With well over a billion speakers, Mandarin Chinese, the official idiom of mainland China, is the language spoken by the most people around the world. The growing relations between mainland China and Western countries has roused the interest toward the Middle Kingdom, not only from a business perspective, but also from a cultural one, inspiring an increasing number of people to study Chinese as a second language….

While learning a foreign language is a long and strenuous process for most people, studying Mandarin Chinese is the most challenging, according to teachers and students at the Mandarin Training Center in Taipei….

Teachers at MTC agree with the American student, pointing out that schools in Taiwan teach traditional Chinese characters, whereas in mainland China they use a simplified version, which many students believe is easier to learn. However, teachers reckon that students who learn the traditional symbols improve faster and find memorizing the words easier after they reach the intermediate level.

“This is because [traditional] Chinese characters are not made of irrelevant symbols. They have radicals and are formed according to specific rules. Some characters share similar elements,” Chou explained. The radical is the part in a character that serves to classify it. The same radical can be shared by several different characters. For example the word for ‘forget’ [pronounced as wang] shares the same ‘heart’ radical [xin] as ‘think’ [xiang]. “So by learning a symbol and the rules by which it is structured, one can actually easily learn two or three associated words. A good teacher should teach students the connections between these words,” the professor added….

Well worth clicking on and reading the whole article.  This article caught my attention for two reasons: A) it’s about the best Chinese language program in the world; and B) it actually touches upon some of the aspects of character reading that comprise the focus of my current research.

As for the simplified vs. traditional character debate: as much as I kid my Mainland Chinese colleagues about it, there are good reasons for learning both systems.  By and large, one can simplify it as traditional characters are easier to learn to read, whereas simplified characters are easier to learn to write; but ultimately, the choice of which system to learn is more a matter of why you want to learn Chinese in the first place.  If you plan on using it primarily in China (or Singapore), then learn simplified, but if you want to go to Taiwan, Hong Kong, or deal with any of the world-wide Chinese diaspora (such as Malaysia or San Francisco), then traditional characters are for you.  If you plan on reading Chinese history or classics, also, stick with traditional characters (as simplified were only organized in a systematic way in 1956).  If you have the time and the inclination you can eventually get both, but I don’t know many non-professionals who have ever bothered to do so.

On a visit to China last year in preparation for the 2008 Summer Games, U.S. Olympic swimmer Katie Hoff had an epiphany: she couldn’t speak to the locals.

In between practicing for the trials, and keeping up with her busy schedule, Hoff decided then and there that she would add the Mandarin language to her agenda….

Once in Beijing, she was able to “relate” to the culture. Even the simple act of saying hello in Mandarin would “light up” the local’s faces, Hoff said.

Good for her!  Language ability is really the difference between a good visit to a new country and a great one.  One’s understanding of the place and people increase exponentially as we learn…  While I’m not a big fan of the particular pre-packaged course that Hoff used, it’s still better than nothing.  Simply put, no one’s going to ever become fluent (or even conversant) by talking to their computer, but one can certainly use those types of software packages to pick up useful vocabulary for a trip.  One friend of mine just used it for about a month before a trip to Germany, and said that it made his experience to be able to communicate in some rudimentary German to the locals…  It probably made those Germans’ day too.

My one exit thought…  Me thinks that language ability may be a tad less crucial for impressing the locals if one is an Olympian and looks like this:

