Why People Who Make Things Should Learn Chinese 588
ptorrone writes "MAKE Magazine is making that case that any 'maker' who builds, buys or creates electronics should learn (Mandarin) Chinese. MAKE outlines the resources for anyone wishing to learn the language of the soon-to-be largest economy and source of just about everything we buy in the USA."
Re:Largest economy? (Score:5, Informative)
None. 10-15 years and China will be experiencing what Europe and the US are. Slowing economy, high local debt and foreign debt. China is the hot shit right now, but most if it's GDP is coming from local manufacturing where the party is throwing money hand over fist for them to spend on things like...ghost cities, and all that.
And there's no real shortage of news stories about the number of cities with no one to next to no one in them. Here's a good one by SBS [youtube.com]. The real problem is china is still operating on a 3 tier structure for economics, and the poor bastards at the bottom are still at the very bottom eeking out life as dirt farmers.
Re:Largest economy? (Score:2, Informative)
Wikipedia says Chinese population is about 1,35 billion and USA has 311 million.
Re:Largest economy? (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. Everything I'm reading says they are dangerously close to bursting. I'm not an economics guy so I have to rely on the "experts" but it doesn't sound good. Plus, their GDP is artificially inflated with these building projects they're doing. Google "Chinese ghost cities" and take a look. Strange stuff going on over there.
Here's a few articles predicting trouble in the Chinese economy:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/175179/20110706/china-economic-bubble-housing-bubble-job-growth-asia-bubble-china-interest-rates-recession-inflation.htm [ibtimes.com]
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-economy-hard-landing-bumpy-landing-soft-landing-and-what-landing-2011-7 [businessinsider.com]
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0316/China-the-coming-costs-of-a-superbubble [csmonitor.com]
But we shouldn't be too happy to see their economy stumble -- a major failing in China will have serious economic impacts throughout the world.
There are fewer than 50 (Score:1, Informative)
NA/Europeans (not raised in China) that speak traditional Chinese even semi-fluently IN THE ENTIRE WORLD
1. Because the writing system is ridiculous (arguably 5,000-25,000 characters to learn, the vast majority of which one can find in an everyday newspaper)
2. Because the language doesn't have the common sense to use an alphabet.
3. Because the writing system is MINIMALLY phonetic if at all.
4. Because you can't cheat by using cognates (cognates vastly accelerate the learning of language, especially when living with indigenous speakers).
5. Because its a tonal language.
6. Because translation can require multiple (5-20) dictionaries, and using the dictionaries is incredibly complicated in and of itself.
7. Because we don't see language like this:
FEAR LESS LY OUT SPOKE N BUT SOME WHAT HUMOR LESS NEW ENG LAND BORN LEAD ACT OR GEORGE MICHAEL SON EX PRESS ED OUT RAGE TO DAY AT THE STALE MATE BE TWEEN MAN AGE MENT AND THE ACT OR 'S UNION BE CAUSE THE STAND OFF HAD SET BACK THE TIME TABLE FOR PRO DUC TION OF HIS PLAY, A ONE MAN SHOW CASE THAT WAS HIS FIRST RUN A WAY BROAD WAY BOX OFFICE SMASH HIT. "THE FIRST A MEND MENT IS AT IS SUE" HE PRO CLAIM ED. "FOR A CENS OR OR AN EDIT OR TO EDIT OR OTHER WISE BLUE PENCIL QUESTION ABLE DIA LOG JUST TO KOW TOW TO RIGHT WING BORN AGAIN BIBLE THUMP ING FRUIT CAKE S IS A DOWN RIGHT DIS GRACE."
If you live in the US, learn Spanish. Do not waste your time trying to teach yourself Chinese with rosetta stone, YOU WILL FAIL!!!!
Complete nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
"MAKE Magazine is making that case that any 'maker' who builds, buys or creates electronics should learn (Mandarin) Chinese.
