You make valid points. English is indeed highly flexible and can allow you to be very creative. New phrases and words are formed in english everyday because of this. Yet a lot of the words you have there are either of latin origin or any other language's origin and some are slightly or totally irrelevant. Since when does nice=ready lol if you get my point.

But very few other languages have adopted so many foreign words making them sound english. That is why english is one of the richest languages out there.

How can you define 'rich' in the context of a language? Perhaps English is rich in vocabulary and technical terms yet how about the essence of precise, abstract terms that cannot be directly translated into an English word?

Examples:

coup d'etat - take the government by force through unconstitutional means.
coup d'grace - a fatal strike or blow.
sine qua non- "without which it could not be" - something essential or part of action
status quo - present, current, existing state of affairs
junta- a military take over
caveat emptor- buyer's beware
laissez faire- 'let go' - economic principle that lays the basic foundation for free enterprise or capitalism
blitzkrieg- lightning attack.

Ah no. Just because China has 1.3 billion does not mean chinese is important because Chinese (mandarin/cantonese) is still only prevalent in China, with the exception of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Taiwan which debatably are a part of China, no other country has adapted their langauges. The same can be said about India with its 1 billion.

So to say that Brazil is a "a bit more than only country" is wrong. Apart from a couple of African nations, Portugal and Brazil are still the two main countries. It comes no where near Spanish on a global stage.
chinese is also important in SE asia
and now more and more japanese and korean are learning chinese

Lol finally someone with enough experience and who agrees with me! :) What other languages do you speak Kuesel?
I think SSC had serious problems again, I couldn't post and lost everything :cry:

Anyway - I learned a lot of languages, but forgot nearly everything because of lack of experience :) In school we have to learn anyway German, French, English and better Latin. Later I had some Russian classes and because of travelling learned a bit of Finnish and Bahasa Indonesia as well as I got some expressions in Urdu because I was once in a Pakistani cricket team - but I hardly don't remember anything anymore - it's toooooooooo long ago ;) Portuguese I learned while living in Sao Paulo, but never professionally.

And Dino: it was not about Spanish vs Portuguese. It's clear that the first is after English the most important world language since the colonial times. Mandarin and Hindi are too concentrated on one single region. But I just posted the facts about Brazil because you seem to underestimate it extremly - for whatever reasons. Doesn't seem reasonable but more emotional - but so what :cheers:

In Europe English is also Nr. 1 tongue (in post-war times. In earlier eras French was more important) even though that more German and Russian and probably more Italian and French speaking people live in the continent.

How can you define 'rich' in the context of a language? Perhaps English is rich in vocabulary and technical terms yet how about the essence of precise, abstract terms that cannot be directly translated into an English word?

Examples:

coup d'etat - take the government by force through unconstitutional means.
coup d'grace - a fatal strike or blow.
sine qua non- "without which it could not be" - something essential or part of action
status quo - present, current, existing state of affairs
junta- a military take over
caveat emptor- buyer's beware
laissez faire- 'let go' - economic principle that lays the basic foundation for free enterprise or capitalism
blitzkrieg- lightning attack.

The strength of English, or at least and education in the English language, is that is flexible enough to incorporate all those words. Any educated English speaker should know all of those "foreign" words and concepts. I live in Japan, and Japanese the same way - it incorporates hundreds of loan words every year to describe new ideas, events, and objects that cannot be found in the existing language. Sometimes these are incorporated using traditional "Japanese" other times the "foreign" words are incorporated into Japanese.

For example, the word "computer" in Japanese is "kompuutaa" - I asked my friends what it is in "Japanese" and they said there is no other word for it.

Copy machine - koopiiki (copy machine)

Fax - fakkusu

Pager - pokeberu (Pocket bell)

Cell Phone - keitai denwa (phone that is carried in the hand)

Part-timer - arbeiter (from German "arbeit" and English "er" for a person who Xs)

Those are just a few common examples from Japanese. To any native Japanese speaker, those are not any more foreign than "coup d'etat."

That's not a weakness of a language, it's a strength. The dying languages are ones that don't have the number of (educated) speakers to adapt.

To Askal82

When I say rich i mean in number of words and variety of words because English has a huge vocabulary of numerous foreign words that have been adapted to sound more english or are used in their original form for their original meaning and are being used frequently.

I think SSC had serious problems again, I couldn't post and lost everything :cry:

Anyway - I learned a lot of languages, but forgot nearly everything because of lack of experience :) In school we have to learn anyway German, French, English and better Latin. Later I had some Russian classes and because of travelling learned a bit of Finnish and Bahasa Indonesia as well as I got some expressions in Urdu because I was once in a Pakistani cricket team - but I hardly don't remember anything anymore - it's toooooooooo long ago ;) Portuguese I learned while living in Sao Paulo, but never professionally.

And Dino: it was not about Spanish vs Portuguese. It's clear that the first is after English the most important world language since the colonial times. Mandarin and Hindi are too concentrated on one single region. But I just posted the facts about Brazil because you seem to underestimate it extremly - for whatever reasons. Doesn't seem reasonable but more emotional - but so what :cheers:

In Europe English is also Nr. 1 tongue (in post-war times. In earlier eras French was more important) even though that more German and Russian and probably more Italian and French speaking people live in the continent.

Hehehe you have an interesting collection of languages you know :) I am a tri-lingual in Greek-Cypriot, Greek and English because of my enviroment and education. (born in cyprus but went to an english-language school)

I also speak German, French and Spanish which I picked up at school or at private lessons. Currently I am studying some Hebrew, Dutch and Portuguese. But I also want to learn Russian like you are.

I am starting my university this month where I'll be doing German, Dutch and Mandarin Chinese. I am in for a bumpy ride trying to learn one of the most difficult languages in the world :)

What other languages do you want to learn?

To Dino: I also agree with Keusel. Spanish is indeed more important than Portuguese like you say but Portuguese is much more important than you believe.

How can you define 'rich' in the context of a language? Perhaps English is rich in vocabulary and technical terms yet how about the essence of precise, abstract terms that cannot be directly translated into an English word?

Examples:

coup d'etat - take the government by force through unconstitutional means.
coup d'grace - a fatal strike or blow.
sine qua non- "without which it could not be" - something essential or part of action
status quo - present, current, existing state of affairs
junta- a military take over
caveat emptor- buyer's beware
laissez faire- 'let go' - economic principle that lays the basic foundation for free enterprise or capitalism
blitzkrieg- lightning attack.


status quo- stalemate
blitekreig - lightening war.

I think some, not all of them are used in English to add flavour to the English language (makes it more exotic), not really because there is no English equivalent.

For example, the word "computer" in Japanese is "kompuutaa" - I asked my friends what it is in "Japanese" and they said there is no other word for it.
Wrong, there is also "dennou" (電脳 ) and "keisanki" (計算機 ). In the language used in legal texts, computers are called "densanki" (電算機 ).

And Dino: it was not about Spanish vs Portuguese. It's clear that the first is after English the most important world language since the colonial times. Mandarin and Hindi are too concentrated on one single region. But I just posted the facts about Brazil because you seem to underestimate it extremly - for whatever reasons. Doesn't seem reasonable but more emotional - but so what :cheers:



It is reasonable. It has nothing to do with emotion.

..

Wrong, there is also "dennou" (電脳 ) and "keisanki" (計算機 ). In the language used in legal texts, computers are called "densanki" (電算機 ).

interesting..that's the words Chinese uses for Computer.

dennou -> dian nao

keisanki -> ji suan ji

How often do you hear portuguese or russia in order to confuse them? lol I still find them to be quite different since i know some spanish and come make out some words and because i hear russian and portuguese often. I still dont understand why people would confuse them.

It's happened practically almost everytime I hear Portugese! I think if people often confuse them, then it says more about Portugese than it does about the people. (That's not to sound offensive though; I've met people who found it similar to Spanish; and many others who've likened it to a more Slavic language). I remember once on SSC, a forumer said "I just heard Portugese for the first time and I never realised how Slavic-sounding it was". I even told my Portugese friend the first time I heard it "Wow, it sounds a bit Russian", and she said "I don't like it when people say that", which seems to me that it seems to happen quite a lot of times.

I think the main culprit as to why it sounds more Slavic to me is the "CH", "SH" sounds along with this one sound I almost always hear that I can't really put to words. It sounds a bit like "lye"? It has that "nye", "prushtyeh" sort of sound. ;)

This only happens when I BEGIN listening to Portugese. If I continue listening to it, then I'll realise its differences to Russian though, as I have done in the past! ;) Such as the movie City of God, in which after watching it, I realised that it really sounds very dissimilar to a Slavic language. But perhaps it's a distinction between the Brazilian and Portugese dialect? In which case, I guess I'd prefer the Brazilian one! ;)

It's happened practically almost everytime I hear Portugese! I think if people often confuse them, then it says more about Portugese than it does about the people. (That's not to sound offensive though; I've met people who found it similar to Spanish; and many others who've likened it to a more Slavic language). I remember once on SSC, a forumer said "I just heard Portugese for the first time and I never realised how Slavic-sounding it was". I even told my Portugese friend the first time I heard it "Wow, it sounds a bit Russian", and she said "I don't like it when people say that", which seems to me that it seems to happen quite a lot of times.

I think the main culprit as to why it sounds more Slavic to me is the "CH", "SH" sounds along with this one sound I almost always hear that I can't really put to words. It sounds a bit like "lye"? It has that "nye", "prushtyeh" sort of sound. ;)

This only happens when I BEGIN listening to Portugese. If I continue listening to it, then I'll realise its differences to Russian though, as I have done in the past! ;) Such as the movie City of God, in which after watching it, I realised that it really sounds very dissimilar to a Slavic language. But perhaps it's a distinction between the Brazilian and Portugese dialect? In which case, I guess I'd prefer the Brazilian one! ;)

Thank you so much!!:)
If a brazilian listen something like that will be scared heheh
Brazilian portuguese hasn't this (sh) (ch), well people from Rio has, but almost talk a "clear" and soundble lenguage, some europeans I met told me that our Portuguese sounds like music, I agree.
Portuguese from Portugal is difficult even for us...and of course Portuguese is closer to Spanish than any lenguage, it come from old spanish we use to say "Portguese is the last latin doughter"

How can you define 'rich' in the context of a language? Perhaps English is rich in vocabulary and technical terms yet how about the essence of precise, abstract terms that cannot be directly translated into an English word?

I don't know what you're talking about, but the presence of rich vocabulary actually enables us to directly translate many things into a word or words. ;) Let's try a simple thesaurus with some of the examples you've provided us with:

coup d'etat - take the government by force through unconstitutional means.

- Seizure, coup, overthrow, palace revolution, power play, putsch, rebellion, revolt, revolution, takeover, insurrection, mutiny, uprising, usurpation

status quo - present, current, existing state of affairs

- Existing condition, how things stand, no change, parameters, present state of affairs, situation, size of it, standing, state of affairs, status, status in quo, usual

blitzkrieg- lightning attack

- advance, assailing, assailment, assault, barrage, blitz, blitzkrieg, bombardment, bombing, charge, encroachment, foray, incursion, offensive, onslaught, raid, shelling, storming, strike

As for your other examples,

caveat emptor - buyers beware - Yeah, cause Caveat Emptor is ONE word also! ;) There is a direct English translation next to it, so again, I don't see how that somehow makes it any less rich! Same goes for other Latin expressions such as Carpe Diem which is also well known in English.

coup d'grace, sine qua non - I've never actually used such terms, but yet again, it's like giving us the word "sauna" and saying "How dare English have a Finnish word? There should be a direct translation of it through English!".

Laissez Faire - This is an economic term. Does "Stock Exchange" need a direct one word translation also? ;)

Junta - Greek has the same word! Does that make Greek unrich also?

Spanish, French, Portugese, Italian and so on derive 90% of their vocabulary from Latin! Oh no! That must make them really unrich also right? ;) The Finnish word for Music is "Musiikki" - does that make Finnish unrich? And just because English has those words, it doesn't necessarily mean that English LOST words as a result. The borrowings don't even have the same sound as the original words. So it's a very distorted belief to think that English is not as rich as any other language. I seem to think the contrary anyway. ;)

of course there is a distinction between the Portuguese spoken in Portugal and the Portuguese spoken in Brasil, the same appens in English and Spanish sponken countrys, the accent is diferent and some words are diferent too, specialy tecnhical words, in relation to sounds "slavic" that is normal, I feel the same abouth athor European linguages that I am not used to listen because all this linguages have soungs and words very close independent from the group they belong (Romanic, Germanic or Slavic) they are all Indo Eurpean linguages.

Thank you so much!!:)
If a brazilian listen something like that will be scared heheh
Brazilian portuguese hasn't this (sh) (ch), well people from Rio has, but almost talk a "clear" and soundble lenguage, some europeans I met told me that our Portuguese sounds like music, I agree.
Portuguese from Portugal is difficult even for us...and of course Portuguese is closer to Spanish than any lenguage, it come from old spanish we use to say "Portguese is the last latin doughter"

That's okay! :) When I first watched 'City of God', I actually ended up really loving the Brazilian Portugese dialect! It sounds very suave and nice and I wouldn't mind learning it one day! Plus, I really love Brazil! All the Brazilians I've met have been such nice people! :) So I'm gonna visit that place one day!

it come from old spanish

:ohno: modern Portuguese come from the old linguage talk in Galicia and north of Portugal, the Galaico, for some reason modern Galician is much more easee to a Portuguese understand than Spanish, Spanish is easee writh not spoken, the accent is very different, even common's words like "amor" sounds different wen you talk Spanish or Portuguese.