Pupils in the European Union are learning foreign languages at a younger age, even as young as three, while English is learnt by 90 per cent of all European pupils at some stage of their compulsory education, according to a study by the Eurydice Network.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: an early start is not the “cure-all” for language learning — the effort has to be sustained throughout adolescence (and pretty much throughout life)…  Europeans have always had a bit of an advantage in this regard, given that 1) they can barely drive 5 minutes without encountering a national/linguistic border; and 2) because of the multi-lingual nature of the continent, they have retained the classical definition of education wherein foreign language learning plays a big role…  Despite plaintive pleas from all quarters that we Yanks need to take a note from the Europeans where language learning is concerned, I ask you to take note of the fact that they have the same worries about the up-and-coming generation.  While multilingualism is certainly more wide-spread in Europe than it is in the US (and #1 above is pretty much the reason why — FL classes are infinitely more usable in Europe as travel makes interaction with speakers of the language of study quite doable and likely), there are still plenty of monolinguals.  I’m always amazed by the number of tourists who are duped by the multilingual “show” of the tourist areas, which do make it seem like everyone in the country is conversant in at least one or two other languages, however, if you get outside of highly touristed neighborhoods, you will start to realize that the people who work in the tour hot spots are hired specifically for their language abilities.  Try going literally one block off the Champs Elysess in Paris, and you’ll encounter the other Paris, where finding someone to speak English is a mighty task, indeed…

Prior to living in Mexico I did not have much exposure to Mexicans in my young adult life. In fact, in the town of Pocahontas it is very rare that we see any foreigner at all. In my high school, we typically welcomed one foreign exchange student a year, and they were usually from Europe, where they had already taken English in school and could speak it passably.

When I was dropped off at the home of my host family, I realized that my biggest problem was not speaking but rather listening to a native Spanish speaker. It was all I could do to make sense of what my host dad was saying, which I tried to counter by doing most of the talking. I knew I spoke Spanish very slowly but I tried to convince my listeners that my speech was naturally methodical as a product of my personality and not that I needed more time to think of what to say, even though that was the truth.

Combine the aphorisms that “practice makes perfect” and “timing is everything” into one and you might get something resembling findings published in this month’s issue of Psychological Science. Proper spacing of lessons, the researchers report, can dramatically enhance learning. And larger gaps between study sessions result in better recall of facts.

Conversely: Cramming – whether it’s math for a midterm or a foreign language in anticipation of a trip abroad – is not effective in the long haul.

High immigration rates in the U.S. have forced all of us to listen to our neighbors with a more discerning ear, as most residents (of urban areas, at least) interact with people from various national origins dozens of times daily.  For the most part, language slips and accent woes are rather insignificant, simply giving us amusing anecdotes for later.  While some people may get annoyed, not clearly understanding the 7-11 clerk is hardly life-threatening, and usually the irritation comes more from a bad day in general than any real inconvenience resulting from miscommunication.  However, one might reasonably wonder about other, much more critical professions, such as the health care profession.  Here, language clarity can literally be life or death.  The difference between 15cc and 50 cc of a life-saving drug, for instance, is a disaster waiting to happen.  With the influx of foreign health care providers, and the high levels of international recruitment in university medical programs, what can be done to ensure that accents don’t end up harming patients?

Answer: Accent reduction training…

The increasing need to teach foreign doctors to speak with less of an accent is driving Ms. Yates’ 2-year-old Dallas-based business, G.E.T. English Training, to yearly revenue in excess of $100,000. Her accent reduction course costs $113 an hour, or $1,465 for hourlong sessions spanning 13 weeks.

Ms. Yates, who has a master’s degree in linguistics and previously taught English in Mexico, takes a 45-minute taped speech sample during the student’s free first session. Later, her staff will listen to it, over and over, for more than three hours, picking up speech patterns and rhythm.

A good idea, and it’s likely that these businesses will start to become common, serving certain fields.  I doubt it would ever catch on in general immigrant communities, for, as mentioned above, many immigrants can live and work just fine with heavy accents (or even limited English conversational ability).  My wife speaks English with a heavy accent, and while that has restricted her employment options in some ways (e.g., she wouldn’t want to work in telephone sales, for instance), she still has a great job with the local school district, and I can’t imagine her ever feeling the need to cough up thousands of dollars for accent training (although, let’s face it… I could probably do it for free)…  This sort of intensive training would serve a limited professional band, but would accomplish terribly important work…

“ Since our President elect has close ties to Kenya, we should make at least some effort to learn a little Swahili.”

