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Some threads are discussing Chinese companies, at C-level, doing business in Chinese language in US. I'm curious to know opinions folks around the world have a

Some threads are discussing Chinese companies, at C-level, doing business in Chinese language in US. I'm curious to know opinions folks around the world have about the likelihood that Chinese language will somehow become an important international language? In my (perhaps biased) mind it appears the world is already well on its way to adopting English as THE international language.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Chinese is much more important in the rest of Asian than it was 10 years ago because of tourism. English is still the best language to get a long with internationally, but things could change. But I don't think Chinese will become a significant business language for the rest of the world since they, like Japanese companies were found to be, are mostly insular. Not a lot of foreigners work in Chinese companies, Chinese companies don't have a lot of international exposure, China doesn't allow for much (if any) non-Chinese immigration. The reason English became dominant is that America (and before that the UK) is much more globalized.
adrianN 9y ago
I think it's very unlikely that (today's) Chinese will become a dominant language because it's too hard to learn. The writing system is just awful. Maybe if they manage to adobt Pinyin or something similar as the official way to write Chinese it has a chance. But until then I doubt that many foreigners will start learning it.
chillacy 9y ago
I’d just like to point out that no Lingua Franca has lasted forever. It was French before English, till post WW2. Also this doesn’t matter as much, but, English is one of the more difficult languages (compared to Spanish say) due to all of its spelling inconsistencies and large phonetic possibilities. I don’t know if a tonal, character based language will be any easier though. I say it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t seem to be the difficulty of learning the language that matters, only the strength of the language in terms of economic opportunities.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

Chinese is much more important in the rest of Asian than it was 10 years ago because of tourism. English is still the best language to get a long with internationally, but things could change. But I don't think Chinese will become a significant business language for the rest of the world since they, like Japanese companies were found to be, are mostly insular. Not a lot of foreigners work in Chinese companies, Chinese companies don't have a lot of international exposure, China doesn't allow for much (if any) non-Chinese immigration. The reason English became dominant is that America (and before that the UK) is much more globalized.

adrianN 9y ago

I think it's very unlikely that (today's) Chinese will become a dominant language because it's too hard to learn. The writing system is just awful. Maybe if they manage to adobt Pinyin or something similar as the official way to write Chinese it has a chance. But until then I doubt that many foreigners will start learning it.

chillacy 9y ago

I’d just like to point out that no Lingua Franca has lasted forever. It was French before English, till post WW2. Also this doesn’t matter as much, but, English is one of the more difficult languages (compared to Spanish say) due to all of its spelling inconsistencies and large phonetic possibilities. I don’t know if a tonal, character based language will be any easier though. I say it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t seem to be the difficulty of learning the language that matters, only the strength of the language in terms of economic opportunities.