I don't know what you're talking about, but the presence of rich vocabulary actually enables us to directly translate many things into a word or words. ;) Let's try a simple thesaurus with some of the examples you've provided us with:

coup d'etat - take the government by force through unconstitutional means.

- Seizure, coup, overthrow, palace revolution, power play, putsch, rebellion, revolt, revolution, takeover, insurrection, mutiny, uprising, usurpation

status quo - present, current, existing state of affairs

- Existing condition, how things stand, no change, parameters, present state of affairs, situation, size of it, standing, state of affairs, status, status in quo, usual

blitzkrieg- lightning attack

- advance, assailing, assailment, assault, barrage, blitz, blitzkrieg, bombardment, bombing, charge, encroachment, foray, incursion, offensive, onslaught, raid, shelling, storming, strike

As for your other examples,

caveat emptor - buyers beware - Yeah, cause Caveat Emptor is ONE word also! ;) There is a direct English translation next to it, so again, I don't see how that somehow makes it any less rich! Same goes for other Latin expressions such as Carpe Diem which is also well known in English.

coup d'grace, sine qua non - I've never actually used such terms, but yet again, it's like giving us the word "sauna" and saying "How dare English have a Finnish word? There should be a direct translation of it through English!".

Laissez Faire - This is an economic term. Does "Stock Exchange" need a direct one word translation also? ;)

Junta - Greek has the same word! Does that make Greek unrich also?

Spanish, French, Portugese, Italian and so on derive 90% of their vocabulary from Latin! Oh no! That must make them really unrich also right? ;) The Finnish word for Music is "Musiikki" - does that make Finnish unrich? And just because English has those words, it doesn't necessarily mean that English LOST words as a result. The borrowings don't even have the same sound as the original words. So it's a very distorted belief to think that English is not as rich as any other language. I seem to think the contrary anyway. ;)

You know the essence of 'some' words or a sentence can get lost when it is translated from one language to another. The reason English simply adopted them in their unaltered state is that it maintains the 'precision' of its expression. In fact it is the reason why even English law books contain so many of them - because legal terms and doctrines have to be precise for the purpose of clarity and brevity.

Here are more of the examples:

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/glossary/latin.htm

interesting..that's the words Chinese uses for Computer.

dennou -> dian nao

keisanki -> ji suan ji



Wrong, there is also "dennou" (電脳 ) and "keisanki" (計算機 ). In the language used in legal texts, computers are called "densanki" (電算機 ).

Like Sen wrote, 電脳 (dennou) is primarily a Chinese word, and is rarely used here. In everyday language, 計算機 (keisanki) is a calculator; 電算機 (densanki) is one I've never heard before, but sounds like a technical term, from what you mention.

I didn't mean to suggest that there were absolutely no other words in Japanese for computer, only that the most common one is borrowed from English and has been indigenized into Japanese, and that most Japanese do not know of the "Japanese" terms for the word.

:ohno: modern Portuguese come from the old linguage talk in Galicia and north of Portugal, the Galaico, for some reason modern Galician is much more easee to a Portuguese understand than Spanish, Spanish is easee writh not spoken, the accent is very different, even common's words like "amor" sounds different wen you talk Spanish or Portuguese.

Anyway, if you compare Madrileño with Catalão will think that isn't the same lenguage. I mean is the same distance from Galego to Português, when I say that Portuguese come from spanish I'm not talking about the modern.
What lenguages the little kingdoms in middle ages spoke? Aragão, Castela, the condado Portucalense... i thinkit was a closer leguages than today...

in the past they are all much close that is a fact but today Spanish and Portuguese are very diferent in accent (not writh) the same with Catalan too and Galician, its esee to see the diferences amoung us for foreigners is different :dunno:

Now as far as Spanish and Portuguese. Spanish is spoken by more than twice the people who speak Portuguese. It is undoubtedly the most widespread when compared to Portuguese. Spanish is a global language as well because it is spoken in many countries throughout the world. It is also gaining a business importance because of the growing Hispanic US population, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and of course Spain!

But you shouldnt also undermine the importance of portuguese. Keep in mind that even though is its spoken by half of the number of people as Spanish it is spoken in one of the four most important emerging economies, Brazil (along with Russia, China and India)
Learning Portuguese is very important and i would recommend learning it before you learn Spanish because those who learn Portuguese can also understand Spanish and learn it much faster than vice versa. Portuguese though is not a global language but it is important nevertheless for business.

I speak Spanish at a good level in my opinion. I just need to enrich my vocabulary since i have learned most of the grammar (i am at nivel 2 out of three) I am also learning portuguese because it is accoustically my favorite language after Quenya. It reminds me of my mother language (Greek-cypriot) and it is really easy to learn. It has a Spanish charm and romance and a French sexuality and beauty in it.

Comparing Portuguese accoustically to Russian or Hebrew (there is no such thing as israeli) is very poor. I live in a rather culturally diverse country. I have a strong interest in hebrew and russian friends. Even Russian and Hebrew dont sound the same on the radio and definately neither sounds like Portuguese.


totaly agree, actualy there is a portuguese liguista who defends portuguese is the most internacional language in the world.
that is due to the facility of a portuguese speaker to learn and speel correctly other languages.
few examples, portuguese can understand (speaking is harder naturaly) easily other latin languages like spanish or italian, without ever learning it.
the oposite doesn´t happen in fact portuguese (especialy european) is tremendous hard to learn and specialy speeling for foreigners.
in fact we have portuguese actors in spanish media talking almost like the locals.
u can check the perfect spanish of Figo or the spanish spoken by brasilian players in "LA Liga"

this is a huge advantage for us, in fact Spanish and English are considered easy languages to learn and speak


also other example is we learn english and french at school, this means an ordinary portuguese "should" be able to comunicate throw all the "ocidental" world, preety easily and whithout many effort.
one clear example is PM of EU, Durão Barroso which speaks spanish, english and french very good and speeling correctly almost like a local.


and also we must remember Brasil, which is a emerging powerl like u said,
Portuguese language wiil depend for Brazil economic sucess, and in a lesser scale portuguese african speaking countries

portuguese will play for sure one important role in the future

totaly agree, actualy there is a portuguese liguista who defends portuguese is the most internacional language in the world.
that is due to the facility of a portuguese speaker to learn and speel correctly other languages.
few examples, portuguese can understand (speaking is harder naturaly) easily other latin languages like spanish or italian, without ever learning it.
the oposite doesn´t happen in fact portuguese (especialy european) is tremendous hard to learn and specialy speeling for foreigners.
in fact we have portuguese actors in spanish media talking almost like the locals.
u can check the perfect spanish of Figo or the spanish spoken by brasilian players in "LA Liga"

this is a huge advantage for us, in fact Spanish and English are considered easy languages to learn and speak


also other example is we learn english and french at school, this means an ordinary portuguese "should" be able to comunicate throw all the "ocidental" world, preety easily and whithout many effort.
one clear example is PM of EU, Durão Barroso which speaks spanish, english and french very good and speeling correctly almost like a local.


and also we must remember Brasil, which is a emerging powerl like u said,
Portuguese language wiil depend for Brazil economic sucess, and in a lesser scale portuguese african speaking countries

portuguese will play for sure one important role in the future
A Portuguese linguist saying that Portuguese is the most international language of the world. This is sort of like McDonalds declaring that McDonald's burgers are the best in the world. :laugh:

and the reasoning for it being the most international is a little bit farfetched....

that is due to the facility of a portuguese speaker to learn and speel correctly other languages.

...... and I hope that I am not the only person to whom the irony of "spell" being spelled incorrectly while arguing that Portuguese have an easier time spelling other languages. xD

yeah no offence, but I dont think the majority of Portuguese speakers speak very good English, at least not as good as Dutch and Germans, Spanish? possibly, Spanish is so close to Portuguese anyways.

yeah no offence, but I dont think the majority of Portuguese speakers speak very good English, at least not as good as Dutch and Germans, Spanish? possibly, Spanish is so close to Portuguese anyways.
u´re right we probably dont speak as weel as duth or northern european ppl, but in the lation world we are surely are one of de best.
what Holland and northern countries don´t undertand is latin languages, so there are in disavantage comparing to us.
anyway i was talking more about portuguese european than portuguese brasilian, b´cause i know they are a bigger country and close themselves alot more than we

Donqui give me a break ur´re the most anti portuguese guy around here always trying someting to pick around, when i say "most international" is one language, that when u learn it have the possibility to understand other´s more easily. i gave u facts


that´s true for the Western World, whatever arguments u may try to find

one example, of so many

Y yo, soy estadounindense, pero tambien soy hispanoamericano. Y diria a los brasilenyos una cosa: los habitantes hispanohablantes en esta parte del mundo NUNCA aceptarian un pais que hablan el protugues como <<lider>>. .

sorry i can´t believe u and any word i say, if u dont have something anything useless to say shut up would u?

Donqui give me a break ur´re the most anti portuguese guy around me always trying someting to pick around, when i say "most international" is one language, that when u learn it have the possibility to understand other´s more easily. i gave u facts

that´s true for the Western World, whatever arguments u may try to find

one example, of so many


sorry i can´t believe u and any word i say, if u dont have something anything useless to say shut up would u?
That's not a nice way to talk to people now is it. :nono:

As I have told you repeatedly, me hating Portugal would mean I would have to care about it to begin with. ;)

So as I have asked you and other Portuguese forumers, please stop attacking me so agressively. It only makes me more obstinate.

Your argument was inane. You quoted a Portuguese linguist saying that because Portuguese is so hard that it makes it easier to learn languages. First of all, I can think of languages that are much harder in the Western world, like German. Second, you then went on to prove the alleged superiority of learning foreign languages by mispelling the word "SPELL" in English!

So, back off. ;)

And thanks for quoting me out of context. :|

^^ Bashing someone for mispelling a word in a language in which he is not a native is poor. You should expect that and kindly disregard it. Dont fight for insignificant stuff you guys! :)

Portuguese is indeed very international as it is perhaps one of the few languages that is an official language in 10 countries located all over the world. Spanish is not official in any Asian or African country for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map-Lusophone_World-en.png

As you can see Portuguese is official in a country in Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

To TeKnO_LX.

I agree with you that Portuguese is international but it is certainly not the most important international language.

But I do agree that if you will learn any Romance language I would recommend beginning with Portuguese because it is easier to learn other romance languages afterwards like French, Spanish or Italian.

I also disagree with you that Portuguese is difficult! Grammar and spelling is rather easy for me! I only find some difficulties in understanding someone who speaks it because i can't make out the words. But then again this is the most typical problem when learning languages.

^^ Spanish is official in Equatorial Guinea (Africa) and western Sahara. is't spoken in some areas of Morocco too.In philipines (Asia) spanish was official until 1973. Anyway 2006 estimations says there's 3.180.000 people in Philipines with knowledge of Spanish

oops sorry yes it is official in equitorial guinea along with french. But western sahara isnt considered a state by the majority of countries. most of it is controlled by morocco.

I agree with you that Portuguese is international but it is certainly not the most important international language.

But I do agree that if you will learn any Romance language I would recommend beginning with Portuguese because it is easier to learn other romance languages afterwards like French, Spanish or Italian.
.


of course, that one is English, i didn´t ment to say Portuguese is more important than English nowadays because obviusly not. but i think u´ve understand what i said when u talk on the second paragraph

That's not a nice way to talk to people now is it. :nono:

As I have told you repeatedly, me hating Portugal would mean I would have to care about it to begin with. ;)

So as I have asked you and other Portuguese forumers, please stop attacking me so agressively. It only makes me more obstinate.

u´re such a victim..:hilarious: OH u dont care? so why u always post on portuguese related thread and 99% to provocate or say bad things? must be a love-hate relationship then. that quote was realy clear wasnt it´?

sorry i dont speak so good English im not native, maybe u should try the write portuguese without errors :scouserd: :rofl:

back to topic..

Your argument was inane. You quoted a Portuguese linguist saying that because Portuguese is so hard that it makes it easier to learn languages. First of all, I can think of languages that are much harder in the Western world, like German.
yes but does german, russian or chinese speak understand latin languages without ever learning it? the answer is No.

What are the 2 most important languages right now in Western World'? English and Spanish, French is falling fast, German only serves for central Europe. russian and chinese could neever be internacional languages, even if they have bilions or trilions of speakers

As you might know, Portugal has very close relationships with England actualy we have the oldest alliance in the world, they saved us from alot a crap, like the french invasions and the phantom of any posible spanish invasion

since many centuries we had many english influence, u can see it in Porto wine/region or Algarve fulled with english ppl that look like lobsters, or even today on our radios which unfortanetly play like 80% of english/american music.
we are a small country and very open to exterior, for bad and good things

regarding Spanish i talk about it before, it´s a language that every portuguese knows something (portunol), and b´cause we are bordered with them it´s more than natural we receiveid many spanish influence, much more than the oposite. it´s considered an easy language that´s why the 2nd internacional language thaught in school´s is french, although naturaly spanish popularity have incresied alot these past years
For Brazil i don´t know how it works
our old generations speak french very weel, the new one´s suck hard like me,

now do u remember any country or language, which have very close relations/facilities to these two booming internacional languages and associated with an emerging power?
yes the answer is Portuguese/Portugal and Brazil.