Huh????

That line aside,  the article is fun…  Just a letter to the editor written by someone who lived in Kenya for four years.  The main point seems to be to demonstrate how many Swahili words most of us already know as they have either crept into the English lexicon, or been prominently featured in movies…  That’s a far cry from learning the language, however.  While Swahili is not considered to be that hard to learn, as languages go (it is classified as a category II language by the army and foreign service — harder than, say, Spanish, but easier than Arabic or Russian — German is category II as well), there is still a big difference between learning a few words, and learning to speak.  This is further complicated by the relative unfamiliarity of Swahili (or any indigenous African language, for that matter) to most speakers of English.  Still, it would be a fun one to learn…  Kenya is certainly on my list of must-see places…  If you want to learn and go, may I cordially recommend the Peace Corps (if you’re an American citizen, that is)…

Remember me saying that I would have plenty of time for blogging now that the comprehensive exams are over…. Heh!  Didn’t happen…  Two factors that I’ve noticed at work, and from talking with various other bloggers, I’m going out on a limb and declaring them as universal principles of blogging:

1) Any written statement to the effect that you will increase blogging output virtually guarantees that all sorts of #$%@ to come up in life, and blogging gets put on the back-burner…

2) If you skip a couple of days, you cease to internalize blogging into your daily schedule, and thus, before you know it, a couple weeks or more will pass…

Agree?  Disagree?  Let me know…

My curiosity got peaked by this article by Dr. Thomas Sowell which asserts that President Coolidge was a polyglot — something which I had never heard before. I started looking at the history of American presidents and language history, and contrary to the old standby joke of someone who speaks only one language being an American, there were quite a few American presidents with varying abilities to speak/read/write other languages. The recent trend towards monolingual leaders is just that — a recent trend. While there is a lot of misinformation that one needs to wade through in order to ascertain presidential abilities, there are accountings available. To knowledge, probably the most multilingual president to date was Thomas Jefferson, who is credited with six languages: English (duh), French, Greek, Latin, Spanish and Italian. While there is some debate on whether his fluency in some of them was merely reading fluency vs. speaking fluency, it is impressive, nonetheless (and there is no debate as to his French language ability — keep in mind that he served as an ambassador to France).

John Quincy Adams was also known as a polyglot. He may have surpassed Jefferson — the History New Network ranks him as speaking 7 languages, but I’ve thus far no independent verification of this. It’s entirely possible as he spent much of his childhood abroad with his diplomat father. He is commonly credited with fluent French and Dutch, and then the cryptic “familiarity with other European languages.”

Other fun facts: Herbert Hoover spent a couple years with his wife in China, and was known to converse with her in Chinese when he wanted to keep their conversations private.

James Garfield, a classical languages instructor before starting his political career, was known for a ‘party trick’ of sorts wherein he would simultaneously translate English text into Greek with one hand and Latin with the other. Ambidextrous and multilingual — what a combo!

