4 ms·

Ask HN: Any professional value in learning Chinese?

I'm at a point in my career where all the easy stuff is behind me. I've flirted with learning ML, OS dev, and crypto. I haven't decided to take the plunge with any of those subjects because I know attaining expert-level ability is a multi-year commitment. I'm wondering if that time may be better spent learning a second language like Chinese? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

jfaucett 10y ago
There's two massive (i.e. large GDP und PPP) largely homogeneous markets in the world: the USA and China. If you want to hit the Chinese market with your products knowing Mandarin and the culture is essential, just as knowing US culture and English is essential for bringing products into the US Market. All projections have the Chinese market greatly surpassing the US over the next 30 years and cementing its role as the primary consumer market in the world. So having said this Mandarin is extremely difficult and its only going to be useful if you plan on actively using the language - to build products, to get clients, to hit chinese markets, or to enjoy the culture - literature,films,music, etc. To this point, the films, music, and cultural wealth of China is already quite rich and only getting better by the day as more and more money poors into Chinese households and the standards of living increase. I certainly expect China to eventually take a center stage in media production just like Hollywood of the US, actually surpassing Hollywood. You can already see this happening as China is poised to overtake the North American film market this year. (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-china-a-fad-future-887134 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-china-a-fad-...)
SixSigma 10y ago
I have passed the 101 Mandarin course. Learning a linguistic language rather than a technical one is an interesting challenge. Professionally I think it has had a slight effect as a thing on my resume but I work in international logistics - I don't use it directly for my job but it shows something I guess. It makes waiters in Chinese restaurants smile when you say thanks. Have you watched any videos? http://self-study-mandarin.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/learn-mandarin-from-youtube.html http://self-study-mandarin.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/learn-mand...
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Depends on what you want to do, but learning another spoken language is always helpful. Chinese is good for tech since a lot of companies work with Chinese manufacturers and there is more documentation available in Chinese.
shiny 10y ago
I'm a dev as well, and thus 'left brain' dominant, so I sometimes fantasize about buying a ticket to some foreign country and focusing on 'right brain' things like learning a language, writing, traveling, making videos, etc. I've actually started to learn to Chinese in the past (through Pimsleur) and travelled to Taiwan where I could put it into practice. It was great fun, I miss it a lot, but ultimately I decided it's not as great an investment as learning programming stuff. I think if you are going to learn a new language, it really helps to live in a country where you will need to use it. Do you have much desire to travel to and/or live in Taiwan or China? Also, the best language learning hack is to find a partner that's fluent in the language you are attempting to learn, and ideally doesn't speak your language so well, so you are constantly forced to converse in the other language. Not sure of your relationship status, but it's another thing to take into account. I'm glad I started to learn another language. Even today, years after I've stopped actively learning Chinese, I still lookup Chinese phrases and can pick up small things when I hear people speaking it. Hell, not too long ago a waitress at a Chinese restaurant asked me 不要饭吗 (don't want rice?). I felt quite proud that I could answer back 要 (want). One major drawback of learning Chinese is the massive number of characters (both simplified and traditional) you'd have to learn to read it, though if you are just speaking it that issue will be alleviated, but it always helps to know the characters. That's another aspect of spoken languages - they are far more memorization heavy. As programmers, we need to focus more on learning concepts and principles, then quickly looking up specifics when needed. When speaking a language you don't have time to look up words or phrases, so you're heavily reliant on memory, and in general there's just a lot of stuff to memorize. Bit scattered and rambly, but hopefully this all helps in your decision.
auganov 10y ago
I learned Mandarin. I don't regret it but not sure if I'd do it again. I've been tempted by the notion that it being the world's most spoken language makes it somehow useful. There's little interesting Chinese content online (unless of course you're interested in something inherently Chinese which is true of every country). You won't want to read tech stuff in Chinese. You won't want to read news in Chinese. You won't wanna use a Chinese search engine. Heck, even if you live in China, the people you'll want to talk to you'll want to talk to in English. It's always cool to know a language especially if it's distant from the ones you already know. Sure I'll occasionally watch something in Chinese on youtube, someone might ask me to look at documentation for some machinery that's only in Chinese etc. But truth be told it's just a nuisance.
boyter 10y ago
Professionally? No. I studied Mandarin for ~2 years although not very seriously. I ended up with supermarket level of speaking (although I understand a lot more). It has never been useful professionally even when I worked in China. I cannot see it being useful unless you plan on working in China for a long period of time and even then your greatest value is that you speak English natively. That said learning a language is always a worthwhile thing to do in which case you might want to pick something more directly applicable to your situation or one that you would like to learn.
SimplyQA 10y ago
If you are planning on working in Asian countries, which if you follow international geo-politics, it will be more likely that you will, then yes. There's a LOT of professional value in learning Chinese and any other widely spoken language besides just English.