Portuguese language sucess is hostage of Brazil economic sucess, in a lesser scale could work like USA to England when Brazil reaches the top
i think my point is preety valid

u´re such a victim..:hilarious: OH u dont care? so why u always post on portuguese related thread and 99% to provocate or say bad things? must be a love-hate relationship then. that quote was realy clear wasnt it´?
In reality, I don't really care enough about Portugal to hate it.

sorry i dont speak so good English im not native, maybe u should try the write portuguese without errors :scouserd: :rofl:

back to topic..
Yes, but recall you first attacked me and told me to shut up. So if I playfully make fun of the fact that while trying to illustrate Portuguese superiority of learning languages and spelling languages and you mispell "SPELL," that you pretty much destroy your own argument.


yes but does german, russian or chinese speak understand latin languages without ever learning it? the answer is No.

What are the 2 most important languages right now in Western World'? English and Spanish, French is falling fast, German only serves for central Europe. russian and chinese could neever be internacional languages, even if they have bilions or trilions of speakers
I don't think French is falling fast. You can't speak to most of Africa and good part of the heart of Europe without it.

As you might know, Portugal has very close relationships with England actualy we have the oldest alliance in the world, they saved us from alot a crap, like the french invasions and the phantom of any posible spanish invasion

since many centuries we had many english influence, u can see it in Porto wine/region or Algarve fulled with english ppl that look like lobsters, or even today on our radios which unfortanetly play like 80% of english/american music.
we are a small country and very open to exterior, for bad and good things
And?

regarding Spanish i talk about it before, it´s a language that every portuguese knows something (portunol), and b´cause we are bordered with them it´s more than natural we receiveid many spanish influence, much more than the oposite. it´s considered an easy language that´s why the 2nd internacional language thaught in school´s is french, although naturaly spanish popularity have incresied alot these past years
For Brazil i don´t know how it works
our old generations speak french very weel, the new one´s suck hard like me, [quote]
again, what's the point?

[quote]now do u remember any country or language, which have very close relations/facilities to these two booming internacional languages and associated with an emerging power?
yes the answer is Portuguese/Portugal and Brazil.

Portuguese language sucess is hostage of Brazil economic sucess, in a lesser scale could work like USA to England when Brazil reaches the top
i think my point is preety valid
And I re-iterate, no it is not. Portugal has an economy smaller than the province of Madrid. Spain's economy as a whole is bigger than Brasil and is the fourth largest of the eurozon, the 5th or 6th largest out of Europe's 40+ countries. And Mexico, while having a much smaller population, in some economic measurements, is barely behind Brazil.

So let me fram it another why. Brazil is the only country that makes Portuguese important. Portuguese in Europe and Africa are small languages. However, Spanish is an important European language, and is the language of Mexico. Thus it is important in the Americas and in Europe, unlike Portuguese. Then, you add the other 20 countries that speak Spanish, and I have to say, I respectfully disagree.

So stop attacking me personally. ;)

And I re-iterate, no it is not. Portugal has an economy smaller than the province of Madrid. Spain's economy as a whole is bigger than Brasil and is the fourth largest of the eurozon, the 5th or 6th largest out of Europe's 40+ countries. And Mexico, while having a much smaller population, in some economic measurements, is barely behind Brazil.

So let me fram it another why. Brazil is the only country that makes Portuguese important. Portuguese in Europe and Africa are small languages. However, Spanish is an important European language, and is the language of Mexico. Thus it is important in the Americas and in Europe, unlike Portuguese. Then, you add the other 20 countries that speak Spanish, and I have to say, I respectfully disagree.

So stop attacking me personally. ;)

what do u disagre? i never made a comparison with portuguese and spanish language speakers i never said portuguese it´s more important then spanish.
of course hardly portuguese can ever match spanish or english or aspirate to be at that level. but can grown and alot, and be a link between these 2 languages, especialy when Brazil become the superpower we all want (..) but now remains only important in South America and in some african countries

my point is portuguese ppl in this globalized world and where 2 languages are importants like English and Spanish in a minor scale, are in advantage comparing to any other countries. u didn´t contradict my point so i assume im right .i found an article (http://hemeroteca.elconfidencial.com/conlupa/indice.asp?fecha_d=01/07/2004&dia_s=Jueves&psw=) on spanish ( made by a spaniard) paragraph 3 which says it´s all. we are talked about this issue

now the economic datas u say i dont know where they fit in the subject. like I was preety clear making a point saying portuguese language growth is hostage of Brazil.
also We can´t make miracles with our 10 milion again 40 milion of Spain, even more with slow economic growing, but growing steady.
Spain could be the "lider" of Hispanoablantes while Portuguese is virtualy impossible due to massive diference of population between Portugal and Brazil. Even if we were richer than Spain portuguese wiil always become hostage of Brazil to grow worldwide. diferent dimensions, diferent cases
Spanish is globaly more important than Portuguese and i dont have problems with that


this "battle of speakers of diferent languages" doesn´t fit in the subject of my original post, although i understand, when u lack arguments u start with the old " we have more speakers, we are better, we are richer" blha blha blha

For me are the global languages English, Spanich, French, Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, Russian.
and what about Africans?

I think the most used language can change very fast it depends on one countrys economical weight. Thats why most people learn English because of the USA and the long historical strenghts of Great Britain. And as second example many have counted German as an global language, but only ca. 100Mio speaks german (mothertongue, the amount of customers is for example less then of indoneisias))

regarding Spanish i talk about it before, it´s a language that every portuguese knows something (portunol), and b´cause we are bordered with them it´s more than natural we receiveid many spanish influence, much more than the oposite. it´s considered an easy language that´s why the 2nd internacional language thaught in school´s is french, although naturaly spanish popularity have incresied alot these past years
For Brazil i don´t know how it works
our old generations speak french very weel, the new one´s suck hard like me, [quote]
again, what's the point?


And I re-iterate, no it is not. Portugal has an economy smaller than the province of Madrid. Spain's economy as a whole is bigger than Brasil and is the fourth largest of the eurozon, the 5th or 6th largest out of Europe's 40+ countries. And Mexico, while having a much smaller population, in some economic measurements, is barely behind Brazil.

So let me fram it another why. Brazil is the only country that makes Portuguese important. Portuguese in Europe and Africa are small languages. However, Spanish is an important European language, and is the language of Mexico. Thus it is important in the Americas and in Europe, unlike Portuguese. Then, you add the other 20 countries that speak Spanish, and I have to say, I respectfully disagree.

So stop attacking me personally. ;)

Brazil's PPP GDP (~1.55trillion) is equivalent to 150% of the economy of either Spain or Mexico(~1.05trillion).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29

BUT, what if we use List of Countries by GDP NOMINAL? That is, what a country really produces (without adjustments for living standards comparisons, which is the reason for using GDP PPP):

List of countries by GDP (Nominal) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29)
Rank Country GDP (millions of USD)
— World 44,433,002
— European Union 13,446,050
1 United States 12,485,725
2 Japan 4,571,314
3 Germany 2,797,343
4 People's Republic of China 1 2,224,811
5 United Kingdom 2,201,473
6 France 2,105,864
7 Italy 1,766,160
8 Canada 1,130,208
9 Spain 1,126,565
10 South Korea 793,070
11 Brazil 792,683
12 India 775,410
13 Mexico 768,437

BUT, what if we use List of Countries by GDP NOMINAL? That is, what a country really produces (without adjustments for living standards comparisons, which is the reason for using GDP PPP):

List of countries by GDP (Nominal) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29)
Rank Country GDP (millions of USD)
— World 44,433,002
— European Union 13,446,050
1 United States 12,485,725
2 Japan 4,571,314
3 Germany 2,797,343
4 People's Republic of China 1 2,224,811
5 United Kingdom 2,201,473
6 France 2,105,864
7 Italy 1,766,160
8 Canada 1,130,208
9 Spain 1,126,565
10 South Korea 793,070
11 Brazil 792,683
12 India 775,410
13 Mexico 768,437

The true value of what a country produces is represented in PPP GDP. Nominal bases the value of products in the official exchange rates which often do not show the actual purchasing power of a country's economy and currency.

Economical and social statistics are quickly dropping nominal GDP indices because of poor representation on a country's standard of living, purchasing power etc.

BUT, what if we use List of Countries by GDP NOMINAL? That is, what a country really produces (without adjustments for living standards comparisons, which is the reason for using GDP PPP):

List of countries by GDP (Nominal) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29)
Rank Country GDP (millions of USD)
— World 44,433,002
— European Union 13,446,050
1 United States 12,485,725
2 Japan 4,571,314
3 Germany 2,797,343
4 People's Republic of China 1 2,224,811
5 United Kingdom 2,201,473
6 France 2,105,864
7 Italy 1,766,160
8 Canada 1,130,208
9 Spain 1,126,565
10 South Korea 793,070
11 Brazil 792,683
12 India 775,410
13 Mexico 768,437

russias GDP is alreday over 900 Mrd $ real and will reach this year perhaps 1000

However,, Spain is a first world country and Brazil is a third world country. :okay:

Take care with that!
1. Third world is a cold war term that means block free countries - IF then development country
2. A lot of Latin American countries are transition countries and NOT what you would call third world. The problem is the Gini coefficient and regional disparities that in big countries as Brazil, Argentina or Chile. The difference between Buenos Aires, Santiago, Sao Paulo or Porto Alegre to the real marginal areas of these countries are enrmous.
3. The GDP per capita of these countries is comparable to most Eastern European nations. Call them once third world! ;)
4. The sad thing is that nearly ALL Brazilians have the opinion that they are indeed as they say third world. And I know several that come to Europe and were astonished that also here there is poverty and marginalization... And also the US is not just Manhatten and Celebration... but it's the propaganda and the world bank that give them the impression they are "underdogs" :(

PPP GDP may be useful for comparing "living standards". That is, which is the equivalent of a spanish' 1500 €/month salary in Brazil.

BUT

For sure a spaniard's nominal salary, in case the españolito goes to brazil (say for tourism) will be able to purchase a greater amount of services and products than its PPP-equivalent brazilian salary.

In my opinion the only valuable measure is that of PER CAPITA PPP-GDP, so that you can compare salaries in different countries taking into account the level of prices (Purchasing Power Parity), that is, on a PER CAPITA basis and asuming that you are considering both economies isolated and with no cross-relations (of purchases, for instance)

But when comparing different nations' economies as a whole, PPP usage is, in my humble opinion, misleading. 1000 € are 1000 € everywhere: in Spain, Morocco, Brazil and Japan.

Hehehe i find it rather confusing and funny to actually consider PPP-GDP per capita valuable and not PPP-GDP as a whole because the first is derived from the latter. Anyways.

The reason why I dont like nominal GDP is because it is based on official exchange rates. So a country starts to depreciate its currency on purpose for various macroeconomic reasons it automatically raises its GDP artificially. Thus it is totally misleading and innacurate as a way to represent the real purchasing power of a country.

I also disagree that 1000Euros are 1000Euros everywhere because even in different countries in Europe itself a basket of necessities will be bought by a different amount of money. You don't expect to buy the same things with 1000Euros in Luxembourg as you will in Portugal or Spain. The Euro countries have a very long way to go to full price equity.

Hehehe i find it rather confusing and funny to actually consider PPP-GDP per capita valuable and not PPP-GDP as a whole because the first is derived from the latter. Anyways.

The reason why I dont like nominal GDP is because it is based on official exchange rates. So a country starts to depreciate its currency on purpose for various macroeconomic reasons it automatically raises its GDP artificially. Thus it is totally misleading and innacurate as a way to represent the real purchasing power of a country.

I also disagree that 1000Euros are 1000Euros everywhere because even in different countries in Europe itself a basket of necessities will be bought by a different amount of money. You don't expect to buy the same things with 1000Euros in Luxembourg as you will in Portugal or Spain. The Euro countries have a very long way to go to full price equity.

I agree.
I think that the most apropriate estatistic to compare countries is GINI index wich mensure the distance between Richs and Poors.
For exemple, in Brasil 1000 Euros, today, is around 2.750 Reais in Northeast is a really good salary for a single in a big city as Fortaleza (3 millon), but in Slavador(3millon) is a middian, in São Paulo(11millon) isn't a lot, in Brasília(2.5 millon) the enought to survive living in a small apartament.

BUT, what if we use List of Countries by GDP NOMINAL? That is, what a country really produces (without adjustments for living standards comparisons, which is the reason for using GDP PPP):

List of countries by GDP (Nominal) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29)
Rank Country GDP (millions of USD)
— World 44,433,002
— European Union 13,446,050
1 United States 12,485,725
2 Japan 4,571,314
3 Germany 2,797,343
4 People's Republic of China 1 2,224,811
5 United Kingdom 2,201,473
6 France 2,105,864
7 Italy 1,766,160
8 Canada 1,130,208
9 Spain 1,126,565
10 South Korea 793,070
11 Brazil 792,683
12 India 775,410
13 Mexico 768,437


yep, thats the correct statistic.

However,, Spain is a first world country and Brazil is a third world country. :okay:

1st, 2nd and 3rd world countries are no longer politically correct terms. It would be better to stick to developing and developed countries.

1st, 2nd and 3rd world countries are no longer politically correct terms. It would be better to stick to developing and developed countries.
alright
However,, Spain is a developed country and Brazil is a developing country.

Would you two please read my post not so far above? ;)

Along with those meanings you posted for me a developed country is also a country that has reached its potential and peak and is growing slowly but steadily. A developing country is a country that is growing fast and is far from reaching its potential and peak.