MAKE has no idea what they are talking about. I DO manufacture electronics (electronic data harnesses primarily) for a living and fairly little of the parts we make come from China and most of what we buy is commodity parts. (wire, terminals, connectors, etc) Lots of it comes from Japan and much of it is made here in the US. Sure there are some parts from China but it isn't as much as one might think. The manufacture of many of these products is highly automated and China has no cost significant cost advantage.
Furthermore, virtually all sales of commodity electronic components are done through distributors. You simply are NOT going to buy direct from China unless you are a purchaser for a manufacturing company. Distributors have customer service representatives, most of whom do not speak a word of any Chinese dialect. And even if for some reason you did need to contact someone in China directly, there are a HUGE number of English speakers there. I've been to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chengdu and other places in China. It is NOT hard to find someone who speaks rather good English.
source of just about everything we buy in the USA.
The US has a $3.7 TRILLION manufacturing sector and most of that stuff we make is also sold here in the US. In 2010 the US imported $364 BILLION [uschina.org] in goods from China or roughly 10% of what the US makes itself. A big number to be sure, but nowhere close to "just about everything".
Ya I get real tired of that one (Score:4, Informative)
The "Oh the US doesn't make anything!" You see it on Slashdot all the time and it is so amazingly wrong. In fact, prior to the downturn the US manufactured more than it has ever made in the past, and prior to the end of 2010, it made more than China. It is now a close second, manufacturing more than everyone but China.
I think part of the problem is just people wanting to believe America is doomed and/or crap for some reason but the other part is people don't understand the very global and distributed nature of things these days. They also function by what they happen to notice, which in terms of "made in" stickers is a lot of Chinese things.
Ok well that doesn't mean anything but that final assembly was done there. The "made in" or "assembled in" mark has to be put on something where it was put together. That has nothing to do with where any of the parts or major part of the work was done.
As an example: Buy an Intel processor in the US and it'll generally be stamped from Costa Rica, but sometimes Malaysia. Well if you do some research, you discover they have no fabs in those countries. Most of their fabs are in the US (7 of them) 1 in Ireland, 1 is Israel and one still being finished in China. All the high tech ones, the 32nm ones, are in the US so that's where the new CPUs are being made. Why then the labeling? Because it was developed there? No, you find their R&D centers are in the US and Israel. So what then?
Well the chips are tested and assembled there (also other locations, including one new on in the US). The wafers are shipped off, and the chips are cut off, tested, and packaged, then sent back. However, since that's the final place they are put together, that's what you see stamped on the chip.
When you do some digging, you find that indeed the US does make plenty of stuff, not all of it finished products though. When the US does make finished products, you discover that their are parts from all over in them. It isn't a situation where many things are built, start to finish, in one country much less one location. Companies all over the world make things, and they buy and sell form each other.
The US has a big share of that, as I said, second only to China currently.
Re:Or Not (Score:3, Informative)
Three of those 4 languages are of very little use unless you don't mind being confined to western Europe.
French is useful outside of Western Europe too [about.com].
While Dutch kids spend those 12+ hours a week learning geographically confined languages like Dutch, French and German, native English speaking kids have 12+ extra hours a week to learn more useful things, and still be able to communicate more effectively and with more people than someone who is fluent in Dutch and speaks some French, German and English. American kids can take classes like art, drama, debating, literature etc. and play in the school band. Do you think kids who are forced to study three foreign languages have time for this?
In the last PISA [oecd.org] ranking, Dutch kids outscored American kids in all categories, despite being disadvantaged with 12+ hours a week of "learning less useful things" (i.e. languages). To be fair, PISA checked only reading, maths, and science, which, like language learning, are typical "left brain" subjects.
Worse still, try to find an adult who still knows those foreign languages (other than the same basic English half the world speaks) a few years after their graduation.
I work with Dutch adults who are equally fluent in English, German|French, and Dutch. They're in their 40s and 50s, and have graduated from school for more than a few years. I didn't even have to try to find them.
Re:Joss Whedon (Firefly) disagrees with you (Score:4, Informative)
Ask put in the second panel of this XKCD cartoon [xkcd.com]...
For a universe that's supposed to be half-Chinese, Firefly sure doesn't have any Asians.