thermal Wrote:

Musashi Wrote:C'mon, a country THAT big and diverse as China with more than 5000 years history doesn't have an interesting culture? Not to mention a LOT came from China to Japan, what you like is anime and video games, wake up, there's more than that.

That's the thing. I am not very interested in History. I more interested in people that are currently living. For me I don't find the current culture tremendously enticing. Can you elaborate more on what draws you to it?

Sorry if my reply sounded a bit rude, no offense. I believe you've noticed (or not) how China is frequently on the news, internet, everywhere is because it is changing so fast and modernizing so fast you'd think it was the new Japan (ok not yet soon hehe), but anyways, me coming from a modern European country and going to China to study abroad is what really made me see how China is so different today than it was even a mere 10 years ago. I never imagined it changed in such a tremendous way that it sometimes seemed my home country looked old fashioned. Yes, China still does has some catching up to do, but it's doing that FAST. From clothing, media and beliefs to modernization, in some places it already surpassed us westerners.

I think a lot of people still have this old image of China and refuse to believe that it's changed. I can only say see for yourself and find out how it's much more and better than you'd expect. And with more than a billion people, there's gotta be some interesting ones out there no?

What draws it to me? How about having Chinese roots

Interesting.

Well I think I will learn it.

My current plan.

1. Get job.
2. Become totally awesome at Japanse.
3. Frigidly dip my toe into the pool of Mandarin. (No not really. I guess I will do RTH)
4. ?
5. Profit!

(6. Have a shower, leave the house and find happiness)

Musashi Wrote:What draws it to me? How about having Chinese roots

I have Chinese roots, too, but I'm not particularly passionate about Chinese culture or language (especially Mandarin) EXCEPT for its cuisine. So my goal is to learn just enough Cantonese and Mandarin so that I can navigate virtually any Chinese restaurant like a native.

From a career/economic standpoint, no.

At my company the official language used in the China offices is English; this is not the case for the Japan offices.

I might end up working inChina for 3-6 months, and while it would make my life easier to know more Chinese during that period, it's really not worth it for such a short time, since I would be using English >90% of the time anyway.

Don't get me wrong, if you enjoy learning the language, that's great, I just don't see any major benefit from it.

sheetz Wrote:

Musashi Wrote:What draws it to me? How about having Chinese roots

I have Chinese roots, too, but I'm not particularly passionate about Chinese culture or language (especially Mandarin) EXCEPT for its cuisine. So my goal is to learn just enough Cantonese and Mandarin so that I can navigate virtually any Chinese restaurant like a native.

I'm also not the biggest Chinese culture freak, in fact I think I like Japanese culture more, but I can't neglect my roots. As an FBC (using 'Foreign' to include all ya'll ABC's, BBC's, CBC's etc.) you get the best of both worlds, but not being able to speak your 'own' language is a bit shameful. I knew this one girl who is also FBC but she doesn't speak a word Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese etc.) and yes you do get pointed at by your fellow asians/FBC's even with broken Chinese. I hated to go to Chinese school when I was young (every FBC does) but fortunately my parents forced me and I benefit hugely from it now. So よく頑張ってね！

Musashi Wrote:I knew this one girl who is also FBC but she doesn't speak a word Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese etc.) and yes you do get pointed at by your fellow asians/FBC's even with broken Chinese.

It really depends on where you live. When I was young living in California that might have been true, but nowadays of the 2nd and 3rd generation Chinese there the vast majority of them do not speak Chinese fluently. It's really the fluent speakers who get pointed at.

sheetz Wrote:It really depends on where you live. When I was young living in California that might have been true, but nowadays of the 2nd and 3rd generation Chinese there the vast majority of them do not speak Chinese fluently. It's really the fluent speakers who get pointed at.

Why would you get pointed at?

Musashi Wrote:

sheetz Wrote:It really depends on where you live. When I was young living in California that might have been true, but nowadays of the 2nd and 3rd generation Chinese there the vast majority of them do not speak Chinese fluently. It's really the fluent speakers who get pointed at.

Why would you get pointed at?

I'm not saying people would treat you in a negative way. Rather the opposite--a lot of people would be impressed because it's so extremely rare.

sheetz Wrote:

Musashi Wrote:

sheetz Wrote:It really depends on where you live. When I was young living in California that might have been true, but nowadays of the 2nd and 3rd generation Chinese there the vast majority of them do not speak Chinese fluently. It's really the fluent speakers who get pointed at.

Why would you get pointed at?

I'm not saying people would treat you in a negative way. Rather the opposite--a lot of people would be impressed because it's so extremely rare.