Now look how important spain is which is developed and how important brazil while still being developing. ;)

You can also say: a country that is NOT developping anymore is dead on a high level - see western Europe... ;)

Spain/Portugal and Brazil/Argentina are also not compareable:
The first were European empires that missed the investment in modern technologies and industrialization during the colonial times (the prime material was just collected or sold without increasing its values). Therefore their importance and economy became marginal status in the 19th and 20th century. Thanks to tourism sector and membership of EU the iberian peninsula is developping again - and especially Portugal is one of the fastest growing in that sence within Europe. Just remember Ireland: in a few years it grew from Europe's poorhouse to the richest society!

And the latter: the colonialists were bleeding out the country's economy til the revolutions. Later there was war and political crisis but the ecomony was steadily growing. Sao Paulo became the fastest growing city also in terms of industrialization during the 1950s and 1960s. The military dictators were again bleeding out the country and later the inflation rate was beyond discription - also don't forget the big crisis in Argentina that affected the whole continent. Since a few years whole LA is booming again - and maybe is the biggest growing economy and society apart from China/India.

That's two different - and also similar - developments. Only because the mediterranean area is Europe and Brazil South America doesn't mean that you just can devide it into "developped" and "developping" countries - also regarding the geographical and demographic size and distribution. The biggest difference I see is the Gini coefficient...

alright
However,, Spain is a developed country and Brazil is a developing country.

Now that's better... :)

Ehm, after half of the thread is about Spain vs Brazil can we please go back to the topic? :cheers:

well, i think chinese is rising 2 become at least the second language on earth,firstly, so many people learn chinese now, just in my uni which is kingston uni in london, there r so many people learning chinese, my best friend a spanish is learning chinese and so many others. In all the important countries such as usa and canada, if u go 2 vancouver, is like hk, so many chinese, and all the overseas chinese knows mandarin and cantonese. As china pretty soon will be as important as usa, people who want 2 do business with china have 2 study chinese. Also there is strong cultural and regional influence already, if u tell people in east asia or south east asia, people such as japanese, korean, thai, vietnamese......all these people, if u tell them count 1 to 10 in their language u will find out they sounds so similar to chinese, that was because of chinese historical influences, these countries were either chinese tributary states or once been rule by china, so is easy for them to learn chinese, and also alot of them learning chinese now. As someone point out, if u know mandarin u can travel through the whole south east asia without difficulties, 20% of thai speak chinese, 40% of malaysian, all the singapore people and so on..........So many people r learning chinese now, i mean including all the races.....so chinese will be very important, at least after english. African countries r doin alot of business with china, mainly resourses, and i have seen a reasonable black population in city like Beijing, China is goin 2 be very cosmopolitan

well, i think chinese is rising 2 become at least the second language on earth,firstly, so many people learn chinese now, just in my uni which is kingston uni in london, there r so many people learning chinese, my best friend a spanish is learning chinese and so many others. In all the important countries such as usa and canada, if u go 2 vancouver, is like hk, so many chinese, and all the overseas chinese knows mandarin and cantonese. As china pretty soon will be as important as usa, people who want 2 do business with china have 2 study chinese. Also there is strong cultural and regional influence already, if u tell people in east asia or south east asia, people such as japanese, korean, thai, vietnamese......all these people, if u tell them count 1 to 10 in their language u will find out they sounds so similar to chinese, that was because of chinese historical influences, these countries were either chinese tributary states or once been rule by china, so is easy for them to learn chinese, and also alot of them learning chinese now. As someone point out, if u know mandarin u can travel through the whole south east asia without difficulties, 20% of thai speak chinese, 40% of malaysian, all the singapore people and so on..........So many people r learning chinese now, i mean including all the races.....so chinese will be very important, at least after english. African countries r doin alot of business with china, mainly resourses, and i have seen a reasonable black population in city like Beijing, China is goin 2 be very cosmopolitan


Nah.... Chinese is NOT important in the United States.. Spanish is the second MOST important in the nation... with more than 45 million spanish speaker..

The Asian population as a whole is not even larger than 6 million people, and that is split among various non-Chinese nationalities, so this 2% is not in the US going to have a significant impact. We can argue about global impact yes, but in the US, not even close.

well, as the economy grow, the language that the country speak became more important, and china will be the nation with the highest gdp soon, and its language will become important and influence on the world

english must be the most important language around the world
after that i would suggest chinese and spanish

Chinese and Spanish struggle for the 2nd place now, thats for sure. Chinese may be spoken by greater number of people, but I think spanish is more international. Hindi may eventually become important with the rise of India to global power status, but it will never get such status as chinese. The languages of major industrial powers (japanese, german, french, italian) are also important for now, but they will probably loose some of their position in future. Same with russian. Arabic, indonesian and portuguese (brazilian) may also strenghten their position in future.

Here's two stats I found:

Global languages by GDP of their speakers:

http://macchiato.com/economy/GDP_PPP_by_language.GIF

Internet languages by usage:

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm

Interesting graphic...
Without a doubt.. The most important language are:
ENglish, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and German (on internet)

Chinese has another potential marketing advantage over Hindi and Spanish -- movies. More specifically, the same kind of high-budget spare-no-expense CGI-rich Action/Adventure movies that historically have only come from Hollywood.

Bollywood is Bollywood. It's its own genre (or collection of genres), and likely to be permanently happy to stay that way. Chinese filmmakers, on the other hand, are slowly acquiring the same toys, CGI, and budgets as their competitors in Hollywood. There's major, obvious commercial overlap between what Chinese audiences like, and what American/European audiences like. I give it 5 years, max, before a major Chinese studio cranks out a couple of Matrix-like movies produced simultaneously in Chinese and English, using different actors, but the same sets and (expensive) CGI. If they become major hits in the American and European markets, Hollywood's going to be in deep doodoo, because for the first time in history it'll be up against studios with the budgets and business plans to take them on & go at it <<mano-a-mano>> in Hollywood's own back yard.

Chinese has its international power in asia actually, as it's so wide-spread within quite alot asian cointries not only China, Taiwan and Hong Kong

most singaporeans and malays also speak chinese

you'd better speak the 'BIG 3'

you'd better speak the 'BIG 3'

I already speak the big two (as u said)... English and Spanish :D

Which Chinese, Mandarin or Cantonese? The languages are similar but not the same.

Which Chinese, Mandarin or Cantonese? The languages are similar but not the same.

oh no.. i thought u were talking about english, spanish and chinese.. and i said english and spanish.. :dunno:

i found this interesting article about the SPanish Language in the world..
Is in spanish but im too lazy to translated it into English :scouserd: ... it says that Spanish is the second most studied language in the world. (after English)
EFE
El Universal
Madrid, España
Martes 25 de abril de 2006

11:54 El director del Instituto Cervantes, César Antonio Molina,
aseguró hoy que el español se afianzará en el futuro como la segunda
lengua de comunicación internacional, durante su intervención en un
acto celebrado en Madrid.
El Instituto Cervantes es una institución creada en 1991 para
promover y enseñar español o castellano y para difundir la cultura
de España e Hispanoamérica en el mundo.

Molina añadió que el español es ya la lengua extranjera más
estudiada después del inglés, y que donde más crece su aprendizaje
es en los países anglosajones o de influencia anglosajona.

También dijo que en España este idioma, con las cerca de 500.000
personas que trabajan en torno a él, aporta el 15 por ciento del
Producto Interior Bruto (PIB) y que "su valoración económica está
sólo en sus inicios".

Los datos, señaló, proceden de la "Enciclopedia del español en el
mundo", que el Instituto Cervantes publicará en septiembre para
celebrar sus quince años de vida y que, en sus más de 600 páginas,
presentará por primera vez la situación del idioma país a país.

Una situación que, según Molina, es de clara pujanza y continuará
siéndolo durante este siglo, debido, entre otras razones, a que el
español lo hablan casi 500 millones de personas (More than 500 million speak SPanish worldwide)y es una lengua muy
homogénea y unitaria, además de la cuarta más hablada del mundo.

Asimismo, dijo, es una de las pocas lenguas internacionales de hoy y
una de las grandes lenguas de cultura, que hace que escritores,
cineastas, dramaturgos y músicos sean vistos como miembros de una
misma y potente cultura.

Sus hablantes representan el 6 por ciento de la población mundial(6% of the world population speaks Spanish),
frente a un 8,9 por ciento que habla inglés y a un 1,8 por ciento
que habla francés, idiomas ambos que están extendidos sólo en dos
continentes.

"El español es hoy una lengua esencialmente americana, ya que nueve
de cada diez de sus hablantes son de ese continente, y sólo el
décimo pertenece a Europa, su cuna", dijo el director del Instituto
Cervantes.

(TOday, Spanish is essentially American, because 9 out of 10 Spanish Speakers are from America and the rest are from Europe)

Durante la última década, explicó, es la lengua cuya demanda más ha
crecido, junto con el inglés, superando al francés y al alemán en
casi todos los lugares y despertando interés en zonas hasta hace
poco impensables, como Costa de Marfil o Senegal.

Agregó que donde más crece es en los países anglosajones o de
influencia anglosajona y que sólo en Estados Unidos lo estudian seis
millones de personas, aunque "el mercado está lejos de la
saturación" y las expectativas de crecimiento son del 60 por ciento,
3,5 millones de hablantes más.

Con respecto a la Unión Europea (UE), donde el alemán, el inglés, el
francés e incluso el italiano superan en número de hablantes al
español, César Antonio Molina señaló que su presencia en las
instituciones es "insoslayable".

"Es la única lengua que seguirá creciendo demográficamente en las
próximas décadas y la única lengua internacional en Estados Unidos,
donde en 2050 habrá más de cien millones de hispanos" (In 2050 there will be more than 100 million SPanish speaker in the U.S.), precisó.

"Europa no sólo se debe relacionar consigo misma", dijo Molina, que
vaticinó que el tema de su oficialidad acabará arreglándose "porque
muchos funcionarios acabaran hablando esa segunda lengua de
comunicación".

China necesita el español para su crecimiento hacia Latinoamérica, y
otro tanto ocurre con respecto a la India, afirmó Molina, quien
recordó que toda esta eclosión ha coincidido con la expansión del
Instituto Cervantes, que hoy está presente en 56 ciudades de 37
países. EFE

If you add up the population of the countries whose official language is spanish the native spanish speakers population doesnt even add up to 400 million. Would you expect that there are over 100 million of second language speakers of spanish? I find that kind of hard to believe.

And then it goes on to say that:

6% x 6.5bn people = 390 million speak spanish of the total world population.

doesnt make any sense

The Asian population as a whole is not even larger than 6 million people, and that is split among various non-Chinese nationalities, so this 2% is not in the US going to have a significant impact. We can argue about global impact yes, but in the US, not even close.

Actually in 2000 there were 10.48 million Asians(3.7% of the total population) in the US according to the Census Bureau. Since 2000 their growth has been around 400,000 a year, which would equal to 12.88 million today(4.3% of tp). By 2050 there will be around 40 million Asians(10% of the t.p.).

you'd better speak the 'BIG 3'

I'll do it uhohohohohohhoh. I'll start mandarin soon.

About Chinese, It will have influence and it's going to be important. But never above english and spanish. Even if GERMANY is the 3th richest country, german is not so "important" around the world. what makes a language "important" in the international area is how spread it is. And about that, Spanish is more spread and also, the second language more learnt.

Anyway, last century was the american one, this one is the chinese one, and the next one (if we're still alive) is going to be the south-american one.

And then it goes on to say that:

6% x 6.5bn people = 390 million speak spanish of the total world population.

doesnt make any sense

there are almost 400 million native spanish.. and around 100 million speak SPanish as second language..

^^ The article says that 6% of the world population speaks spanish implying the total population in the world both native and second that speaks spanish which is roughly 390million and thus does not match what it says earlier on about 500 million speakers of spanish.

I am just pointing out an inconsistency with the article. I know spanish is an important language. That's why I am learning it along with Portuguese and Mandarin.

^^ The article says that 6% of the world population speaks spanish implying the total population in the world both native and second that speaks spanish which is roughly 390million and thus does not match what it says earlier on about 500 million speakers of spanish.

I am just pointing out an inconsistency with the article. I know spanish is an important language. That's why I am learning it along with Portuguese and Mandarin.

Also says that there are almost 500 million Spanish speaker...

^^ Yeah I actually pointed that out :)

About Chinese, It will have influence and it's going to be important. But never above english and spanish. Even if GERMANY is the 3th richest country, german is not so "important" around the world. what makes a language "important" in the international area is how spread it is. And about that, Spanish is more spread and also, the second language more learnt.

Anyway, last century was the american one, this one is the chinese one, and the next one (if we're still alive) is going to be the south-american one.

But the point is, china will be the world biggest economy, it will be like usa 2day.....by that time people will imigrate 2 china like thay do 2 usa now, so they need 2 learn chinese

it would definitely be English.. no question about that.. spanish, french or arabic maybe.

Which important language do you think is fading in importance quickly??

Spanish

Which important language do you think is fading in importance quickly??

French and German obviously. They were 2nd and 3rd world language 100 years ago.

But the point is, china will be the world biggest economy, it will be like usa 2day.....by that time people will imigrate 2 china like thay do 2 usa now, so they need 2 learn chinese

LOL people don't immigrate to US because its world biggest economy, but because it's rich. China mayy become bigger economy than US thanks to its far bigger population, but it they still will be much poorer than USA.

French and German obviously. They were 2nd and 3rd world language 100 years ago.

I agree that German is a language of fading importance. Its speakers are growing at an extremely low pace and in the future it is projected that with the falling population of germany they will decrease.

