# Forum Other Languages All other languages Chinese  because...

## squidward

I'm learning Chinese b/c the wisest teacher I ever had told me "You only ever need to know 3 languages: English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese" 
so I told him I would learn it, and he was surprised when I said something to him in it....lol 
what a life I lead   ::   
pretty soon this site will be called:
wwww.mastereverylanguagepossible.com

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## Pravit

Bah, you don't need to know Spanish. And for a while it won't be important to know Chinese(but in the future it will be, I think). A lot of American teachers say you should learn Spanish because the US has a lot of immigrants from Central America, but they all speak English(or are learning how to). Unless you want to do things in that area I don't really think it's that important.

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## squidward

I actually am planning on going into a career in Spanish...or something of the sort. If not, it's useful where I live b/c many of the immigrants refuse to speak English here.

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## Pravit

And how often is it necessary to talk to them?

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## Jasper May

Maybe it's important in America, but Spanish isn't that important to the rest of the world. I think the 3 most useful languages would be (I hate to admit) English, Chinese and Hindi.

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## Dogboy182

loloolololol asdfasf asdf sl olo ool ... Even "wise" people can be wrong. The only time you're going to need to know spanish is if you want to talk to your homie jose's parents because they REFUSE, as you say to learn english. Maybe when the move to a country they should have enough consideration to learn the language. 
The only earthly reason i could think of learning chinise is because it's the most widely spoken native language, but then... unless y ou go to china... or live in china town... when do you have to talk to them ? maybe if you want to be able to understand the chinise writing on the side of the missles as they are coming down. 
And lastly english. Bah, my own love hate relationship with her. She is my native language. but she is an ugly one. I admit... there really is no reason to learn russian unless A, u want to talk to the russian immagrants (who most are at least courtious enough to learn english) or, if you want to go to rusia. I hope to someday completely forget english. It's so boring and stupid and structured. Once the stock market falls, and bush invades one too many countries, we wont have enough money or armed forces to defend ourselfs from canada, and they will take over, and sell everything to france. At that point, english wont be so important anymore. 
To sum it up... why learn any langauge ? there is no "perfect langauge to learn" but, if you're going to take the time to learn a language... don't waste it on spanish.  like, every single 3rd world country in south america has a native language of spanish.
anyways... maybe your wise teacher was good at some things, but maybe linguistics was not his cup of tea.

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## al

> Once the stock market falls, and bush invades one too many countries, we wont have enough money or armed forces to defend ourselfs from canada, and they will take over, and sell everything to france. At that point, english wont be so important anymore.

   ::   ::   ::

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## EffMah

Bush won't be around for that much longer, hopefully... so there aren't many middle eastern countries for him to invade.  And I don't believe that either of the other two of Bush Sr.'s kids will become president.  
I really don't see why so many people hate the English language.  It's not ugly (personally, I find French ugly   ::  ), and the structure isn't that difficult to follow.  Sure, with pronunciation you have a mess, but so do other languages, e.g. French (again).  And the pronunciation is only hard if you are learning, you don't forget it if you know it...   

> like, every single 3rd world country in south america has a native language of spanish.

 I'm going to assume you meant to write Portugese.   ::   
There is a perfect language though.  It is the language of pictures.  You can explain most anything with a picture, to anyone of any nationality.  People go into too much detail with words, in my opinion.   ::

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## Pravit

Bet you five bucks your wise teacher doesn't know either language(and a few phrases in Spanish doesn't count). I can't stand people who make statements like that and act as if they know what they're talking about. It would be like me putting on a Texan accent, adjusting my belt, and saying "Now listen here, the only golf club you're ever gonna need is..."
There are over a billion speakers of Mandarin Chinese, but remember, almost all of them live in China or east Asia. Most of the ones living in the US speak English. And you don't see them very often(I believe Asians make up around 2% of the population, and "Asian" on US forms includes anybody from India eastward, although many Arabs like filling in "Asian" too).    

> I'm going to assume you meant to write Portugese.

 There are certainly several countries there that speak Spanish.   

> There is a perfect language though. It is the language of pictures. You can explain most anything with a picture, to anyone of any nationality. People go into too much detail with words, in my opinion.

