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Will Chinese Replace English as the Global Language?

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently surprised Chinese students when he spoke to
them in Chinese. In talk at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Zuckerberg spoke Chinese for about
30 minutes. Although his Mandarin was far from perfect, students and faculty cheered his
effort. Clayton Dube is the head of the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern
California. He praises Zuckerbergs effort and thinks more American CEOs should learn foreign
languages. To speak Chinese means you begin to think as Chinese people do. You begin to
understand how Chinese speakers have the world organized, how they perceive things. And
that is a vital step if youre going to be culturally competent." Zuckerbergs talk raises a larger
question: is Chinese the language of the future? Could it replace English as the worlds
international language? Mandarin Chinese already has the most native speakers of any
language. And, China may soon pass the United States as the worlds largest economy. The
study of the Chinese language is increasing in the United States and around the world. In
2009, about 60,000 American college students were studying Chinese. That is three times as
many as in 1990. A small but growing number of American parents are even sending their
children to bilingual Chinese immersion schools. Leianne Clements has no cultural connection
to China, but her children are learning Chinese at the YuYing Public Charter School in
Washington D.C. Every other day, classes at this school are 100 percent in Chinese. Ms.
Clements thinks knowing Chinese could give her children a competitive advantage. So far,
English has kind of been the universal language, but more and more, with Chinese businesses
and just the amount of industry that they have there it seems that that would be, you know,
logical thing that could be happening or it seems like it would make you a valuable employee if
you also spoke Chinese.
Clayton Dube thinks Chinese will grow in importance, especially for people who want to work
and do business in China. But he does not think Chinese will overtake English any time soon.
As China rises you can anticipate that more people will adopt the language. But is China going
to replace English? I dont think so--certainly not in my lifetime, probably not in the next two,
three, four generations. English rose to prominence through the British Empire in the
nineteenth century. American dominance in the twentieth century spread the language even
further. Dube says American pop culture is one reason for Englishs popularity as a foreign
language. American movies, music, television, video games have wide audiencesSo far
Chinas success in this realm has been very limited. Chinese films, Chinese television shows,
Chinese music doesnt have a huge following outside of China.
If you study German, if you study Spanish, if you study Russian, there are many languages
where the you form and how you conjugate verbs is very different depending on whether
youre talking to a grandparent or a boss versus one of your children or an employee or a close
friendIf Im talking to President Obama or if Im talking to my closest friend or my son, its
you. Chinese is also a more difficult language to learn. The U.S. Foreign Service Institute
estimates it would take a native English speaker 2,200 hours to reach professional fluency in
Chinese. That is four times longer than it would take to reach the same level in Dutch, French,
or Spanish. While Chinese grammar is much simpler, Chinese has a tone and writing system
that is more difficult for adult learners to master. A recent survey by Gallup showed that only
one in four Americans is multilingual, or able to speak more than one language. And most
multilingual Americans are immigrants or the children of immigrants. For most Americans, Brits,
and Australians, learning a foreign language is a choice, not a necessity. China Daily estimates
that 400 million Chinese are studying English. That means China has more English learners
than the U.S. has English speakers. Last month, China hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation meeting in the capital city of Beijing. But the meeting was not in Chinese or any
Asian language. The official language of APEC is English.

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