French on the other hand I believe arent loosing importance. their speakers are growing at a substantial rate and not just because of the african french speaking countries with growing population but also because of france. France's birth rate boosted from 1.5 to 1.98 or something the past decade and its population is expected to grow to 75 million by 2050. It is already increasing at around 300 000 due to a natural pop growth rather than immigration. french is going to sustain its importance through that over the coming years.

LOL people don't immigrate to US because its world biggest economy, but because it's rich. China mayy become bigger economy than US thanks to its far bigger population, but it they still will be much poorer than USA.

Exactly

Exactly

But once the nation became the biggest economy, it will attract people from all over the world 2 find opportunity there, thats what have been happen in the past 2 usa

I don't think China's economic growth will make Chinese at par with English. I think the reason global languages came to be is because their countries of origin colonized so many regions around the world therefore forcing the inhabitants to learn the language. In my country, the Philippines for example, we Filipinos wouldn't have learned English if it were not for the American Occupation in the early 20th century, having said so, The American Occupation is also the reason why Spanish, another global language was killed off as the dominant foreign language in the Philippines. It's like teaching kids, if you won't force them, they won't learn it.

If England haven't conquered vast lands like America, India and Australia in the past or in the same way Spain haven't conquered huge regions in present-day Latin America, then I believe both languages would just be the same importance as to let's say Italian or Japanese, important but nevertheless not that global.

These are the reasons why I refuse to believe that CHinese will equal or overtake English because I see no reason for them to colonize regions just like what Western Powers did in the past. Economic improvements alone will not spread a certain language, FORCE is ultimately needed.

we dont need to spread that language anymore,1.4b is enough!

If Im speaking for Europe here everibody MUST speak Englisch when You looking for a job even here IN Slovakia everybody request speak Englisch (that start maybe 4 years ago...) So for Europe Englisch, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia...
And also when You are Wordwide its most learning language...

English (speak it fluently), Spanish (speak it fluently), French (conversant but learning more), and Mandarin/Cantonese (have yet to study it). :)

English (speak it fluently), Spanish (speak it fluently), French (conversant but learning more), and Mandarin/Cantonese (have yet to study it). :)

That's it.. u don't need to learn another language.. :D

edit.

I think we should abandon the letter system of language and adopt a universal one, such as music or mathematics. I know, personally, I've experienced a greater meaningfulness from those two than I have of this one that I am right now using... But maybe I just need to become fluent in a romance language... ;)

That's how the ideograms in China work. Eventhough there are many chinese dialects of non mutual understanding (people can't understand each other) when they write in symbols in each other's hand they understand each other perfectly because the symbols retain the same meaning in each dialect eventhough they may be pronounced completely differently.

So is might be a good idea if all the world switched to something similar! :p

I speak Cypriot, Greek and English fluently. I have a high profficiency in German and Spanish. Conversant in French and I am learning Portuguese and Chinese now at uni!

The reason Mandarin has a better position than Hindi is because more than 90 percents of Chinese are ethnic Han, half of others are han-like, using han zi (Chinese characters). Since they are one ethnic group, it's really no problem that adopt one tongue. I can only speak Mandarin now, I guess my grandpa can speak some unique accent or dialect, but I have never heard he once talked to me in it. All we are talking is in Mandarin.

According to Contonese or Shanghainese(Wu), I have never saw a Contonese or Shanghainese who can not speak Mandarin. Only a hker who talked to me in badly Mandarin but still I can understand him... There's also no problem for me to understand Contonese. Since the grammer and characters are the same, even though I can't figure out some certain pronounciation, I can still guess it in a sentence... I guess I saw too many HK TV shows...

For India, there's no certain ethnic group dominate the whole country. Each one has a language, each one has a writing and speaking system. They are totally different languages to others. I guess it's wise to use some other language like English unify the whole country or there will be many conflicts.

This is of course personal assumption... They can also do like Canadians who voted their language...

1. English.
2. Chinese.
3. Spanish
4. French.
5. Russian.
6. German.
7. Portuguese.
8. Arabian.
9. Italian.
10. Japanese.

1. English.
2. Chinese.
3. Spanish
4. French.
5. Russian.
6. German.
7. Portuguese.
8. Arabian.
9. Italian.
10. Japanese.

:) Thats right

Because Luxembourg is such a small Country, the Influences from our Neighbours are very obvious. We have many People that come from France or Germany every day to work here. So they bring their Language with them.

Its much easier to speak their respective Languages than requiring them to speak ours - and a lot of French dont Speak german and vice versa. By speaking both Languages we make any Language Barriers disappear not only in our country, but we also have no difficulty navigating in our Neighbours.

English is a mandatory language too, for the reasons stated in this thread before. But it is no Problem, because of English Culture Influence (English Music, Internet etc.)

Speaking 4 or 5 Languages is deffinately an asset!

Personally I always wanted to learn Russian or some asiatic Language, but they are much more difficult to learn because of the different Writing (Kyrillic, Symbols and so on)

1. English.
2. Chinese.
3. Spanish
4. French.
5. Russian.
6. German.
7. Portuguese.
8. Arabian.
9. Italian.
10. Japanese.

I agree with that ;)

My opinion,
1) English
2) Chinese
3) Spanish
4) French
5) Portuguese
6) Italian
7) German
8) Arabic
9) Japanese
10) Russian

In Europe, Russian is the mostly spoken language.

I speak English, German and a little French. If you know these languages, you can speak with people in most European countries.

My opinion,
1) English
2) Chinese
3) Spanish
4) French
5) Portuguese
6) Italian
7) German
8) Arabic
9) Japanese
10) Russian
Chinese ahead of Spanish?? nah...

Because Luxembourg is such a small Country, the Influences from our Neighbours are very obvious. We have many People that come from France or Germany every day to work here. So they bring their Language with them.

Its much easier to speak their respective Languages than requiring them to speak ours - and a lot of French dont Speak german and vice versa. By speaking both Languages we make any Language Barriers disappear not only in our country, but we also have no difficulty navigating in our Neighbours.

English is a mandatory language too, for the reasons stated in this thread before. But it is no Problem, because of English Culture Influence (English Music, Internet etc.)

Speaking 4 or 5 Languages is deffinately an asset!

Personally I always wanted to learn Russian or some asiatic Language, but they are much more difficult to learn because of the different Writing (Kyrillic, Symbols and so on)

I envy you Luxemburgians. You grow up being ableing fluent in so many languages due to your multicultural enviroment. Luxemburgisch, German, French and English. I speak German and French but surely not fluently. I gotta work on those two languages a lot.

That's how the ideograms in China work. Eventhough there are many chinese dialects of non mutual understanding (people can't understand each other) when they write in symbols in each other's hand they understand each other perfectly because the symbols retain the same meaning in each dialect eventhough they may be pronounced completely differently.

So is might be a good idea if all the world switched to something similar! :p

I speak Cypriot, Greek and English fluently. I have a high profficiency in German and Spanish. Conversant in French and I am learning Portuguese and Chinese now at uni!

The world will probably become a better place if let's say English, Spanish, French or other languages adopt Chinese characters or similar systems instead of the alphabet we know. I think we'll be able to break the communication barriers among the nations if we can speak the language of pictures. So a saying that a picture is 'worth a thousand words' seems fitting.

Here's my opinion,

1) English
2) Spanish
3) Mandarin
4) French
5) Portuguese
6) Arabic
7) German
8) Dutch

Interestingly, English-speakers who learn to read Chinese apparently read it "differently" than native Chinese-speakers do. English-speakers look at characters and instinctively try breaking them down into radicals to try and guess what they might mean. Kind of like Chinese "Hooked on Phonics." They're usually wrong, but it just seems like a natural thing to try first. So... when an English-speaker sees "媽媽" ("Mama" -- literally, the familiar title of one's mother), the first thing he's likely to think of is "female-horse" (女+马 squished together, side by side). Someone who grew up in China just sees "Mama" (though I've wondered whether the interplay between words like "Mama" vs the "Female+Horse" radicals could be the Chinese equivalent of a pun).

In reality, "媽媽" is literally the sound "ma" twice in a row ("mama", get it?). The "马" on the right side suggests that the character is pronounced "ma" ("ma" = "horse"). The "女" on the left side implies that whatever it is that sounds like "ma" is female. The "IsLike/PronouncedLike" pattern isn't universal, but it's fairly common. The problem, of course, is that the "PronouncedLike" half is often meaningless or misleading to Cantonese OR Mandarin speakers... sometimes both. Apparently, one of the biggest groups of characters that were simplified had "soundsLike" radicals stripped away because they were wrong or misleading to Mandarin speakers (one sub-goal of simplification was to promote Mandarin above all other dialects).

Giving a better example, Americans see "猫" ("cat") and immediately break it down into "豸" ("clawed beast") + "苗" ("seedling" -- itself, literally "(plant-plant) + field"). After scratching their heads for a while and trying to guess what the hell a clawed beast and seedling have in common, it might occur to them that "苗" is pronounced "miao". Hmmm... a clawed beast that sounds like "miao". A cat, perhaps? :)

Once you start to learn the mechanics behind Chinese writing and begin to understand "how it works", it doesn't seem nearly as exotic or hard. :)

The world will probably become a better place if let's say English, Spanish, French or other languages adopt Chinese characters or similar systems instead of the alphabet we know. I think we'll be able to break the communication barriers among the nations if we can speak the language of pictures. So a saying that a picture is 'worth a thousand words' seems fitting.

I totally agree. It will indeed have the same effect as in china where language barriers are put down since everybody uses the same scripture. It is in fact the most strong argument against the drop of chinese ideograms against those who want chinese to be romanized.

My list:
1) English
2)Mandarin
3)Spanish
4)French
5)Portuguese
6)German
7)Russian
8)Arabic
9)Japanese
10)Hindi

The world will probably become a better place if let's say English, Spanish, French or other languages adopt Chinese characters or similar systems instead of the alphabet we know. I think we'll be able to break the communication barriers among the nations if we can speak the language of pictures. So a saying that a picture is 'worth a thousand words' seems fitting.

I don't agree with you - if that were the case, the roman or kyrillic alphabet would not be so popular right now, I guess. Look at aegyptian hieroglyphs, they are not used anymore. It seems these Picture Languages are impractical (say writing speed), or why have people abandoned using them?

I'm an English speaker and can survive here in China (just) with no Mandarin. As I live in a Cantonese area I can also vouch for the fact that you can survive here with only Mandarin too. I know people born here who only speak Mandarin and no Cantonese. I think when China allows free movement of people within its own borders (maybe 10-20 years time?) Mandarin will become more and more common. Schools only teach in Mandarin and not the local dialect/language. Kids still usually talk to their friends in the local tongue.

Even when China becomes the world super power (30-50 years?) I still think English will be the global language.

road signs / announcements on the metro system / telephone announcements ALL have an English version here!!!! (in the major cities anyway).

Thank you China!!

I don't agree with you - if that were the case, the roman or kyrillic alphabet would not be so popular right now, I guess. Look at aegyptian hieroglyphs, they are not used anymore. It seems these Picture Languages are impractical (say writing speed), or why have people abandoned using them?

Thats because Rome conquered all the european countries while those nations has no writings, if egyptian conquer europe like Rome did, than europe will use egyptian hieroglyphs, but egypt was conquered by Rome at the end, so they were force 2 adopt latin stuff.......get it, is not because it is impractical, is all about powers, the whole east asia was using chinese, because China was the dominant power at that time

Chinese ahead of Spanish?? nah...

if refer to the population :) :) :)
13 billion+overseas chinese+part of singapore\ malasia\philliopine\

chinese characture is intesting:
"一" means "one", "二" means "two","三"means "three"
"人" means" humanbeings"
"田" means "fields"
"火" means "fire"

1-English

2-Spanish (not mandarin, we are talking of GLOBAL languages and mandarin is only in china)
In Brazil, they teach at schools Spanish as a first foreign language instead of English (brazil is about 170milion)

3-Arabic*** (lots of differents dialects, can be the last one)

4-French

5-Portugueses ( Brazil, angola, mozambique, portugal)

6-Mandarin (There isnt a Chinese, because there are just different dialects. The most expanded is Mandarin)

7-Russian (not only Russia, but Belarus, Ukrain, and all exsoviet republics)

8-German

9-Italian

10-Turkish/Japanese/Dutch

if refer to the population :) :) :)
13 billion+overseas chinese+part of singapore\ malasia\philliopine\

Wow, you mean the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Australia, and all those former-colonies don't even have as much people as in China (plus those few other places you mentioned)?

Let me be immodest:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – that is, the Internet names and domains authority - approved on Sept 16th, 2005 the creation of the “.cat” domain. This is the domain for the Catalan cultural and linguistic community (around 10 million people).

“.cat” is the first Internet domain that globally represents a scientific, academic, linguistic and cultural community. No other language has its own domain in Internet.

Well, quite a few criteria have been used in this thread to define a language “importance”. This may be one…

1-English

2-Spanish (not mandarin, we are talking of GLOBAL languages and mandarin is only in china)
In Brazil, they teach at schools Spanish as a first foreign language instead of English (brazil is about 170milion)

3-Arabic*** (lots of differents dialects, can be the last one)

4-French

5-Portugueses ( Brazil, angola, mozambique, portugal)

6-Mandarin (There isnt a Chinese, because there are just different dialects. The most expanded is Mandarin)

7-Russian (not only Russia, but Belarus, Ukrain, and all exsoviet republics)

8-German

9-Italian

10-Turkish/Japanese/Dutch

IMHO:

Mandarin is surely not spoken solely in China alone. It is official in more than three countries and there are millions of overseas chinese all over Asia, Europe and the US.