 Bah. Just learn English.   ::   ::

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## Propp

> There is a perfect language though.  It is the language of pictures.  You can explain most anything with a picture, to anyone of any nationality.  People go into too much detail with words, in my opinion.

 I wonder how would you be able to explain the following:
1. Attractions between the atoms in each protein molecule make the polypeptide chain fold up into a rather rigid structure with a form appropriate to its particular function — for instance, with small pocket that is the attractive site where an enzyme catalyze a chemical reaction. Also, many functional proteins consist of a tight cluster of two or more polypeptides. 
2. And she goes like "Well, I'm not really in love with you, not that much, but if you don't mind, I'm sorta...errr..." and he goes "Agrh! You like I don't know what!" 
3. воркалось... хливкие шорьки 
пырялись на траве 
и хрюкотали зелюки 
как мюмзики в мове 
or
Beware of Jabberwock, my son! etc.

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## Dogboy182

The only countries that speak Portugese are Portugal, and Brazil. I've never been to portugal, but Brazil sure doesn't seem like a place i'd want to live. Other than that, becides Spain, every spanish speaking country is either poor, or their infastructure is in bad need of repair. The only thing they can export is soccer players. 
And right, maybe i should just forget how to talk, and take a drawing class. 
Also, english is ENCREDIBLY boring. Maybe not to my english teacher who claims all great countries are the ones that currently speak english (In my opninion, Ukraine is alot better than New Zealand). Look at english
my cat, my weapon, my life.
мой кот, мое оружие, моя жизнь
That is the cat that i killed with my weapon.
Это кошка, которую я убил своим оружием 
I'm not trying to teach you anything, because most everybody here already seaks at least some russian... but it's just so much more interesting to listen to, and to speak. english IS boring, and it IS restricted by it's structure. Russian is cool because you can still say the same thing, but put it how you want.

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## Pravit

Oh c'mon, English isn't that bad. You can certainly have a lot of fun rearranging things in it too. 
That is the cat that I killed with my weapon.
As for the cat that I killed with my weapon, it's that one.
I killed that cat with my WEAPON!
I killed that cat with MY weapon!

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## joysof

> There are over a billion speakers of Mandarin Chinese, but remember, almost all of them live in China or east Asia. Most of the ones living in the US speak English.

 Whilst it's true that the majority of Chinese speakers outside China speak Cantonese, there remain many Mandarin-speaking communities across the world (including a substantial one here in Moscow). Most members of these communities - strange though it may seem - are monoglots, particularly as far as the older generation is concerned.   

> Maybe when the move to a country they should have enough consideration to learn the language.

 What is *the* language? To pluck an example from the air, 45% of the population of South Florida have a native command of a language other than English. The USA, more than any other country on earth, is a linguistic melting-pot. You're richer for it.    

> Other than that, becides Spain, every spanish speaking country is either poor, or their infastructure is in bad need of repair. The only thing they can export is soccer players.

 I'd hate to see philistinism take a hold of this forum. Are you seriously judging a language's value by the GDP of the countries in which it is spoken? Never wanted to read Neruda or Cervantes in the original? Utility ain't everything.

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## Jasper May

Yeah, I'd like to read Cervantes (already have, in English), but I'd like to read Russian authors even more.  ::  Besides, Spanish is just too easy. I can read any kind of text without ever having studied the language.   ::

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## Propp

You may as well read Cervantes in Russian. http://www.lib.ru/INOOLD/SERVANTES/  ::   ::   ::

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## Dogboy182

Joysof. I was refering to the poor nature of the countries to show how pointless it is to learn the lagnauge. Seriosuly, what does mexico do for anybody ? besides punch out fender guitars and rip offs of VW's... not much. Im saying, if you at least learn german, you can get a job translating at a  car manuafactuing plant, or with BMW, or VW, or Audi... If you learn spanish, you really have two options... Join the cops, and interigate "non english speaking" suspects. Or move to spain and live there... Unless u want to live in mexico. 
 And, the united state's national lanuage is english, if someone moves here, they should attempt to learn a few phrases... If they wern't so lazy, you wouldn't have all those groups of foriegners who set up shop in 45% of miami, or wherever. I just don't see why spanish is so popular, or even still tought in highschools when it is virtually useless.

