysia, Singapore, HK etc have better English standards than China and co. At the very least, I've only seen one English word salad sign at home so far, and Singaporean written English is about as native English as you can get judging by my mates.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 09:01

Atlas Hugged: Mar 12, 2007; Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

台灣第一名

I am so glad I never lived in the mainland and I don't feel that any of my Mandarin learning in Taiwan was a waste. It was super useful and I got to know the locals way better than I would have if I had stuck with English during my time there. Even in the south where Mandarin is not most people's native language, everyone still spoke it and I could communicate effectively. English is not really common at all once you get out of the major cities.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 09:03

Imperialist Dog: Oct 21, 2008; "I think you could better spend your time on finishing your editing before the deadline today."
\

Atlas Hugged posted:

台灣第一名

I am so glad I never lived in the mainland and I don't feel that any of my Mandarin learning in Taiwan was a waste. It was super useful and I got to know the locals way better than I would have if I had stuck with English during my time there. Even in the south where Mandarin is not most people's native language, everyone still spoke it and I could communicate effectively. English is not really common at all once you get out of the major cities.

台湾は日本帝国の植民地だったから現在第一

One fun anecdote from the "Why China will Never Rule the World" book is that you have to remember that Japan was a first-world industrial economy BEFORE the war. Think shopping malls and subways and what have you. Taipei as a Japanese colony had them too. Now imagine a bunch of peasant KMT soldiers showing up and gawking because they've never seen an escalator before.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 09:13

E_P: Feb 22, 2003

I still dont understand why people think you will be drowning in pussy if you move to Asia. My experience from seeing people come and go in Korea is if you weren't getting any in your home country you sure as poo poo weren't gonna get laid here.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 09:33

Free Market Mambo: Jul 26, 2010; by Lowtax

Australians are hilarious when pretending to be better than Americans. American expat in europe, never met an Australian who could speak the language/wasn't an alcoholic mess held in contempt by the indigenous.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 09:56

Atlas Hugged: Mar 12, 2007; Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

E_P posted:

I still dont understand why people think you will be drowning in pussy if you move to Asia. My experience from seeing people come and go in Korea is if you weren't getting any in your home country you sure as poo poo weren't gonna get laid here.

That is because all foreigners in Korea, especially English teachers, have HIV.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 09:58

Fleta Mcgurn: Oct 5, 2003; Porpoise noise continues.

Away all Goats posted:

It is kinda weird how adverse Americans are to learning another language

Let Us English speaks fluent Japanese, so okay.

P.S. His BMI is pretty great. A Korean nurse applauded his waist size lat year. If a Korean woman thinks you're thin enough, then you're doing VERY well.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:11

Pirate Radar: Apr 18, 2008; You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!

Free Market Mambo posted:

Australians are hilarious when pretending to be better than Americans. American expat in europe, never met an Australian who could speak the language/wasn't an alcoholic mess held in contempt by the indigenous.

Let's go easy on Australians and give them some time to learn English first.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:22

Haier: Aug 10, 2007; by Lowtax

Ibblebibble posted:

Hi fellow Malaysia goon. I'd definitely say it's more of a commonwealth thing, Malaysia, Singapore, HK etc have better English standards than China and co. At the very least, I've only seen one English word salad sign at home so far, and Singaporean written English is about as native English as you can get judging by my mates.

My ethnic-Chinese.. Malaysian? friends speak fantastic English and think Mainland China is the worst place in the world and are all so happy to not be there. My Chinese friend that moved to Malaysia brought her English level up to almost-local standards and now has no intention to ever go back to China except for seeing family.

There seems to be some sort of thing where you can't call them Chinese Malaysians unless they are mixed parentage because people get upset about it being an ethnicity too and I have no idea what to call them. What do I call ethnic-Chinese people in Malaysia? Chalaysians?

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:23

The Great Autismo!: Mar 3, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

guys, do not learn mandarin. do not do it.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:25

Away all Goats: Jul 5, 2005; Goose's rebellion

Fleta Mcgurn posted:

Let Us English speaks fluent Japanese, so okay.

Man you guys are a defensive bunch around here. That post was a general observation (that might be wrong) which is why I didn't quote anyone.

Spanish and French might be a better second language for Americans for sure. But this has nothing to do with china/asia

Away all Goats fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Oct 26, 2016

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:25

oohhboy: Jun 8, 2013; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Learn Japanese. At least you get to watch Anime.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:27

Imperialist Dog: Oct 21, 2008; "I think you could better spend your time on finishing your editing before the deadline today."
\

I would advise learning what you have to and what interests you. If you have interest, you have motivation, which is an edge in learning your target language.

I was really into Japan when I was young and stupider, so I learned Japanese pretty quickly. When I was in Japan I quickly became disillusioned and thought that I should have learned Mandarin instead because China had a Growing Economy. I ended up moving to Hong Kong and found I liked Cantonese instead. I still wish my Mandarin was better but literally the only use I have for it is communicating with my in-laws.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:43

Free Market Mambo: Jul 26, 2010; by Lowtax

Learn Finnish and archaic Swedish dialects. Make you dreams reality.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:46

champagne posting: Apr 5, 2006; YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

Imperialist Dog posted:

I was really into Japan when I was young and stupider, so I learned Japanese pretty quickly. When I was in Japan I quickly became disillusioned and thought that I should have learned Mandarin instead because China had a Growing Economy. I ended up moving to Hong Kong and found I liked Cantonese instead. I still wish my Mandarin was better but literally the only use I have for it is communicating with my in-laws.