So the more reason to learn it fluently. Chinese people see pride as an importance, I don't think that changed with 2nd or 3rd generation, or did it... Although nowadays with learning Chinese being so popular it's not that rare. Btw, what are your reasons for learning it?

Musashi Wrote:So the more reason to learn it fluently. Chinese people see pride as an importance, I don't think that changed with 2nd or 3rd generation, or did it... Although nowadays with learning Chinese being so popular it's not that rare. Btw, what are your reasons for learning it?

Like I said I do think it matters where you live. In the US immigrants are encouraged to assimilate as quickly as possible so there's no pressure to 'prove' your Chinese-ness by learning the language. Some youngsters do learn to speak Mandarin passably well because it's become more popular and it can be learned in school, but speaking as someone with a Cantonese background I can confidently say that the percentage of 3rd generation Chinese who can speak Cantonese fluently is very close to zero.

Currently I'm not actively learning Chinese, but I expect to pick it up after I'm satisfied with my Japanese. I'd rather learn Cantonese as that's my heritage, but there are so few resources and no real literature, and sadly it appears to be gradually being phased out in the US as recent Chinese immigrants have come from other regions. But even though I'm not all that keen on Chinese culture compared to say, Japanese culture, strangely enough I do have more interest in actually visiting China than Japan, so learning Mandarin would be worthwhile for that reason.

Matthew Wrote:From a career/economic standpoint, no.

At my company the official language used in the China offices is English; this is not the case for the Japan offices.

I might end up working inChina for 3-6 months, and while it would make my life easier to know more Chinese during that period, it's really not worth it for such a short time, since I would be using English >90% of the time anyway.

Don't get me wrong, if you enjoy learning the language, that's great, I just don't see any major benefit from it.

People don't usually learn a third language because they think it'll improve their careers. I doubt there's many people on this forum who are devoting themselves so much to Japanese because they think it'll make them money. Being able to interact with the society, to immerse yourself in a language and culture foreign to your own, and gain intrinsic joy from the journey of gaining so much new knowledge in the process...I think those things are infinitely more useful and meaningful to one's life than some dirty green paper bills

Aijin Wrote:

Matthew Wrote:From a career/economic standpoint, no.

At my company the official language used in the China offices is English; this is not the case for the Japan offices.

I might end up working inChina for 3-6 months, and while it would make my life easier to know more Chinese during that period, it's really not worth it for such a short time, since I would be using English >90% of the time anyway.

Don't get me wrong, if you enjoy learning the language, that's great, I just don't see any major benefit from it.

People don't usually learn a third language because they think it'll improve their careers. I doubt there's many people on this forum who are devoting themselves so much to Japanese because they think it'll make them money. Being able to interact with the society, to immerse yourself in a language and culture foreign to your own, and gain intrinsic joy from the journey of gaining so much new knowledge in the process...I think those things are infinitely more useful and meaningful to one's life than some dirty green paper bills

I think you missed the point I was trying to make. Of course learning languages isn't a good way of getting rich. But, if I want to have a "real" job/decent career and live in Japan at the same time, language skills are a very important part of that. Contrast this with China, where there's significantly less expectation/demand for Western professionals to know the language.

And I think that once you get out into the real world and are confronted with the reality of living expenses, bills, insurance payments, medical expenses, marriage, children, home ownership, retirement, etc, your views on "dirty green bills" might just change a little.

If you're just working at the offices of a US company then you can get by with only English in that job environment, yes, but I've seen the same occur in Japan. But if you only plan on working in a US company, only speaking to western friends, then what would even be the point of living in China? That's such a forced isolation that you might as well just live in your native country.
To work in an actual Chinese company and truly live and be a part of the country, you cannot get by with just English. The vast majority of English education that I witnessed in my studies over there was pretty awful, and while there are many bilinguals there who are fluent in English and Mandarin, it's still a very, very small percentage of the population.

I suppose I just found your comment that there's 'no major benefit to learning Mandarin' a little offensive. One could easily say the same about Japanese, yet here we are on a Japanese language forum
Learning Mandarin in no way improved my financial security nor my career options, but the time I spent in China and Taiwan were some of the most memorable moments of my life. My adventures into Chinese literature have been spectacular, and what I have learned from all the various philosophies has greatly impacted my life. I simply could never have experienced any of these things in the way I did without knowing Mandarin.

And hey, I deal with all those issues as is (minus a family, children, and retirement) and still think money is very silly

This year I'll go to college (hopefully) and the course I'm about to choose is "east asian studies", mandarin is major and japanese minor (I already know more japanese than the students ending the 1st year, japanese is learned at a very slow pace, unfortunatelly).

The main reason I chose this course is because I can learn my favorite languages (hipothetically) and mandarin will take me to business, which is what I think I love. So mandarin+japanese+business is a dream came true.