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## Pravit

Hey hey there, Doggie, watch the capitalized "J" in "Joysof!" The man doesn't like his name capitalized, dig? So if you capitalize anything, don't capitalize "Joysof"! Err...I mean "joysof." Gah, that irritates me.

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## Dogboy182

I wasn't capitolzing the name (as if it were a proper noun) as much as i was capitolizing the begining of a sentence.

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## joysof

> I just don't see why spanish is so popular, or even still tought in highschools when it is virtually useless.

 There are over 330 million Spanish speakers worldwide. I'm sure they'd be delighted to be written off by you. I hate to say it, but you're sounding every inch the insular American.   

> And, the united state's national lanuage is english, if someone moves here, they should attempt to learn a few phrases...

 Most do. As for full fluency, it's difficult: your own mangling of English orthography and punctuation serves to illustrate that.

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## Liza

*Dogboy182 wrote:*  

> The only countries that speak Portugese are Portugal, and Brazil.

 Actually, there are quite a few others. Just so you know what you're talking about (although it doesn't seem like you would care about anything concerning these countries), they are: Angola, East Timor, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Sao Tome and Principe. Oh, and I believe it's spelled Portuguese... 
You might also be surprised to know that there are countries in South America where the official language is French, Dutch and _even_ English.  ::    *Jasper May wrote:*  

> Maybe it's important in America, but Spanish isn't that important to the rest of the world

 Wow, do you really think so?? I'm sure it's very important to all the countries in Latin America - not to mention elsewhere in the world. And, mind you, Latin America makes up a large part of that "rest of the world".

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## EffMah

> I just don't see why spanish is so popular, or even still tought in highschools when it is virtually useless.

 Mind-boggling.   

> If they wern't so lazy, you wouldn't have all those groups of foriegners who set up shop in 45% of miami, or wherever.

 The reasons that the "foreigners" set up shop in Miami, is because, as mostly Cubans, they have managed to flee Castro's "poor-causing" finger about 80 miles to Florida.  You see, sometimes they have large families, and they can not take all of them across the water, so a few have to stay in Cuba, and continue to be poor.  When you live right by Cuba, you can send things to Cuba, to support your loved ones, etc.  Also, if you have just floated to another country with very little on your back, how would you plan on heading further north into the new land?  And once they have a business, they see that they can make money where they are at, so why should they move? 
My point was that just because *you* find the language useless, doesn't mean that it *is* useless.  For example, I don't speak Polish, and I have no idea what products that Poland produces.  For all I care, Poland could cease to exist, and I doubt it would have a huge impact on my life.  The Poles could say the same thing about me, this individual. I'm sure that Polish is a very important language to them, otherwise they wouldn't speak it. Do I think that people should learn Polish?  Yes, if they want to go to Poland, or interact with Polish people.  Almost any language you speak can get you a good job in the military, if that's your cup of tea, as a translator. 
A country doesn't have to make itself a part of your life to have their language taught in other countries.   

> I wonder how would you be able to explain the following: 
> 1. Attractions between the atoms in each protein molecule make the polypeptide chain fold up into a rather rigid structure with a form appropriate to its particular function — for instance, with small pocket that is the attractive site where an enzyme catalyze a chemical reaction. Also, many functional proteins consist of a tight cluster of two or more polypeptides.

 Many, *many* diagrams.   ::    Or with math, somehow...

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## Dogboy182

> Actually, there are quite a few others. Just so you know what you're talking about (although it doesn't seem like you would care about anything concerning these countries), they are: Angola, East Timor, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Sao Tome and Principe.

 I forgot to write (that i know of) after "nobody else speaks "...", believe it or not. I knew i should have written that just to protect myself from situations like this. Situations where people have nothing better to do than dust off their grandfather's encyclopedia and look up which countries that are smaller than Omaha Nebraska speak what languages. OK you got me there, but only because I forgot to write what i should have. 
 Oh yea, when is the last time you went to, or met anybody, or just HAD TO CONVERSE for some reason with anybody from those countries. And i highly doubt that it is the national language of ALL of those pissant places, it is probly just widely spoken there. (just like spanish is widely spoken in the US).   

> you might also be surprised to know that there are countries in South America where the official language is French, Dutch and _even_ English.

