I am in my mid-40s and find myself using my Chinese now more than I did 20 years ago when I finished my master’s degree. What will it be like in 20 more years? And what will be the implications for all of us when the ranks of the Fortune 500 begin to fill with the names of Chinese companies?

Logan is right. A little Chinese is better than nothing. And the more you learn, the better.

Knowing some Mandrin is probably better than nothing, right?

Yes, we should ALL want to learn to say more than just Ni Hao.

The globe is learning English… why? Because we’ve told them to. Part of the shift of power or what Zakaria calls the “rise of the rest” is the global use of the English language, nearing one quarter of the planet. Zakaria says:

“What sounds young and modern today is English. No language has ever spread so broadly and deeply across the world…

…Some 80% of the electronically stored information in the world is in English”

We know English is spreading like wildfire, but people do not forget their native tongue to take on English. They use it as an additional language. The gap here seems obvious to me: Americans know English, that’s it.

The rest of the world has adopted business practices, from the U.S. and Europe; we pushed this to happen. What Westerners failed to predict is how the lack of our own foreign language and culture knowledge would leave us behind, as much of the world is becoming bi and multi-lingual.

Many Californians know Spanish, probably because of the proximity to Mexico and the immigrant influence on California’s agricultural economy. In this golden state, most of us land on a spectrum of understanding and/or speaking Spanish.

Other languages do not seem to be commonly spoken, by Americans born in the US that is. It’s refreshing to hear the occasional foreign language in our not-so-culturally-diverse town.

We seem to be a tattle tale of a country and the one to point fingers. Zakaria states, “we are the only country in the world to issue annual report cards on every other country’s behavior.”

What has happened while we were pointing fingers and giving report cards elsewhere? Has our own ego created our potential demise?

The sample dialogue was clear and they replay it 3 times for clarity. Then, the hosts of the podcast break down the phrase and repeat each sentence three times. They do an excellent job keeping the lesson simple to where anyone could repeat the phrase and understand what was being said. The next Newbie episode involved the phrase “hurry hurry” so they wouldn’t miss the train. I imagine this may be very useful in June!

I think this is a good resource if you just want to do one a day or a simple program. It is entertaining and you take away some Mandarin with you. For the more ambitious, I wouldn’t recommend it if you want to do an in depth study. The hosts’ commentary is often irrelevant and can seem to drag on for how much material there is in the ten minutes.

I know for a fact that the people who were able to speak in the local language were able to gain a lot more form the trip than the other students, and learn more from the culture. I was lucky enough to have a friend who spoke German and French as well as my mother who speaks a little Dutch. These people were able to help me out a ton. I still think they were able to learn a little more from the trip and each individual culture though. They definitely were able to accomplish regular tasks more easily, as well as were able to read the historical artifacts and descriptions in the unaltered original language.

I really encourage everyone to take a couple lessons or just listen to the free podcasts online. After all it’s always good to be able to ask your own way to the bathroom. With the podcasts and internet it is actually pretty easy to find relatively cheap and useful aids for learning Mandarin. I did a little searching on I-tunes and found a ton of useful applications for download. There is also a relatively cheap ($3.99) “Not lost in translation” 20 minute guide to Mandarin available on I-tunes (it has everything from greetings, help and directions, to pickup lines). However, if anyone wants to get together and buy a copy of Rosetta-Stone let me know.