Regardless of who becomes president, I think it’s important for our future generation to learn Chinese. What are the best ways to enroll your kids to learn Mandarin? My kids are currently 1 and 3 years old. I live in NYC but not sure how available Chinese instructors are now due to the whole Covid situation as well. Please share some ideas. Oh and please keep this thread politics free. Thanks in advance! 😊

likefunnysmarthelpful
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I actually agree with op. Like it or not, China will play a more prominent role in the future and it won’t hurt to be able to communicate with them.

likeupliftingfunny

Yes, China has the #2 economy in the world. It also has massive challenges facing economic growth such as demographics, lack of inflation, inefficient workers, over reliance on debt fueled growth in wasteful areas, etc. Their economy is not a consumer driven economy (-7.2% ytd). Mainly, mandarin is spoken where? China and Taiwan. That’s it. English, Spanish, and French are spoken where? Over 50, 20, and 30. Before you explain that China has 1.4B people, realize atleast half of them earn less $300/ year and half of them will be over 65 by 2050.

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Speaking as a Chinese immigrant who is raising kids of similar ages to be as bilingual as we can:
It’s tough, even with a Chinese speaking parent. If you don’t have one, you probably need a bilingual immersion program where they can get a few dozen hours of exposure a week for at least a few years until they have the basics down. (I say this because our schools here do Spanish an hour a week for kids starting in K or even earlier, and most kids still cannot speak Spanish worth anything... you really need much more exposure than that.) As an aside, most bilingual English/Chinese books and toys in the US I’ve seen are kinda trash. (I would love recs from anyone who thinks I’m wrong on this though!) You will be better off showing kids Chinese cartoons/apps.

To get (only slightly) more political: I really think the push for american kids to learn mandarin en masse is a bit misguided. It’s like learning German. They might appreciate you making an effort and it could get you out of occasional travel snafus, but any educated German will speak English far better than you speak German. My personal opinion is that something very revolutionary would have to happen for the global lingua franca to switch to Chinese within the next lifetime. (Keep in mind that Latin remained the lingua franca of educated europe for a millennium after the Roman Empire fell.) I also do not see China opening up on immigration and citizenship in the style of US, Canada, etc. as I think Chinese people’s conception of what it means to be Chinese would have to fundamentally shift for open immigration to become plausible policy.

likesmarthelpful
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“Regardless of our future president...please keep this thread politics free”, lol

likefunny

Yeah not relevant to start with that at all

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You don’t need to learn Chinese to learn the art of copy-pasting

I’m flabbergasted by this idea that many Americans seems to embrace. You do realize, that nobody wants to immigrate to China. Everybody wants to immigrate to the United States. Including the Chinese ! American system is backlogged by how many Chinese want green cards.

So China, will need to do a LOT including dramatic changes in CCP structure and businesses for it to export culture like the US or UK did. It will remain a global dick like the Russians did once. But will you need to learn Chinese like I had to learn English ? Yeah , I won’t bet on it.

likesmarthelpfulfunny

Seriously, what did they say that was racist? You can't call somebody racist just because you don't agree with what they're saying.

likesmartfunny

Why did you bring up the election if you didn’t want this to be a political post? You could’ve just asked your question...

likesmart

Chinese is one of the hardest languages in the world. If you can’t contribute anything I appreciate you just keeping quiet. Thanks!

likefunnyupliftingsmart

“Regardless of our future president”. Why did you even include that lol

You wanted to pick a fight and it didn’t go the way you wanted, it’s okay friend, just take the L and move on.

likesmart

Also, I’ve been to China and it’s a beautiful country with very kind, hard-working people. We should know better than anyone not to judge an entire country by its idiot government. You can be a proud American without sh**ing on others.

likesmart

Your post was like a political Chinese sandwich and you're annoyed we're making fun of you? You should learn how to have thicker skin before you learn Chinese

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Knowing multiple languages is a good thing, good on ya!. Me laughing @ self centered American clowns that barely know english.

likefunnyuplifting

Someone who says the Great Wall is the only must do attraction in a country as big as China with cultural history going back thousands of years definitely fits the image of a self centered American clown

likesmartfunny

Lots of really dumb comments from supposedly educated people. I think it’s great that you want to teach your kids a second language. I’m not sure if Mandarin is the language I’d go for since French and Spanish are more far-reaching, but it could definitely help if they decide to go into international business. Since they’re so young, starting them on some interactive language apps might be the way to go because kids pick those up so quickly!

likehelpful

Good point A10! Also, if they ever want to work in public affairs or foreign policy, Chinese, Arabic, and Russian are in the highest demand! I myself speak Arabic and can vouch for the impact.