Do you think English is the most widely spoken language because it is global? Not really. Its mainly because the countries, whose citizens are native english speakers, are highly developed and have large economies affecting global economic growth and trade.

Dutch is spoken by less than 22 million people.
Turkish is spoken by roughly 65 million people
Japanese is spoken by more than 130 million people. And even if Japans population decreases to 100 in the next 45 years it will still have more speakers than Dutch and Turkish and will still be an economy much larger than either Turkey or the Netherlands.

Japanese is undoubtly a more important language than both.

Wow, you mean the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Australia, and all those former-colonies don't even have as much people as in China (plus those few other places you mentioned)? -UrbanSophist

It doesnt mean that in the former colonies of the U.K. everybody speaks english. Examples are Cyprus, India, Pakistan Some of the colonies may have english as an official language but some dont and generally not all of their population speaks English but a significant part of the population. Many people in those colonies dont even speak English as a native language.

China has by far more native speakers but English has far more second language speakers, Ill give you that.

chinese characture is intesting:
"一" means "one", "二" means "two","三"means "three"
"人" means" humanbeings"
"田" means "fields"
"火" means "fire"

lol.... and my dad told me that the word "marry" dunno the exact translation, it means marry because it looks like 2 people sticked together

I think English will be more and more dominant as the world language simply because of momentum. It's by far the most dominant second language in Europe. English is taught as a second language in more and more nations around the world including China. Those countries that don't teach/learn english will be at a disadvantage in an increasingly global economy and will eventually be pressured to jump on the English bandwagon.

I don't see Chinese as being dominant simply because it has the largest number of native speakers. The language is too complicated to learn for westerners. The closest global second language would be Spanish, but English has such a head start now that Spanish will have a hard time catching up.

lol.... and my dad told me that the word "marry" dunno the exact translation, it means marry because it looks like 2 people sticked together


In fact, marry means differently for men and women, and they use different word. 嫁 (woman marry man) and 娶 (man marry woman). Much like French which use different world depending on the gender of subject...


嫁 means a girl ( 女 ) goes to the husband's family ( 家 )

娶 means a man gets ( 取 ) a girl ( 女 )...

So you seen, if you know how to learn Chinese, it will be quite easy and interesting... :)

So you know the elements of a marriage ( 嫁娶 or normally we use 婚姻 which all the things about women ( 女 ) ) —— 女，家，取 ... you will know all about marriage... :lol: :lol: :lol:

About the ranks of the languages, I don't care even if you rank Chinese the last one, it won't change she has more 1.4 billion speakers which is one quarter of all humanbeings... and that's enough. If you still feel that it deserves the last one, fine for me...

If you think only CHinese speak Chinese, more fine for me... since some speakers never think they are Chinese like some Taiwanese and oversea Chinese...

I don't agree with you - if that were the case, the roman or kyrillic alphabet would not be so popular right now, I guess. Look at aegyptian hieroglyphs, they are not used anymore. It seems these Picture Languages are impractical (say writing speed), or why have people abandoned using them?

There is probably a way to create a similar system that is far simpler than Chinese without losing the expression of ideas. Ever heard of Bliss symbols?

http://www.blissymbolics.org/

A lesson with Bliss symbols:

http://www.crockford.com/blissym/lesson1.pdf

Have fun.

^^ How do you pronounce them?

Guys I got decide soon on which language I am going to follow in Uni. I got choose between Portuguese and German. Debate please. Give your opinion.

Well... if your future plans involve Brazil, I'd say Portuguese is obvious. If they don't, I'd think long and hard about it, since Portugal itself (like the rest of Europe) seems to be drifting towards English as a second de-facto language anyway. English is nowhere near as pervasive in Brazil, and not speaking Portuguese there would be a major handicap.

German has a larger body of native speakers... but be warned: German is hard. At least, it seemed hard compared to Spanish. It came as a surprise to me, because German does have lots of superficial resemblance to English. The devil's in the details. To me, the hardest part of German is the fact that if you don't know the gender of a noun, there's no graceful way to dance around it and avoid the issue. The inclusion of a neuter gender actually makes things worse, because there are biological females (like a young woman) that are officially neuter (probably more in her parents' fantasies than any reality), and biologically-inert things (like boats & cars) that are feminine for some weird reason. I still think English is the only gendered language that got the 'he/she/it' thing 100% right ;-)

Chinese might not be a "world" language, but it's going to be economically important to businesses due to the simple reason that it's a big market that's singularly comparable in size (though not yet purchasing power) to the English market. Any company that wants to sell to Chinese consumers will have to deal with them in Chinese, because they'll have enough economic clout to just ignore anyone who doesn't.

That said, the German market is somewhat similar... at least for businesses that sell things like household appliances and the entertainment industry. Germany (with Austria) is big enough and rich enough to get away with generally ignoring anyone who can't deal with them in German. If your career plans mainly revolve around the European market, German is a good choice.

Then again, for European careers, Russian might not be a bad choice. At least, learning enough Cyrillic to be able to read and sound out words written in Russian so you can guess the meaning of foreign words (of which Russian has a lot). The impression I've gotten is that once you get past the alphabet barrier, Russian is a fairly easy language for English-speakers to learn.

^^ The situation is as such:

I am doing a Double Honours Bachelor's Degree in European and Chinese Studies at my university now. But due to some peculiar situations I have to choose between Portuguese and German by January which I will continue to learn along with my Mandarin Chinese until the end of my degree.
I already got GCE Advanced Level (grabe:B) in German. (SAT II in the US?) And last summer I finished Nivel Dos (out of three) in Spanish which helps me a lot with Portuguese.

My dilemma is that i can't decide which language is going to be the most important in the future and thus enhancing my employment possibilities.

German has cerca 142 million speakers. German is also the language of the 4th biggest economy in terms of GDP PPP and thus hosts a very large market. It is also the biggest country in the EU. The things against German is that the native German speakers number is starting to fall due to falling populations in German speaking countries. In addition Germany is having a great number of economic problems and it's bound to have even worse with the quickly ageing population.

Portuguese has circa 220 million speakers and its the language of the 10th largest economy which is considered an emerging economy. Moreover the number of speakers is bound to increase even more by around 80 million speakers by 2050. It is also a major lingua franca in Africa. Also by learning Portuguese you can learn Spanish is less than six months. The problem is that Brazil is facing as well major problems in its economy and social structure which might bring about economic and social collapse thus decreasing the importance of the language.

Does this help? :D

I think German, because German businessman invest all over da world because of their country is so hard to sack labour n also high labour cost, so lots of job available around da world, many german invest in china as well

Most English speakers don't study foreign languages including university graduates.

^^ Your point being to this discussion is?

About the ranks of the languages, I don't care even if you rank Chinese the last one, it won't change she has more 1.4 billion speakers which is one quarter of all humanbeings... and that's enough. If you still feel that it deserves the last one, fine for me...

If you think only CHinese speak Chinese, more fine for me... since some speakers never think they are Chinese like some Taiwanese and oversea Chinese...
Sorry but there isnt a Chinese language properly:


There are many Chinese dialects in China. It is hard to guess how many dialects exist, but they can be roughly classified into one of the seven large groups, i.e., Putonghua (Mandarin), Gan, Kejia (Hakka), Min, Wu, Xiang and Yue (Cantonese). Each language group contains a large number of dialects. These are the Chinese languages spoken mostly by the Han people, which represents about 92 percent of the total population. We will not get into the non-Chinese languages spoken by the minorities here, such as Tibetan, Mongolian and Miao.
The dialects from the seven groups are quite different. For example, a Mandarin speaker in northern China usually understands little Cantonese, but a non-Mandarin speaker usually can speak some Mandarin with a strong accent. This is largely because Mandarin has been the official national language since 1913. Mandarin or Putonghua is mainly based on the Beijing dialect. Despite the large differences among Chinese dialects, there is one thing in common for them -- they all share the same writing system based on Chinese characters.

http://chineseculture.about.com/cs/language/a/dialects.htm

Guys I got decide soon on which language I am going to follow in Uni. I got choose between Portuguese and German. Debate please. Give your opinion.

I would probably opt for the Portuguese if you can't get a better choice such as French, Spanish, Mandarin, or Japanese. Portuguese is useful in southern Africa as well as Brazil. I find German relatively unnecessary because of the large numbers of English speakers in Germany, Austria, and especially Switzerland. The place where I find German of use is in Eastern Europe. In my travels in Hungary and the Czech republic ( I have no knowledge of Hungarian or Czech), I found may of the older folks spoke German rather than English, French, or Spanish. German also helps in learning Yiddish and Dutch but the practicality of knowing these languages seems to be rather borderline.

IMHO:

Mandarin is surely not spoken solely in China alone. It is official in more than three countries and there are millions of overseas chinese all over Asia, Europe and the US.

Do you think English is the most widely spoken language because it is global? Not really. Its mainly because the countries, whose citizens are native english speakers, are highly developed and have large economies affecting global economic growth and trade.

Dutch is spoken by less than 22 million people.
Turkish is spoken by roughly 65 million people
Japanese is spoken by more than 130 million people. And even if Japans population decreases to 100 in the next 45 years it will still have more speakers than Dutch and Turkish and will still be an economy much larger than either Turkey or the Netherlands.

Japanese is undoubtly a more important language than both.

Wow, you mean the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Australia, and all those former-colonies don't even have as much people as in China (plus those few other places you mentioned)? -UrbanSophist

It doesnt mean that in the former colonies of the U.K. everybody speaks english. Examples are Cyprus, India, Pakistan Some of the colonies may have english as an official language but some dont and generally not all of their population speaks English but a significant part of the population. Many people in those colonies dont even speak English as a native language.

China has by far more native speakers but English has far more second language speakers, Ill give you that.

Ok, you are right. You finally convinced m.:) :applause: :applause: :righton:

^^ The situation is as such:

I am doing a Double Honours Bachelor's Degree in European and Chinese Studies at my university now. But due to some peculiar situations I have to choose between Portuguese and German by January which I will continue to learn along with my Mandarin Chinese until the end of my degree.
I already got GCE Advanced Level (grabe:B) in German. (SAT II in the US?) And last summer I finished Nivel Dos (out of three) in Spanish which helps me a lot with Portuguese.

My dilemma is that i can't decide which language is going to be the most important in the future and thus enhancing my employment possibilities.

German has cerca 142 million speakers. German is also the language of the 4th biggest economy in terms of GDP PPP and thus hosts a very large market. It is also the biggest country in the EU. The things against German is that the native German speakers number is starting to fall due to falling populations in German speaking countries. In addition Germany is having a great number of economic problems and it's bound to have even worse with the quickly ageing population.

Portuguese has circa 220 million speakers and its the language of the 10th largest economy which is considered an emerging economy. Moreover the number of speakers is bound to increase even more by around 80 million speakers by 2050. It is also a major lingua franca in Africa. Also by learning Portuguese you can learn Spanish is less than six months. The problem is that Brazil is facing as well major problems in its economy and social structure which might bring about economic and social collapse thus decreasing the importance of the language.

Does this help? :D
Portuguese sounds very different than Spanish,but GRAMMAR, THE VOCABULARY is practically the same. Portuguese is like the OLD Spanish. I'm spanish and when i see portuguese writen i can understand absolutly all. Besides, Portuguese pronunciation is a little bit complex than Spanish. Spanish pronunciation is relatively easy. I would recomend studying spanish, because is in the middle of Portuguese and Italian. French its similar to Spanish and Portuguese too.
German open the door of Netherlans (dutch is close to German), Switzeland, Austria and Luxembourg.
Portuguese-> Spanish, Italian, Romanian, French
German (Nowadays its more important than portuguese but with a big projection)-> Dutch, Danish...

I see your point. But nowadays aren't Romance languages more important than Germanic besides German and English? In the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden etc their profficiency in English is extremely high.

The reason that Portuguese is so attractive is that it will open the doors to learn the rest of the Romance languages which are indeed more important than German which is the only important germanic language besides english.
The fact that i already have a high profficiency in german (but not fluent) is another reason why protuguese seem more useful to me.

But german is much more important for business since it is spoken in much more developed economies. If only Brazil would start developing quickly then I would choose to learn portuguese for sure rather than german. But I dont see that happening.

Gosh I dont know!

If only Brazil would start developing quickly then I would choose to learn portuguese for sure rather than german. But I dont see that happening.


Actually, Brazil did develop very rapidly. But that was in the 1950s-1970s. It's been really tough for many of the Latin American economies, where wages rose earlier, to compete with the emerging Asian ones, where wages are still quite a lower.

Sorry but there isnt a Chinese language properly:


There are many Chinese dialects in China. It is hard to guess how many dialects exist, but they can be roughly classified into one of the seven large groups, i.e., Putonghua (Mandarin), Gan, Kejia (Hakka), Min, Wu, Xiang and Yue (Cantonese). Each language group contains a large number of dialects. These are the Chinese languages spoken mostly by the Han people, which represents about 92 percent of the total population. We will not get into the non-Chinese languages spoken by the minorities here, such as Tibetan, Mongolian and Miao.
The dialects from the seven groups are quite different. For example, a Mandarin speaker in northern China usually understands little Cantonese, but a non-Mandarin speaker usually can speak some Mandarin with a strong accent. This is largely because Mandarin has been the official national language since 1913. Mandarin or Putonghua is mainly based on the Beijing dialect. Despite the large differences among Chinese dialects, there is one thing in common for them -- they all share the same writing system based on Chinese characters.

http://chineseculture.about.com/cs/language/a/dialects.htm

So what do you want to say, is there something conflicted with what I said? As long as he has a little education no matter what dialect he is speaking (Though Mandarin itself contain most part of CHina), he can speak Mandarin. Maybe I have never been to Southern countryside, wherever I go, I haven't find a Chinese who can not speak Mandarin. You can ask all the Chinese here, no matter where they are, if he is the citizen of CHina, he mostly (if not all) can speak Mandarin at some level...