One of the observations from Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China was that bosses spoke Cantonese, while lowly workers spoke mandarin. As I'm writing this it's made clearer by my browsers dictionary, in which Cantonese is capitalized while mandarin is not.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:47

Jimmy Little Balls: Aug 23, 2009

I studying Chinese and own a company here. How hosed am I?

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:47

Haier: Aug 10, 2007; by Lowtax

Hong Kong on duct tape. HONG KONG STICK TO CHINA FOREVER!

# ? Oct 26, 2016 10:48

Imperialist Dog: Oct 21, 2008; "I think you could better spend your time on finishing your editing before the deadline today."
\

Boiled Water posted:

One of the observations from Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China was that bosses spoke Cantonese, while lowly workers spoke mandarin. As I'm writing this it's made clearer by my browsers dictionary, in which Cantonese is capitalized while mandarin is not.

A mandarin can also mean an official. I think it's actually from the Malay word for official.

One thing that bugs me is the push to call Mandarin Putonghua. We don't say that we study français or Deutsche or GLORIOUS NIPPONGO (may the Emperor reign forever), so why use the Chinese word in English?

# ? Oct 26, 2016 11:05

Tupperwarez: Apr 4, 2004; "phphphphphphpht"? this is what you're going with?

you sure?

Imperialist Dog posted:

One thing that bugs me is the push to call Mandarin Putonghua. We don't say that we study français or Deutsche or GLORIOUS NIPPONGO (may the Emperor reign forever), so why use the Chinese word in English?

Because saying Common Language makes it sound like we're playing a rubbish RPG :v:

# ? Oct 26, 2016 11:19

EasternBronze: Jul 19, 2011; I registered for the Selective Service! I'm also racist as fuck!

Don't forget to ignore me!

Unless you plan on living outside the US for a long period of time learning an East Asian language is a massive waste of time. I say this as a speaker of three. Even learning English for most people in these countries has almost no real payoff, just thousands of dollars and hour after hour of study that culminates in drunkenly stumbling up to a white dude in a bar and slurring through a dialogue you learned in middle school. The only people who really gain anything from foreign language education either become basically fluent in it and have some other valuable skill or they are well-off/connected enough that they can leverage their language skills to their advantage.

At least with English you get access to a massive amount of great media. Mandarin? LOL

Spanish is obviously the best choice for America`s education system.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 11:29

Let us English: Feb 21, 2004; Actual photo of Let Us English, probably seen here waking his wife up in the morning talking about chemical formulae when all she wants is a hot cup of shhhhh

Imperialist Dog posted:

A mandarin can also mean an official. I think it's actually from the Malay word for official.

One thing that bugs me is the push to call Mandarin Putonghua. We don't say that we study français or Deutsche or GLORIOUS NIPPONGO (may the Emperor reign forever), so why use the Chinese word in English?

Is that really a thing? Wow.

Also, I think translating it as common language papers over the imperialists overtones. It doesn't mean common as in shared but common as in normal or ordinary. As if to suggest all those other languages are not normal.

At least that's my understanding based on the characters used. Common language meaning shared would be 共通話. I think.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 11:31

The Great Autismo!: Mar 3, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

if you're a native english speaker and you're going to study a language, you really should be studying spanish. french is also ok.

if you want to learn an east asia language, learn japanese.

do not study korean, do not study russian, do not study chinese. i can not stress this enough. do not do it.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 11:39

Atlas Hugged: Mar 12, 2007; Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

What the gently caress is 普通話? We speak 國語 in this family.

# ? Oct 26, 2016 11:53

His Divine Shadow: Aug 7, 2000; I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.

Blistex posted:

She had instances where she would literally introduce herself to Chinese teachers (in Mandarin), do a minute or so of small talk (in Mandarin), then not 5 minutes later the staff would start talking about her, out loud amongst themselves. The two most outrageous incidents happened at another high school we both worked at where we showed up on the first day and were introduced to the staff, and she would do her thing, "Hi, I'm Jennifer, I'm from Hong Kong, this is my first time in Liaoning province, I'm excited to meet and work with all of you (all of this in Mandarin). We took a seat, were chilling in the staff room having coffee while everyone was socializing before classes started, and a group of female teachers were looking (and pointing) at her and talking loudly. I asked her what they were saying about her (didn't need to be fluent in Mandarin to figure it out) and she sighed and said, "They don't think my hair is actually red, and they think my insulated vest looks too much like an older style. . . also my freckles are hideous".

Another time, a few weeks later, (after we had become well known, and she had continued to speak Mandarin to everyone) we were in the same staff room and the vice principal came in and told the head teacher in Charge of us that we should be sent home before classes, and told that English classes had been cancelled for the whole week, and that the school will pocket the money they were given to pay us (we were being sub-contracted to another high school as part of a program). The head teacher (who had spoken to her numerous times IN MANDARIN) told the VP that he would tell us that the kids had gone on a week-long school trip.

We get the message from the head teacher, mouths agape out of shock, nod, and leave the school. We go straight to our program director at the main school we worked at, and she tells him EXACTLY what had just happened (in Mandarin), and he asks her in broken English, "how could you know this?".

Edit: somehow deleted the last paragraph.

Can anyone try and offer a serious answer to this ludicrous question (why the hell are they like this?) aside from heavy metal poisoning?

# ? Oct 26, 2016 11:56

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# ? May 15, 2024 05:20

ladron: Sep 15, 2007; eso es lo que es

The Great Autismo! posted:

do not study korean

this gets my vote. fortunately, I also speak spanish, so bases covered I guess

# ? Oct 26, 2016 12:17

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Taiwan Number 1

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