Of course, classical education meant that many of our leaders in the past were well versed in Latin, at least, and the historical trends of the past century meant that many leaders around the turn of the 20th century had a good grounding in German (a rising power of the time). More than a few political leaders of the time had studied in Germany. This reversal in trend of presidential multilingualism seems to have taken place around JFK. Contrary to common assertion (note thread here, for instance), JFK didn’t speak a foreign language, and in fact, was considered pretty horrible at it. His wife, of course, was a different matter. In recent history, Jimmy Carter is the only President who is universally agreed upon to be proficient in a second language (Spanish — he’s good). Sadly, as the discussion thread linked above demonstrates, this sort of question inevitably leads to a fair amount of Bush-bashing, due to his tendencies for mangling the English language. This is ironic, because in their rush to condemn him, they overlook the fact that he does speak Spanish. While most sources put his efforts at something less than fluency, my own experiences have shown that political ideology often colors people’s perceptions of his Spanish abilities — i.e., most Republicans say “he speaks Spanish” and Dems say “his Spanish sucks.” Personally, I find his Spanish to be so-so. It’s at a level where it’s certainly worth putting on a resume, but he probably wouldn’t be comfortable with sustained conversation. I’ve seen him interviewed in Spanish, and he could answer questions (slowly, with some interjected English) — which is more than either of his opponents in 2000 and 2004 could do. During 2001, I was in Spain, and Bush flew in for a visit. Watching the news wherein he spoke some Spanish to the press, I asked my (Spanish-native) roommate his opinion, and he said, “his accent’s pretty thick, and he doesn’t get everything right, but you can understand him — he’s ok.” Faint praise, but still better than nothing…. By contrast, the same roommate about died laughing at Al Gore’s Spanish…

For a listing of the linguistic abilities of some modern pols, click here.

Exit question: Are we in for some “hope and change?” There’s a lot of claims out there that Obama speaks Indonesian, but the answer is a big NO…. Via Obama’s own mouth, “I know because I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s embarrassing!” Apparently either he only learned rudimentary Indonesian as a child, or he forgot it as an adult (entirely possible — there are children as old as 12 who completely forget their native language when cut off from it). While he’s rumored to have been working on his Spanish during the campaign, has anyone heard him say anything other than “Si, se puede”? I looked, and for some reason can’t find it, but some time ago I came across a survey of various senators in which he claimed “a little” Indonesian and Swahili (probably either memories from his Dad, or learned for his trip back to Kenya) and that he was starting Spanish. If anyone can find the survey, please send the link…

The increase in the number of foreigners living and working in HCM City is bringing a windfall to house owners who lease out their houses to foreigners.

Though official statistics are not available, telephone information service 1080 estimates there are around 6,000 foreigners in the city now.

But not all of them can afford the US$2,000 and above a month that deluxe and serviced apartments cost, especially single people and students. Renting a room in a house is often a good option for many, thanks to the lower rents.

$2K a month — Good Lord!!!  Most of my friends who worked/taught in Vietnam were paying $300/month tops…  What this shows more than anything is the wicked divide between the two types of expat workers…  For simplicity sake, I tend to refer to the groupings as “English teachers” and “everyone else” (snark intended).  Actually, the divide isn’t quite that clear-cut, but there are certainly many who go abroad for reasons of cultural experience, often paying the bills by teaching, who live on the local economy; and then there are the foreign business execs (and associated families) who are encouraged by their companies to “put up with” living abroad, and basically bribed with promises of never sacrificing a jot of their pampered, Westernized lifestyle.  I’ve met more than my fair share of the second category, while living the first, and I must confess that they amused me terribly.  They were often so insulated from the local scene as to have zero understanding of it — i.e., thinking that anything around $20USD was a terribly good deal for a meal in SE Asia (while I was usually eating for anywhere from $0.50-$1.00), and often complaining of the “inflated” prices for basic goods and services from import services while blissfully oblivious to the fact that local equivalents were widely available at a fraction of the cost (often begging the question of how they actually thought natives of their respective regions got by).  While I certainly must confess more than a twinge or two of jealousy over their plush pads, BMWs, and high, western salaries (the last point, of course, being the most envy-inducing), I had to wonder whether the trade off of isolation from the very region one lives in was worth it.  There was, every once in while, a person who managed the best of both worlds — enjoying western creature comforts while still fully taking advantage of the joys of their new surroundings, but such types were rare.  I’m not going to argue against such people — indeed their positions help to ensure future prosperity for the countries where they are located.  I’m all for unfettered capitalism!  I’m quite happy that locals are prospering off of foreign industries who are willing to pay $2K/month to house their visiting workers, but I’ll have to pass on such myself, I’m afraid…  (at least until someone else is paying for it )