By the way, as you said, they are sharing the same writing system and share same grammer and sentence construction. It's not difficult try to undertand other dialects. I myself can understand Contonese thoug I can't speak it normally and have never tried to learn it. I think same things happened in ENglish, too. Maybe I'm not quite good at it. Though more than ten years' study, I still find that UK English or Indian English with strong accent is difficult to understand. It's just simply that I can't follow... :ohno: :ohno:

Actually, Brazil did develop very rapidly. But that was in the 1950s-1970s. It's been really tough for many of the Latin American economies, where wages rose earlier, to compete with the emerging Asian ones, where wages are still quite a lower.
Well don't underestimate it... Brazil is still on the rise even if not so strong as in the 60s and not only in Sao Paulo. Former poor northeastern cities as Recife and Salvador are booming.

The GDP per capita in the south and Rio State is 10'000$ (more than Slovakia, Poland, Estonia or Croatia) in the State Sao Paulo 11'000$ (similar to Hungary or Czech Rep). The main problem is the spacial disparities of this huge country (it's the size of Europe minus Russia and has a population of nearly Germany, France and UK together).

Inflation was a main problem in the 80s and 90s where the currency was changing faster than the presidents and a monthly salary in June was was the salary of one day in July... Foreign debits could be cut enormously in recent years.

It's not China or India, but just be careful if one day reforms will lead to a more equal distribution of land and wealth - the county has everything from minerals, industry, modern ports to banking centers. BUT because of the inequality, social gaps and corruption the growth is slowed down - just wait til the cork is off! :lol:

Well don't underestimate it... Brazil is still on the rise even if not so strong as in the 60s and not only in Sao Paulo. Former poor northeastern cities as Recife and Salvador are booming.

The GDP per capita in the south and Rio State is 10'000$ (more than Slovakia, Poland, Estonia or Croatia) in the State Sao Paulo 11'000$ (similar to Hungary or Czech Rep). The main problem is the spacial disparities of this huge country (it's the size of Europe minus Russia and has a population of nearly Germany, France and UK together).

Inflation was a main problem in the 80s and 90s where the currency was changing faster than the presidents and a monthly salary in June was was the salary of one day in July... Foreign debits could be cut enormously in recent years.

It's not China or India, but just be careful if one day reforms will lead to a more equal distribution of land and wealth - the county has everything from minerals, industry, modern ports to banking centers. BUT because of the inequality, social gaps and corruption the growth is slowed down - just wait til the cork is off! :lol:

Yeah, it's a bit of an irony, but Brazil's earlier journey up from undevelopment several decades ago raised wages & living levels to the degree that's its harder for Brazil to compete with China & India, which have booming economies, but still much lower wages. Which of course along with good educational levels is why they are booming! In terms of being competitive in exporting to the US, Brazil has been successful in some sectors, including shoes & smaller passenger jets. Braxil has long been called the country of the future & I hope it makes it!

Well don't underestimate it... Brazil is still on the rise even if not so strong as in the 60s and not only in Sao Paulo. Former poor northeastern cities as Recife and Salvador are booming.

The GDP per capita in the south and Rio State is 10'000$ (more than Slovakia, Poland, Estonia or Croatia) in the State Sao Paulo 11'000$ (similar to Hungary or Czech Rep). The main problem is the spacial disparities of this huge country (it's the size of Europe minus Russia and has a population of nearly Germany, France and UK together).

Inflation was a main problem in the 80s and 90s where the currency was changing faster than the presidents and a monthly salary in June was was the salary of one day in July... Foreign debits could be cut enormously in recent years.

It's not China or India, but just be careful if one day reforms will lead to a more equal distribution of land and wealth - the county has everything from minerals, industry, modern ports to banking centers. BUT because of the inequality, social gaps and corruption the growth is slowed down - just wait til the cork is off! :lol:

Well I hope so Brazils growth launches. Cause I am going to be dropping german! I am going for portuguese.

I think what we're trying to get at here is that the spread of language is more an influence of trade/economics and culture, which in some cases is a by-product of political influence (and in others it's the other way around). Latin and Greek have heavily influenced many modern western languages (Latin due to the extent of the Roman Empire). Arabic, Sanskrit and Chinese have influenced many Asian languages due to traders. Filipino for example has several words based from all three (Ar. salaam > salamat = Thank you, Sa. mahal > mahal = love, Ch. ch? > tsaa = tea) though it was never colonized or occupied by any of them. Trade brought the need to communicate with foreigners, so the language eventually adapted to accommodate.

Enlgish has become so pervasive throughout the world due to the cultural and economic power of English-speaking countries and their media. Language and culture are always evolving so who know what the future may bring?

Most English speakers don't study foreign languages including university graduates.

English is so important, but not so much about the English native speakers...:lol: :lol: :lol:
Why?
Every average educated european (French, Italian, German...) is capable to work in United States and United Kingdom. The native English speakers will have to compete with the smart and good value bilingual people and can't travel far to europe or the less of the world (unless they are very few alfa type expatriate).
If you are an employer and u recieved 2 cvs with same skills set, experienced and education level, but one is bilingual another one is monoligual. You know which one is better value. Bilingual people are smart and good value.

Learn English..you can work in America!

Here's my list :

1.English - to me , is the truly global language today - learning English nowadays opens the doors in most of the countries you want to go , including those who don't speak officialy English . English is also spoken in Hong Kong, one of the main cities in China, which is "The" booming economy of this time .

2.Spanish - USA is the biggest economy in the world right now and this country has more than 40 million hispanics living there, that's makes Spanish kind of second language in the Usa and I can't see even one american that doesn't know NOTHING about Spanish , some words like "Caliente" , "Gracias" or "Tequila" are well known for Americans. Also, Mexico is right in the border with US and many americans go to Mexico enjoy her spring breaks and vacations and in that way increase their knowledge about Spanish . And I can't forget the fact that this language is spoken in several countries of the world , extremely important in Latin America for example and its represented in Europe by Spain . Its also very easy to hear nowadays Spanish songs on the radio or English songs that includes references to Spanish words in the whole world . Shakira is strong in Europe with songs like La Tortura , completely in Spanish . Other artists are huge in Spanish like Juanes , Ricky Martin (well he is 'Out' today but in the 90's he was very popular in Asia for example) . Also Spanish gve to the world some truly genious in literature like Cervantes and Neruda .

3. French - It has lost its importance in the last decades but it's still influent . France is the most popular country int the world for tourists and they must learn something of French before going there , to be asure that they won't screw up something during its visit. Is well known that French people dislike tourists who try to speak English there instead of French .

4. Mandarin - Being "The" Booming Economy nowadays in the world, it has gained importance in the world, besides being extremely isolated from the western old and quite hard to learn . It's not the only language in China but I don't see Chinese who live in big cities like Shangay or Beijing that doesn't speak mandarin . The dialets there I think are restrict to the country side of the country , with a population estimated in 800 milion people ! Impressive, but not important for business men who go to the main Chinese Cities.

The dialets there I think are restrict to the country side of the country

no,they are spoken in Cities too

Since I am learning Mandarin Chinese as a part of my uni course I have in contact with many Chinese. They told be that nowadays only old people speak the local dialects in their daily lifes while the rest of the population uses Mandarin chinese due to the fact that they are more educated. Mandarin Chinese has well over 1.3 billion speakers not just 800 million Han Chinese.

Since I am learning Mandarin Chinese as a part of my uni course I have in contact with many Chinese. They told be that nowadays only old people speak the local dialects in their daily lifes while the rest of the population uses Mandarin chinese due to the fact that they are more educated. Mandarin Chinese has well over 1.3 billion speakers not just 800 million Han Chinese.

Hehe... nono, finally you make a mistake... :|

I mean most is correct, but Mandarin is not equal to han...

No matter Madarin, Cantonese, Wu, hokkie... They are all han people who just speak different dialects, that's why I'm so against that some forumers label them as different languages...

As the major group of Chinese population, it contains more than 90% of it, that's nearly 12 millions, the rest are minorities and most of them have their own languages, but still if they are not living too far away like Tibet or Xinjiang, I guess most of them can speak Madarin or other Chinese dialects...:cheers:

Although I want to show how important Madarin is in CHina, I still believe that in the world level, Spanish is more popular than Chinese... We all know that to see if one language is important, we need to check how many times we use it in the international affairs. So in that case, Chinese can't be compared with English, Spanish which far more countries use them as first language...

^^
in terms of international affairs French is way more important than Spanish.

^^
in terms of international affairs French is way more important than Spanish.

Really, I'm learning French, because it's more close to English, even though they sound totally different, but countries(regions) who speak French coming to my mind are only French, Quebec, Flanders and some Afican counties... :cheers:

^^ Wallonie, Flanders = Flemish (or dutch, whatever...)

If you stop to think, English had it all to be the international language. I mean, the vocabulary is a mix between the Germanic and the Latin group, with even some Greek influence, which are the major language groups in Europe (and also in the world). English is simple, it has no cases, no genders for nouns and no numbers for adjectives. Plural is simple: -s, Grammar is simple, only 3 tenses (present, perfect and past).

I've been learning German lately and I can tell you that if it didn't have those damn genders and cases, it would be almost as easy as English, and probably it would have become the lingua franca, as in the 19th century, German was widely spoken, from France to Russia, and many German migrated to many countries, especially to the US.

I was thinking of learning Chinese before I chose German, but it would take just too much time and nowadays we can pretty much do it all with English. At least German is the language of my ancestors. :)

French is a nice option as well, it's pretty widespread and still the official language for many organisations, but its influence is lowering day after day, not the easiest language as well, for the ones who have German-branch languages as native, it must be as hard as German for us Romance speakers heh.

Well I hope so Brazils growth launches. Cause I am going to be dropping german! I am going for portuguese.

Portuguese IMO is pretty useless. In Brazil you can perfectly communicate in Spanish (but most of us don't speak it, we pretend we do :D). Also, except for Brazil and Portugal, the other Portuguese-speaking places aren't that developed (Portuguese is being left aside in Macau too)... Spanish is a much better option, you'll be able to communicate perfectly from Ushuaia to Tijuana and also in the US, Brazil, Portugal and, ofc, Spain. Also, Spanish is easier (we have 5 more accents (´) than they do!) and it's closer to Italian or even French (well, Portuguese is one of the most distant languages from Latin).

But if you already speak Spanish, go for Portuguese, you'll learn it just in a second! :D

They talk of french like if it was E.T language, but 30% of english words are french, and you still use them nicely and it was not hard for you to learn. It's sad it's not catalan that was use in spanish world, it is closer to french that castilian.

^^ Wallonie, Flanders = Flemish (or dutch, whatever...)

If you stop to think, English had it all to be the international language. I mean, the vocabulary is a mix between the Germanic and the Latin group, with even some Greek influence, which are the major language groups in Europe (and also in the world). English is simple, it has no cases, no genders for nouns and no numbers for adjectives. Plural is simple: -s, Grammar is simple, only 3 tenses (present, perfect and past).

I've been learning German lately and I can tell you that if it didn't have those damn genders and cases, it would be almost as easy as English, and probably it would have become the lingua franca, as in the 19th century, German was widely spoken, from France to Russia, and many German migrated to many countries, especially to the US.

I was thinking of learning Chinese before I chose German, but it would take just too much time and nowadays we can pretty much do it all with English. At least German is the language of my ancestors. :)

French is a nice option as well, it's pretty widespread and still the official language for many organisations, but its influence is lowering day after day, not the easiest language as well, for the ones who have German-branch languages as native, it must be as hard as German for us Romance speakers heh.

God, I knew that, I am living in Flanders, I was supposed to say Walloon region... Perhaps I was hoping Flanders people speak French too much... :lol: :lol: ALso Flanders sounds like France...

Portuguese IMO is pretty useless. In Brazil you can perfectly communicate in Spanish (but most of us don't speak it, we pretend we do :D). Also, except for Brazil and Portugal, the other Portuguese-speaking places aren't that developed (Portuguese is being left aside in Macau too)... Spanish is a much better option, you'll be able to communicate perfectly from Ushuaia to Tijuana and also in the US, Brazil, Portugal and, ofc, Spain. Also, Spanish is easier (we have 5 more accents (´) than they do!) and it's closer to Italian or even French (well, Portuguese is one of the most distant languages from Latin).

But if you already speak Spanish, go for Portuguese, you'll learn it just in a second! :D

I speak some spanish and I understand both written spanish and when listening spanish very well but I am doing Portuguese so that I can learn Spanish in a second! :P

By the way Angola is experiencing growth rates as high as 26% (2006) and Mocambique as high as 10%. So they will continue to grow for a decade atleadt. Hopefully the will become emerging economies of Africa.

But I am shocked that a Brazilian would say that his native language is useless. My mother language includes Greek and even though it is spoken by less than 15 million people I still strongly believe that it is a very important language.

^^ That's nothing more than the truth. And Greek is important. Its one of the languages with the greatest histories, so that's already a reason for itself.

But the fact that Spanish is so widespread and so alike to Portuguese puts the Portuguese language as a language nobody really bothers to study.

puts the Portuguese language as a language nobody really bothers to study.