 I wish i could slap you. Are you really hoping that i say " NO THEY DON'T THEY ONLY USE CLICKING SOUNDS IN REMOTE MOUNTAIN COUNTRIES!, so you can go and pull out your world book on geography again, because i doubt you can name those countries either. And i bet those languages again, are not the only national languages in the country. Even canada has french, and africa has *gasp* arabic, and yes   ::   *english*.  *Jasper May wrote:*  

> Maybe it's important in America, but Spanish isn't that important to the rest of the world

 Wow, do you really think so?? I'm sure it's very important to all the countries in Latin America - not to mention elsewhere in the world. And, mind you, Latin America makes up a large part of that "rest of the world".[/quote] 
I defend jasper here, i think we had already discussed the south american thing by this time, and he was referign to the "asia/europe/africa" "part of the rest of the world".    

> Quote: 
> I just don't see why spanish is so popular, or even still tought in highschools when it is virtually useless.   
> Mind-boggling.

 Why ?  IT IS USELESS. I can see why they might teach Turkish in swedish schools, because those countries have love affairs with each others sky resorts... But besides old people moving to mexico to retire... besides panama, i can't think of any major event (in the past few years) that has DIRECTLY affected a spanish speaking country and America. 
You people need to understand im not just bashing spanish, as useless as it is. French, and even russian are pretty useless too. If someone asked me why i was learning russian, and then started arguing with me about how useless it is... they would probably win. Im not saying "Don't learn spanish" im simply confused as to why it is just so popular when it is so useless. And if i hear someone say "All of south america speaks spanish" one more time I'll be forced to tell you that over 2 billion people speak chinese and punjabi combined. But you don't see these languages offered in high schools.  
I'd say, with russia, and all the former USSR countries combined, only about 200 to 250 million people speak russian(just a rough guess, feel free to get your almanac to correct me here). So obivoulsy you can't play the numbers game with rusian, and drop it with the spanish. The only reason you should learn it, is to go help poor people in poor south american countries. Spanish is useless, not that many people speak it, and the only people who learn it are the n00b language learners. 
@Joysof - I probably speak better english than you.

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## Pravit

Ooh, this is funny! Pardon me for interrupting your discussion, but I just had to throw something in:
DON'T FORGET THE PUNJABI!

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## EffMah

> Quote: 
> I just don't see why spanish is so popular, or even still tought in highschools when it is virtually useless.   
> [quote:2ltqms2y]Mind-boggling.

 Why ?  IT IS USELESS. I can see why they might teach Turkish in swedish schools, because those countries have love affairs with each others sky resorts... But besides old people moving to mexico to retire... besides panama, i can't think of any major event (in the past few years) that has DIRECTLY affected a spanish speaking country and America.[/quote:2ltqms2y] 
We... border... Mexico... so... we... should... learn... their... language... to... easily... communicate... with... them... 
Name one country that doesn't teach the language of neighboring nations in their schools.

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## al

> I'll be forced to tell you that over 2 billion people speak chinese and punjabi combined. But you don't see these languages offered in high schools.

 Here in Vancouver they do offer these languages in high school  ::

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## al

> Many, *many* diagrams.     Or with math, somehow...

 But math is a language, isn't it?   ::

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## Dogboy182

Wow great. Austrailia boarders indonesia, and i bet that only about 4 percent of aussies actually USE the indonesian they were tought in school.  
The USA also boarders RUSSIA. There is only something like 83 miles of bearing straight between Alaska and Russia. Why isn't russian tought in highschool ? 
And i bet they don't teach kazakh, belorussian, uzbek, armenian, polish, latvian, estonian, lithuainian, ukrainian, chinise, mongolian and korean in russian highschools, they might teach 2 or 3, but what, are you gunna teach all these languages just because they boarder these countries ?

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## Propp

In Russian secondary and high schools they teach:
In most cases English
In many cases German
In few cases French
In very few cases Spanish.
There are separate special schools with Chinese (as far as I know 1 in Moscow among thousand schools) and may be several others. 
But the foreign language as a school subject is rather badly taught in most cases. Just to show that it is there.

