Comments on: Game theory joke: should English be the national language?

By: Ugly American

Ugly American — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:27:27 +0000

There’s only so many hours in a day. Most people would be better off studying probability instead of the subtle variations between Basque dialects. The same concept applies to every language by degrees.

As for Mandarin, in spoken form it’s really 13 major sub-languages that are not mutually intelligible. As a tonal language with just 400 monosyllables, even the slightest change can yield an entirely different meaning. If you write it down then in theory, everyone uses the same 20,000 symbols and should understand each other. In practice, it’s often easier to use a completely different atonal & alphabetic language like English. This is overwhelmingly the case for technical work. In short, the entire world will not suddenly be using Mandarin in the foreseeable future.

By: edwardclayton

edwardclayton — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:28:17 +0000

the MASSIVE problem with american education system is not knowledge of foreign languages, which isn’t importnat, english is the global language, at one point it was latin, adn tehn french.

we need to study Science, science and, oh, and science.

but, anyway, a lot of british and americans think they are so clever and like it is some major skill being able to speak another language. it isn’t. in europe belgium and india and places everyone speaks several languages because they have access to them and malarky… they are like.. so who the fuck cares.

science, science, science

By: Corey

Corey — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:33:26 +0000

I would like to point out that knowledge of languages is not a precursor to intelligence. The issue with the learning of other languages in the USA is that it isn’t necessary at a young age. It is much easier to learn language during early stages of life.All of my friends that learned multiple languages learned at a young age.

The USA is a strange place, I admit. Most people have a mixture of ancestral origins and all those origins had their own language which then was forgotten over generations. I am French, English, Iroquoi, German but I speak English and used to be well-versed in French while overseas. If I go back 3 generations all of the languages from the ancestral origins aforementioned were spoken.

There is no necessity for the learning of other languages at a young age, and luckily, Americans have been fortunate that their language is fairly pervasive in the rest of the world.

By: M S D'souza

M S D'souza — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:59:14 +0000

I am from India and i understand that most people individually speak only one language, Chinese or English or whatever, a learning a second language is considered a BIG thing.

I can speak 4-5 languages fluently and understand 5-6 more languages spoken in India which includes the non-indigenous English.
This situation I can relate with the EU, different states speak different languages which differ significantly.

The only language I really sat down and learnt was French as I travel a lot and though it would be useful.
Learning a new language, or at least this one was surprisingly not very difficult, if the objective is for day-to-day use. French is practically 60% English. The effort here was to pick up that typical accent.

And would definitely agree that at least being able to read/understand a new language immediately opens up new cultures, literature, movies, music…

However one thing for sure, the language which u learn at the home, the very first one, is the one with which u are most emotionally attached with.

By: Brett Thackeray

Brett Thackeray — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:10:05 +0000

There is also the argument that multi-lingual individuals have increased intelligence. I don’t have the studies to site but I’m sure a google search would bring up compelling evidence that by learning a second language you increase your ability to reason and problem solve – not to mention what you learn by glimpsing another culture! And it is fun!