But I think that if you have learned portuguese you can open the doors for other languages of the latin group since portuguese seems to be the last one of them. Example:if you speak portuguese is much easier to learn spanish than knowing spanish begin to study portuguese. Same for the French, Italian... Thats is not a minor thing and maybe a good reason to study portuguese :)

Falando nisso preciso estudar um pouquinho de inglês isso sim :D

But I think that if you have learned portuguese you can open the doors for other languages of the latin group since portuguese seems to be the last one of them. Example:if you speak portuguese is much easier to learn spanish than knowing spanish begin to study portuguese. Same for the French, Italian... Thats is not a minor thing and maybe a good reason to study portuguese :)

Falando nisso preciso estudar um pouquinho de inglês isso sim :D

No, Spanish it's closer to Italian than Portuguese. I have never studied Portuguese, so i cant not speak about portuguese grammar, but the only difficulty for spanish people is portuguese phonetics. And im not sure about " if you speak portuguese is much easier to learn spanish than knowing spanish begin to study portuguese" 'cause i never studied but i can understand it.

^^
in terms of international affairs French is way more important than Spanish.

You are completly right, and it's very difficult to understand. Spanish it's really underrated in internationals affair. I think the latin american and spanish economic growth make it more important? I wish it

^^ That's nothing more than the truth. And Greek is important. Its one of the languages with the greatest histories, so that's already a reason for itself.

But the fact that Spanish is so widespread and so alike to Portuguese puts the Portuguese language as a language nobody really bothers to study.

I am learning portuguese because I love it as a language. But I still believe it is an important language. More than 220 million people speak portuguese. And that number is estimated to rise to 300 million by 2050.

But I am also learning portuguese because I believe it will be a language that will be demanded a lot in the near future. For example counties such as Angola or Mocambique are experiencing immense growth and are quickly becoming regional powers in southern africa.

And if Brazil keeps on growing faster than main European Countries such as Italy or France it will surpass their economies within a decade. Italy is experiencing almost zero economic growth while France is growing at half the rate as Brazil. Anyhow I also believe that Brazil will shortly experience an economic boom if not just faster growth than 3% that will help it grow to an even more important economy.

^^ We need to grow by 5% a year to REACH our latin american fellows. And that is not going to happen heh, not under Lula. But this thread's not about politics...

Yay! I just got my first semester of German out of the way. Now I got about a month off, and Ill do some intensive study. Then another semester and I think I should be well enough to study some in Germany.

^^ I've already finished my 2nd semester and I was gonna do some intensive in this summer vacation, but then I decided to travel and it's right during the intensive course... But with 2 semesters I feel able to communicate (not speak) in German. I sometimes even try to speak with our fellow German forumers. :D

But I am shocked that a Brazilian would say that his native language is useless. .

For sure, that was a stupid statement. As a Brazilian I would never agree with him.

Just think about the brazilian music and how great that is, just to give an example. I love to learn languages, I´ve studed english, spanish and german, and would never depreciate my own language.
And, just to remind, that´s about the 7th in number of speakers, and 8th in numbers of Wikipedia articles (if that can be considered important).

Everybody knows that common Brazilians can't understand Spanish (Castillian). If you visit any Brazilian International Border you will see that Portuguese is the business language and it's the Brazilian Portuguese that's spoken there.

Portuguese rules in South America !

And we obliged some foreigners in Blumenau to speak in Portuguese during the Second World War

Very interesting thread :) Actually I'm learning English and Latin - the extinct language +.+

And as a German I state that my language spreads out itself more and more... It makes me happy to see this development :D

And we obliged some foreigners in Blumenau to speak in Portuguese during the Second World War
Not only there - also in Recife and other cities German schools have been closed down - that's why only very very old people with German roots speak still a proper German. Only if they learn now again in a Goethe institute, Swiss school or the like...

Portuguese rules in South America !

Sorry, but this is so not true ! You're talking like in Brazil Spanish is totally ignored, but students nowadays are learning Spanish in some period of their
elementary education , they usually don't like studying Spanish, but it's being teached in schools and this is enough to show that our leaders know the importance of this language ! And if you look any product that you buy in Brazil right now, they show instructions and information of this product both in Portuguese and Spanish .Brazil is the leading member of Mercosur and if we had ignored Spanish in the international affairs with countries like Argentina and Uruguay , that would be stupid.

If Spanish its being teached in Brazil public schools, I can't tell the same thing about the other countries . If Portuguese it's being teached in public schools of other LA countries, please someone tell me...because I think it's not .


And if Brazil keeps on growing faster than main European Countries such as Italy or France it will surpass their economies within a decade. Italy is experiencing almost zero economic growth while France is growing at half the rate as Brazil. Anyhow I also believe that Brazil will shortly experience an economic boom if not just faster growth than 3% that will help it grow to an even more important economy.

Sorry, but this is kind of funny . The only country in LA that it's growing less than Brazil is Haiti !!! Europe is already a developed continent and they only need to grow 2% a year to keep their standards and in that way not increase their unemployment rates. Brazil, in the other hand, its emerging and need to grow at least 5% a year and keep in this path for a looooong time to reach Europe's life quality and developing for example.

I think like Schmidt, I'm Brazilian and I think Portuguese is useless, that's why I'm studying English and Spanish in these days. But if you like Portuguese, good luck and I hope you learn fast and when you come here grab some 'cariocas' for you. :banana:

^^ Actually Argentinians seem to have to take Portuguese for a year or two. But they don't take it seriously at all, of course. They know when they come here WE are the ones who make the effort to understand them, not the other way.

English is the only global language...... The proof are these forums.

Spanish, chinese, french are international languages.... Very useful as a second language..

Japanese, German, Italian, Arabian, Portuguese to some extend are in other category for economic or cultural purposus.

Is easier to a Portuguese to understand spanish than to a spanish speaker to understand portuguese.... i am not saying this, linguistics say so...

However i like portuguese language...as a spanish speaker sounds easy to learn and brazilians girls sounds very hot and beautiful speaking that language .....lol.

English is the only global language...... The proof are these forums.

Spanish, chinese, french are international languages.... Very useful as a second language..

Japanese, German, Italian, Arabian, Portuguese to some extend are in other category for economic or cultural purposus.

Is easier to a Portuguese to understand spanish than to a spanish speaker to understand portuguese.... i am not saying this, linguistics say so...

However i like portuguese language...as a spanish speaker sounds easy to learn and brazilians girls sounds very hot and beautiful speaking that language .....lol.

Chinese is never an international language. It's not used among many races but used among the Chinese who have 1.5 billion population in China and Chinatowns around the world. English is the only answer to this thread. We all can type 26 letters of the English alphabet on our PCs.

English is the only global language...... The proof are these forums.

.

Yes, and there are more threads in Spanish than any other languages in these forums(ëxcept English)

Can't come up with any other language but English as global. That doesn't mean that it is going to be that way forever but whatever language follows it is far behind... yet.

^^ Actually Argentinians seem to have to take Portuguese for a year or two. But they don't take it seriously at all, of course. They know when they come here WE are the ones who make the effort to understand them, not the other way.

Yeah, I think Argentina and Uruguay are the south american countries where Portuguese is more 'popular' . Brazil is very popular for Argentinians tourists and so they have more contact wity our mother tongue , but as I told you, we can't blame argentinians for don't take Portuguese classes seriously , Brazilians usually don't like studying Spanish and many only learn few basic thinks like "Muchas Gracias" or "Buenos Días" after their lessons.:lol:

Argentinians feel europeans and don't feel inferior to brazilians, it's the opposite I think (An example : Bueno Aires passed over Rio to become the most popular latin america destination for travelers, it makes them proud) , and so don't care of Brazil at all ! They know their roots, and by watching Europe (Spain and Italy), and when they compare those two countries to Portugal, they know what to learn. And an argentinian will not care either of Angola, they have enough sun ! :lol:

Sorry, but this is so not true ! You're talking like in Brazil Spanish is totally ignored, but students nowadays are learning Spanish in some period of their
elementary education , they usually don't like studying Spanish, but it's being teached in schools and this is enough to show that our leaders know the importance of this language ! And if you look any product that you buy in Brazil right now, they show instructions and information of this product both in Portuguese and Spanish .Brazil is the leading member of Mercosur and if we had ignored Spanish in the international affairs with countries like Argentina and Uruguay , that would be stupid.

If Spanish its being teached in Brazil public schools, I can't tell the same thing about the other countries . If Portuguese it's being teached in public schools of other LA countries, please someone tell me...because I think it's not .




Sorry, but this is kind of funny . The only country in LA that it's growing less than Brazil is Haiti !!! Europe is already a developed continent and they only need to grow 2% a year to keep their standards and in that way not increase their unemployment rates. Brazil, in the other hand, its emerging and need to grow at least 5% a year and keep in this path for a looooong time to reach Europe's life quality and developing for example.

I think like Schmidt, I'm Brazilian and I think Portuguese is useless, that's why I'm studying English and Spanish in these days. But if you like Portuguese, good luck and I hope you learn fast and when you come here grab some 'cariocas' for you. :banana:

Man did I mention anything about LA countries? No
Did I mention anything about living standards? No

I was talking solely about the comparative growth and economy sizes between brazil and some european countries...Read posts before you reply to them...

Chinese is never an international language. It's not used among many races but used among the Chinese who have 1.5 billion population in China and Chinatowns around the world. English is the only answer to this thread. We all can type 26 letters of the English alphabet on our PCs.

Time will tell everyone that chinese will be an international language, just wait for 10 more yrs, and say the same thing again

Man did I mention anything about LA countries? No
Did I mention anything about living standards? No

I was talking solely about the comparative growth and economy sizes between brazil and some european countries...Read posts before you reply to them...

I read your post and truly sounded a little bit unrealistic about Brazil , unfortunately we're not the latin version of China (and you didn't say that, don'g get me wrong) and we have to do a lot of things to become the latin China, like doing some major reforms that are well known here but I don't see much effort to aprove them right now , so I really don't see Brazil's growth reach the point that will become Portuguese a powerful language in the world , at least untill 2011 when another president will take the government.

But Europe has some stars nowadays, Spain for example is growing for fifteen years now , England and Germany are doing quite good nowadays also. In LA Chile is booming for years, Argentina is recovering fast after the crash of 2001-2002, Peru and Venezuela are also doing well. I don't want to change your opinion about Portuguese or that you stop learning Portuguese, I even think that if Portuguese has some importante in the world nowadays its because of Brazil , I respect that you like my mother tongue . I just think your post is unfair with Italy and France that are such beautiful and nice countries and don't deserve be compared with Brazil . Even China ,that is the second largest economy and by 2020 it will be the first economy ,has a lot of poverty in the countryside is far away from Europeans's standard of living and for me this is what matters . I hope you understand me now.

^^ I do agree with you that the whole population of brazil may not be experiencing the high standards of quality that the citizens in major european countries do but nevertheless if brazil keeps on growing faster than both italy and france it will overtake the size of their economies within the next 5 years in PPP GDP.

And I do know that Brazil in not a Latin China but nevertheless is remains the largest economy in LA and thus is a regional power that has a vast potential to become a very important country in the world as well. I am hoping for just that!

Chinese is never an international language. It's not used among many races but used among the Chinese who have 1.5 billion population in China and Chinatowns around the world. English is the only answer to this thread. We all can type 26 letters of the English alphabet on our PCs.

Chinese is one of the official langueges of United Nations. Yes, apart from being the official language of Greater China and Singapore, it is widely used in chinatowns and chinese community around the world, and nearly 30 million people from 80 over countries are learning chinese now. Three-quaters of the world's 100 best selling dailies are now published in Asia. China has overtaken Japan as the country with the highest number of publications in the top 100. There are more chinese translation of French, Russian, Japanese and German classic and contemporary literatures than available in English.
However, most chinese students and professionals i met in UK think chinese language will not become an international language because it is so complicated and not average ppl are capable to learn it. Some even wish it will not to become a global language. Unlike european, many asians think it's their disadvantage (rather than privilege = colonial mindset) if their own respective language became a global mainstream language. some ultranationalism chinese netizens even feel threaten by recent chinese learning wave. Language is a temple and soul of one culture. The set of ideas, strategic, strengths, weaknesses, phrases, library, methodologies, philosophies, craftiness, crueltness, kindness etc..all can be exposured through mastering the language of one culture. You don't wish your potential 'enemies' to know you, but you want to know everything about them. That's explained why the Japanese never highly promoted their language in their economic heydays, and chinese government used to enforce the chinese students to learn Russian during the cold war with Soviet. And now English is one of the compulsory subjects for chinese university entrance exam. So these future Chinese troup are equipped to walk out China, to flood the world. There are millions of Chinese are learning Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Indonesian and Korean too.

Reading many of the posts here, I see that many of them are of the wrong notion that Hindi may get more prominence as India rises. Thats correct only to certain extent. Infact, the language that benefits the most with the rise of India is English.

India is a country with several languages(not just dialects) and as of now English is the only language that binds that entire country. Its also one of the two official languages of the country. Most of the educated lot are conversant in English(although with a thick accent). Because of the multilingual background, Indians keep their business language (English)different from the language in their personal life.

With the rise of India (which is part of the Anglosphere), English is reasserting its position as the numero uno language of the world and I dont see any change in this trend in the foreseeable future.

Those two above are some intelligent posts.Gj you guys

There is only one truly global language. English.

^^I agree, the English are lucky that their language has been propagated to tens of nations around the world. Even tribesmen (as in the indigenous tribes, ethnic Filipinos) here in the Philippines use English as a medium for education, etc and in dealing with the outside world aside from Tagalog and major Filipino languages, imagine that.