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## EffMah

I don't know how you got that America borders Russia, because bordering a country means the two countries are connected by land, not some underwater ground, otherwise we would border Europe as well.  The *Bering Strait* is submerged, in case you didn't know. 
Where I come from, taking Spanish isn't a required course, so most people take it only if they plan on using it.  In fact, it wasn't required in Washington when I was there either... 
I'm not the other countries' governments, so I don't decide what they teach in their schools, but you will always find that they teach languages that border their country, more so in areas close to the border than on the opposite side of it.  Continuing arguing about this fact is pointless, as _everyone_ will have something to say about it, and it will detract from the original topic of this thread (God knows what that is...) so lets just drop it, and say everyone is a winner.   

> But math is language, isn't it?

 Indeed it is, but it's one that all nations speak the same (if their information is up to date).  Math is a universal language, if you will.  ::  
(I just realized that I don't know whether to write 'a' or 'an' in front of universal, saying 'a' sounds more correct to me... :: )

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## al

> (I just realized that I don't know whether to write 'a' or 'an' in front of universal, saying 'a' sounds more correct to me...)

 I think it's 'a' because 'universal' begins with a consonant sound (the one that written with the letter 'й' in Russian).

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## Dogboy182

If 4 spetsnaz got in a row boat with a sack of potatoes and 2 AK74-Su's and were heading east from the anadyr platue going 5 knots an hour. If they continued on thier current path they would hit alaska. besides, if it was winter, they could practically walk over the ice. It's just as close to boardering it as it gets.  ::

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## EffMah

It's still not bordering.

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## Propp

I think there must be some kind of a border. I know that there really exist water borders for some length after a shore. Of course oceans are too large for this (like, between USA and France), but there's a little space between Chukotka and Alaska. Former Soviet (and I think modern Russian) north frontier was up to North Pole. 
After a little while... Ah! Yes, I got it from encyclopaedia! 
БЕРИНГОВ ПРОЛИВ, 
между материками Евразия и Сев. Америка. Соединяет Сев. Ледовитый ок. с Тихим ок. Длина 96 км, наименьшая ширина 86 км, наименьшая глубина 36 м. Назван по имени В. Беринга. Посреди Берингова пролива, между о-вами Диомида, проходит *государственная граница* Российской Федерации и США.

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## EffMah

We had already established that the Bering Strait connected the two nations, but it's under the water now, so it no longer serves as a border; the kind of border like the American-Mexican border, or the American-Canadian border.  You can't drive across the Bering Strait to Russia. 
Plus, I barely count Alaska as America.   ::    Too far away, and too "Canada".  Same with Hawaii, consarn it!   ::

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## Propp

OK, may be in English a "border" means that it is on land. Граница may be everywhere, она проходит по суше или по морю. May be it is frontier then?

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## EffMah

It clearly connects the two, and used to be a land border, but now it's submerged, which destroys all ways of traveling their by foot or car.  If we are going by stuff that's under the water, we would have countries that say they border Austrailia.  The border that I'm talking about is a land border where you have to cross some sort of checkpoints to be let into the nation.  I'm sure they have them on the shore, but it's just not the same, so Russia doesn't really border America per se, just in the sense of "it's close, but too far away."

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## Tambakis

> You might also be surprised to know that there are countries in South America where the official language is French, Dutch and even English.

 Dogboy I dont own any encyclopedias, but just so you know...
Belize-english
Suriname-Dutch
French Guiana-French
Brazil-Portuguese
*to my knowledge* the other 17 countries in central and south america are spanish speaking.   ::   
And here in Texas, (btw Pravit your "texas accent" is more of a tidewater/back woods/po-dunk hick thing, not a whole lot of texans actually have that southern drawl.  ::  ) spanish is taught in nearly every elelmentary, middle and high school there is. simply because we border Mexico.  Whether its laziness or their inability to learn english we take some initiative and learn spanish. Besides your salary will at the very least double if you are bilingual. My dad speaks spanish because the majority of his clients dont speak english, but he's not going to say he cant represent them because they cant speak english. Thats anything but fair. 
  Really to get by with spanish in a high school here, just put buey (pronounce it "way")on the end of every sentence  ::    I doubt anyone will get that, where are all the native spanish speakers??   

> Plus, I barely count Alaska as America.  Too far away, and too "Canada".

   ::   ::

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## joysof

> @Joysof - I probably speak better english than you.

 Doubtless. You _write_ the language erratically at best, however.

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