OP, I think you are being smart.

It’s just a matter of time until the Chinese decide you should learn their language, since they’re the more powerful country.

The past hundreds of years of European/Western dominance is coming to a close. Other cultures will not conform to the norms of weaker states.

likesmarthelpful

I would reconsider what kind of work and life you’re actually setting your kids up for. In my experience as a Chinese speaking foreigner, if companies care about getting the Chinese language part right, they will just hire any of the millions of native Chinese speakers who also speak functional English and will do the work for less $. They would also rather hire someone with more expertise, and just pair them with a translator, rather than trying to find someone who can do both. The only place where I found a real competitive advantage compared to English speaking Chinese people, is for government jobs that require US citizenship. That’s a pretty narrow band of work, and may not be of interest to your children (especially given the lifestyle that requires).

Otherwise: recommend learning traditional characters first and studying abroad in Taiwan. Makes more sense pedagogically and won’t cause security clearance problems for the government jobs they may later realize are their best option. And then you don’t have to feel guilty about giving cash to the CCP, which may still be executing a genocide.

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Yes Simplified Chinese is the way to go in mainland China and you can get by with it in most western societies too in their local Chinatown’s. Almost all websites/apps for multilingual support will offer dual traditional/simplified Chinese support too.

If OP’s kids have the luxury and bandwidth to learn traditional first, it is definitely great. You learn a lot more of the flavor and character in the characters with the roots and bases.

It’s easier to pick up simplified after learning traditional but not the other way around.

Why is it important to learn mandarin?

likesmart

Hm, I wonder at what point language skills would become more than just a tiebreaker, all else being equal. I’ve been on teams where only the boss doesn’t speak Mandarin (apart from interpreter, everyone else hired for their subject matter expertise, not language), so maybe the tipping point is something like boss + half of the working team?

No wonder you are living in NYC. There are millions of Americans across different states who want to fight together to avoid Chinese domination. You are ready to kneel to the Chinese. Stop it. #bringamericanprideback.

funnylikeuplifting

EYP1 - With a shrinking working age population, and an ever increasing aged population without a safety net (as exists in the West), the working population is required to care for the elderly. Unfortunately for China, One Child policy has now forced that child to care for two parents. This financial burden has resulted in a lack of child birth as they’re financially constrained. Additionally, the majority of parents during One Child opted for males, which has resulted in a massively lopsided male population compounding the birth rate dilemma.

I think OP just uncovered something huge about the deep insecurity among many Americans today - that we are quickly losing our superpower status and ability to hold onto world influence and that the way of education (language wise) as we know it will undergo a major shift that makes most of us uncomfortable.

Chinese definitely is a very foreign and difficult language. It is not structured like Spanish or has a phonetic system that can allow you to read it without even understanding the words. I don’t know Spanish but at least I can pronounce it and easily type the letters to search for the meaning. For Chinese? How do you dictionary search those words without using copy and paste tools on those characters?

It’s a huge fear of the known for older Americans and I can see why Trump is trying to rally up fear and resentment of the Chinese for his MAGA supporters who hate the threat of their comfortable English dominant culture coming to an end in a few more generations.

likeupliftingsmart

Way to show your Ignorance by assuming that the people on here are American.👍

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All you guys laughing need to realize Trump jokingly threatened Americans that we will have to learn Chinese if Biden wins. Well I still want my kids to learn Mandarin anyway. So there’s that!

likesmartfunny

A7 I’m not sure why you would feel sorry for them. Most scholars would feel proud for anyone learning a new language.

likesmart

Economic or political dominance does not create a world dominating language. If China colonizes India, Australia and the US then sure, we'll all transition to Mandarin. But no one will before that.

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Op. There is no reason to argue with A5. Seems that he/she doesn't even know what an ostrich is.

likesmart

Maybe you take your kids....and move to China?

likeupliftinghelpful

AM1 - is that a threat?

Idk if this post is just some weird bait... but I’ll engage: your kids learning mandarin could be very useful to them, sure. For so many hypothetical reasons there’s no sense in trying to list. That said: the English speaking world continues to dominate the international “culture war.” All over the world, kids are being taught English. It might seems too soon to call it- but English is the universal language. And emoji 🤗

likesmartfunny

Lol A3 it seems EY-P1 can’t even read English properly. No hopes of even learning Chinese.

Private tutor if the school doesn’t offer it.

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