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Is English Skill That Important Hello, new to this forum? After reading some comments, I think it would be best to synthesize a language according to the nearness of its speakers. And since we have linguists to analyze for us, it is crucial perhaps to understand how the ?family? of languages works. In my country where speaking 3 or more languages are common, one may find another guy?s language hard to learn, depending on the scope of what to learn. This is what I?ve to say about Mandarin and English, in my synthesis. I have to agree that Mandarin is simpler than English, against the laws of grammar. I?ve also been told that Mandarin is much faster to be spoken than English (because it trains the speaker to be fast-thinking.) But this simplicity of speech is balanced, albeit cunningly, with its 50,000 characters (although only 5000 to 6000 are used frequently. This makes one language hard to be written, and for me struggling to learn Japanese (an even harder language) the use of characters can be puzzling to an alphabet using person like me. Although this method has helped Asians top in various memorization contests (which is attributed to the Chinese way of writing.) Since about 1 billion people speak Chinese, it is important in many ways, although one friend of mine (please correct me) said that many Chinese could hardly write the language. Writing is important in a language to be able to understand each other, although Chinese is certainly in a so-so position of writing. English on the other hand, is simple to an Indo-European speaker, or near to the Indo-European languages, but hard to the Japanese or Koreans because of its diversity. The clear plus factor of English is its writing. With only the alphabets, anyone can read every word even if he or she doesn?t know its meaning. What Chinese lacked, English supported; you don?t need to learn 50,000 characters and better to learn than putting a huge typewriting machine for your computer. The only hard thing about English is its diction and intonation, and the grammar rules probably made it more of an artificial language. It may take (for someone with little zeal) to learn English about 4 years (I?m not sure) although there are some exceptions like Joseph Conrad or one Serbian writer in English who mastered the language in 1 year. About the position of English as a dominating language, it is not a right for a language to conquer or wipe another language. But since America is a superpower (and China is too) we may soon adopt a language against our will. Also, because of the alphabets, one who knows the alphabets clearly would understand a language affirming to his or her knowledge, rather than study Chinese again to read. To prove my point, if someone speaks pure Arabic or Hebrew for example with all the alphabets in mind, he or she could clearly assimilate with English than Chinese. Chinese, in position of dominating a language in absence of a native speaker or only through the Internet, could only dominate when using the alphabets, because it is hard for someone to adopt a language?s writing when a person doesn?t fully understand it. If someone would rebut a country not knowing the alphabets, it would somehow find English to be quite easy in reading than Chinese. Altogether, it still depends on what language is learned. As a major in English, I still find the language of what I?m majoring in a great plus for any beginning learner. Chinese on the other hand, opens you to an additional 1 billion speakers, and somehow, sharpen one?s memory in return. And, I?m sure that I would?ve not read the webmaster?s name if it?s not in the alphabets. |