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>I doubt anyone realized it could happen in one year I mean China has been modernizing their academics for a long time. See "Double First-Class Construction" [

>I doubt anyone realized it could happen in one year I mean China has been modernizing their academics for a long time. See "Double First-Class Construction" [0]. But it's worth remembering that they did a lot of damage during the Cultural Revolution. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_First-Class_Construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_First-Class_Constructio...

jimbob45 1y ago
China has a highly unique language for foreigners to acclimate to. While I salute the effort for and commitment to higher education, I’m not sure this will bring the boon they’re hoping for. I would have suggested that they create a high-quality course for introducing westerners to their language instead. It’s the sort of thing that everyone takes for granted that it exists but often doesn’t (where is the Wheelock’s for Spanish these days?) Tonality, pictography, and a highly analytic morphology are all high barriers for any language learners, let alone all three at once.
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  AI has made real time translation very feasible, I don’t think Chinese will be much if a language barrier for foreign students and researchers in the near future. You can do it all in a local model with a moderately powerful mobile GPU. We are almost at the point where you put some ear buds in your ear and some glasses could handle reading…etc…
- Yeul 1y ago
  Switching Chinese universities to English would be a lot more efficient, no?
- DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
  There is a ton of easily available content for learning Chinese. In terms of government-sponsored resources, the Chinese government has created the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) tests, and has written standard textbooks for them that are pretty decent. All sorts of third parties have written their own textbooks oriented towards the HSK tests as well. > highly analytic morphology are all high barriers for any language learners Analytic morphology is what makes spoken Chinese so easy to learn, in my opinion. There's almost none of the complexity found in Indo-European languages, like number, case, gender and tense. The main barriers to learning Chinese for Westerners are: * It's not Indo-European, so the vocabulary is almost entirely new. * Tonality, though this is about the same level of difficulty as memorizing noun genders in Indo-European languages. * The writing system. Memorizing a few thousand relatively arbitrary characters is difficult.
Yeul 1y ago
The Cultural Revolution was pretty bad but it did put an end to religion and superstitious customs. Visit India and you will understand what Mao's goals were. (European countries killed off 1000 years of Christianity in a single generation at the same time Mao did his giant leap experiment).
- thecopy 1y ago
  Huh? Mao's goals were concentration of power and elimination of policial rivals.
  - Yeul 1y ago
    No Mao had a whole program to propel China into the modern world after he and the communists realised that the old order failed.
    - kwere 1y ago
      sure thats why he turned every home in a small steel mill
- judahmeek 1y ago
  > (European countries killed off 1000 years of Christianity in a single generation at the same time Mao did his giant leap experiment). Are you talking about the two world wars or something that occurred in the 1960's & 70's?
- _lvbh 1y ago
  > The Cultural Revolution was pretty bad but it did put an end to religion and superstitious customs This is actually a pretty interesting point. Most of the semi-religious customs that were killed off still live on in Malaysia - to the point where I was surprised at how un-chinese China was when I visited.

jimbob45 1y ago

China has a highly unique language for foreigners to acclimate to. While I salute the effort for and commitment to higher education, I’m not sure this will bring the boon they’re hoping for. I would have suggested that they create a high-quality course for introducing westerners to their language instead. It’s the sort of thing that everyone takes for granted that it exists but often doesn’t (where is the Wheelock’s for Spanish these days?) Tonality, pictography, and a highly analytic morphology are all high barriers for any language learners, let alone all three at once.

seanmcdirmid 1y ago
AI has made real time translation very feasible, I don’t think Chinese will be much if a language barrier for foreign students and researchers in the near future. You can do it all in a local model with a moderately powerful mobile GPU. We are almost at the point where you put some ear buds in your ear and some glasses could handle reading…etc…
Yeul 1y ago
Switching Chinese universities to English would be a lot more efficient, no?
DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
There is a ton of easily available content for learning Chinese. In terms of government-sponsored resources, the Chinese government has created the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) tests, and has written standard textbooks for them that are pretty decent. All sorts of third parties have written their own textbooks oriented towards the HSK tests as well. > highly analytic morphology are all high barriers for any language learners Analytic morphology is what makes spoken Chinese so easy to learn, in my opinion. There's almost none of the complexity found in Indo-European languages, like number, case, gender and tense. The main barriers to learning Chinese for Westerners are: * It's not Indo-European, so the vocabulary is almost entirely new. * Tonality, though this is about the same level of difficulty as memorizing noun genders in Indo-European languages. * The writing system. Memorizing a few thousand relatively arbitrary characters is difficult.

Yeul 1y ago

The Cultural Revolution was pretty bad but it did put an end to religion and superstitious customs. Visit India and you will understand what Mao's goals were. (European countries killed off 1000 years of Christianity in a single generation at the same time Mao did his giant leap experiment).

thecopy 1y ago
Huh? Mao's goals were concentration of power and elimination of policial rivals.
- Yeul 1y ago
  No Mao had a whole program to propel China into the modern world after he and the communists realised that the old order failed.
  - kwere 1y ago
    sure thats why he turned every home in a small steel mill
judahmeek 1y ago
> (European countries killed off 1000 years of Christianity in a single generation at the same time Mao did his giant leap experiment). Are you talking about the two world wars or something that occurred in the 1960's & 70's?
_lvbh 1y ago
> The Cultural Revolution was pretty bad but it did put an end to religion and superstitious customs This is actually a pretty interesting point. Most of the semi-religious customs that were killed off still live on in Malaysia - to the point where I was surprised at how un-chinese China was when I visited.