jfaucett 10y ago

There's two massive (i.e. large GDP und PPP) largely homogeneous markets in the world: the USA and China. If you want to hit the Chinese market with your products knowing Mandarin and the culture is essential, just as knowing US culture and English is essential for bringing products into the US Market. All projections have the Chinese market greatly surpassing the US over the next 30 years and cementing its role as the primary consumer market in the world. So having said this Mandarin is extremely difficult and its only going to be useful if you plan on actively using the language - to build products, to get clients, to hit chinese markets, or to enjoy the culture - literature,films,music, etc. To this point, the films, music, and cultural wealth of China is already quite rich and only getting better by the day as more and more money poors into Chinese households and the standards of living increase. I certainly expect China to eventually take a center stage in media production just like Hollywood of the US, actually surpassing Hollywood. You can already see this happening as China is poised to overtake the North American film market this year. (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-china-a-fad-future-887134 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-china-a-fad-...)

SixSigma 10y ago

I have passed the 101 Mandarin course. Learning a linguistic language rather than a technical one is an interesting challenge. Professionally I think it has had a slight effect as a thing on my resume but I work in international logistics - I don't use it directly for my job but it shows something I guess. It makes waiters in Chinese restaurants smile when you say thanks. Have you watched any videos? http://self-study-mandarin.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/learn-mandarin-from-youtube.html http://self-study-mandarin.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/learn-mand...

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Depends on what you want to do, but learning another spoken language is always helpful. Chinese is good for tech since a lot of companies work with Chinese manufacturers and there is more documentation available in Chinese.

shiny 10y ago

I'm a dev as well, and thus 'left brain' dominant, so I sometimes fantasize about buying a ticket to some foreign country and focusing on 'right brain' things like learning a language, writing, traveling, making videos, etc. I've actually started to learn to Chinese in the past (through Pimsleur) and travelled to Taiwan where I could put it into practice. It was great fun, I miss it a lot, but ultimately I decided it's not as great an investment as learning programming stuff. I think if you are going to learn a new language, it really helps to live in a country where you will need to use it. Do you have much desire to travel to and/or live in Taiwan or China? Also, the best language learning hack is to find a partner that's fluent in the language you are attempting to learn, and ideally doesn't speak your language so well, so you are constantly forced to converse in the other language. Not sure of your relationship status, but it's another thing to take into account. I'm glad I started to learn another language. Even today, years after I've stopped actively learning Chinese, I still lookup Chinese phrases and can pick up small things when I hear people speaking it. Hell, not too long ago a waitress at a Chinese restaurant asked me 不要饭吗 (don't want rice?). I felt quite proud that I could answer back 要 (want). One major drawback of learning Chinese is the massive number of characters (both simplified and traditional) you'd have to learn to read it, though if you are just speaking it that issue will be alleviated, but it always helps to know the characters. That's another aspect of spoken languages - they are far more memorization heavy. As programmers, we need to focus more on learning concepts and principles, then quickly looking up specifics when needed. When speaking a language you don't have time to look up words or phrases, so you're heavily reliant on memory, and in general there's just a lot of stuff to memorize. Bit scattered and rambly, but hopefully this all helps in your decision.

auganov 10y ago

I learned Mandarin. I don't regret it but not sure if I'd do it again. I've been tempted by the notion that it being the world's most spoken language makes it somehow useful. There's little interesting Chinese content online (unless of course you're interested in something inherently Chinese which is true of every country). You won't want to read tech stuff in Chinese. You won't want to read news in Chinese. You won't wanna use a Chinese search engine. Heck, even if you live in China, the people you'll want to talk to you'll want to talk to in English. It's always cool to know a language especially if it's distant from the ones you already know. Sure I'll occasionally watch something in Chinese on youtube, someone might ask me to look at documentation for some machinery that's only in Chinese etc. But truth be told it's just a nuisance.

boyter 10y ago

Professionally? No. I studied Mandarin for ~2 years although not very seriously. I ended up with supermarket level of speaking (although I understand a lot more). It has never been useful professionally even when I worked in China. I cannot see it being useful unless you plan on working in China for a long period of time and even then your greatest value is that you speak English natively. That said learning a language is always a worthwhile thing to do in which case you might want to pick something more directly applicable to your situation or one that you would like to learn.

SimplyQA 10y ago

If you are planning on working in Asian countries, which if you follow international geo-politics, it will be more likely that you will, then yes. There's a LOT of professional value in learning Chinese and any other widely spoken language besides just English.