I think mandarin is really usefull nowadays, I always liked the chinese and can't wait to go to a chinese store to surprise its owners with my mad skillz, lol, kidding.

Oh I love this thread.

If your school has a crap Japanese program, don't bother minoring in it. You said you want to do business so why not major in that and minor in Chinese. You can continue studying Japanese on your own.

Yeah, if you love business you should definitely go with that as a major. Language degrees are mainly only useful if you plan on entering grad school for that subject, want to be in the academia world, or just want the knowledge itself and don't think your career will be affected by not having a degree in something else.

I think some colleges also won't let you do both a major and a minor from the East Asian Languages Department, but I am not sure. I've heard some people can't major in both because they can't do two majors from a single department.

I second you doing business as a major. If you're really diligent, you could probably get away with double minoring in Chinese and Japanese. I was thinking about doing this at one point, only with International Studies as a major, since the university I was going to be attending doesn't offer any degrees in Asian languages. But since I want to go to grad school later, I'm picking a different school for undergrad (second Bachelor's, btw) and majoring in Chinese, with a minor in Japanese (if they'll let me, if not I'll take Japanese for my electives and minor in history).

Well, I'd love that, the japanese course there sucks. I've spoken to some students before I started learning and they said japanese was really difficult, that's probably the reason I started studying it (and because I want to be the best in my course). Well, I'm already learning it and I find the grammar so far, easy (genki lesson 10).

The problem with courses here, in portugal, is that you have to do all the course, you can't do two separate courses, in this case, mandarin and business . It so sucks the education system here.

Anyway, appreciated.

1 of my masters degree years (2) will be spent studying and working in china btw.

Can you major in business and just take Chinese/Japanese as electives? Languages are definitely something one can learn on their own, but you can't really teach yourself business without hands-on experience.

Career-wise a business degree is worth more. You can always get HSK certification to prove your language ability on a resume. In fact you'll likely need to get HSK anyways.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Can you major in business and just take Chinese/Japanese as electives? Languages are definitely something one can learn on their own, but you can't really teach yourself business without hands-on experience.

Career-wise a business degree is worth more. You can always get HSK certification to prove your language ability on a resume. In fact you'll likely need to get HSK anyways.

Well, um, I seriously don't know. I have this course in my mind for 2 years, it'd be a shock if I changed my mind. This course is about japan/china politics, language, economics, geography, history, a bit of everything, so hopefully I'll be prepared to everything, even though I doubt that.

Lucky for me Portugal lacks in this kind of graduates and specialists. Tough I'd like o have an abroad career, maybe in the US.

Thank you, nevertheless.

Study languages, everything you learn in a business degree can be picked up by experience. Who wants to work in business anyway? It's boring. College is for studying what you are interested in and for learning things you can't pick up in the class room. If your college is worth it's salt it won't matter what you major in, you'll learn how to be what you want to be regardless.

I'm the opposite, welldone101. I feel that college is to attain accreditation in things that you might not necessarily enjoy, but for things that will get you far in life.

Fun things like learning Japanese you can do in your spare time. Why would you need a university course to push you to learn something you already want to learn?

Sometimes having the pressure of tests and of actually having something to lose from failure created a great motivation for language learning. Of course it's not necessary, but having something pushing you besides your sheer passion can be beneficial sometimes.

That's true. But I noticed constantly failing my SRS reps has the same effect =P

Nii87 Wrote:I'm the opposite, welldone101. I feel that college is to attain accreditation in things that you might not necessarily enjoy, but for things that will get you far in life.

Fun things like learning Japanese you can do in your spare time. Why would you need a university course to push you to learn something you already want to learn?

I think maybe the difference is I went to a college rather than a University. The goal of my college, through any major, was the teach us how to take part in a global society and to learn about how we ourselves learn.. so that in the future anything we wanted to do was doable.

It's the same principal that guides the idea of majoring in English if you want to go into management. Sure.. you could major in business, but ultimately business is about communication, and nothing prepares you for lots and lots of writing and expression of your opinions than majoring in English. There's a reason the most common degree among CEOs in English.

There's also a reason my college has the highest number of math students who go on to get their PHDs in math, even though our program isn't really any different. It's because they prepare us to go on with our education, self or otherwise, rather than stuff us full of facts and stick a label on us. I've been a graduate for 6 years now, and even though I'm not even working in either of the fields I majored in, I can't point to a class I took that I haven't applied to my life. College is about so much more than a piece of paper, and that's the secret that most US colleges and universities are operating under. There's a reason that a majority of the worlds greatest thinkers and innovators are being churned out of US colleges, and I believe it's mostly because we are educating people in how to think, rather than how to know.