Chinese as a foreign language.

[FriskyMare]

DS (currently in Y7) has been asked if he would like to study Chinese next year, he is currently studying German and Spanish and would have to drop one of these. Most likely Spanish as we have German rellies.
Do any of you have dc who have studied Chinese? Did they find it difficult/time consuming etc.
We think it may be an interesting and useful language to have but are worried it may be too much and once he has dropped Spanish may not be able to take it up again.

I'd definitely do it - although with a degree in Spanish, I wouldn't drop that one in favour of German (I accept it makes more sense for you though!)

I studied Japanese, and that was quite slow going because of learning the new alphabets and then character sets as well, esp as each stroke in each character has to be done in a certain way. I'd assume at school level they focus on the more interesting aspects of spoken language and less on the precision of pencil stroke - I hope so!

I would be dropping the German, to be honest. Spanish and Mandarin will be the most useful languages for anyone to be learning. If you have German family then he can keep his German going by speaking with them, surely?

I'm learning Mandarin (admittedly I'm just a tad older than your DS ) and I don't really think it would be too much - especially taught from an early age. In a way, learning the characters makes it a bit more interesting - almost like a secret code! Apparently it also helps develop the right side (the creative, conceptual side) of the brain too.

Hi, don't worry too much about the characters as they will probably start by using pinying (spl?) which is a type of phoneticly written Chinese. The characters get bought in as a side line to start with.

I speak spanish and learnt a bit of Chinese at university in china, Chinese is a lot easier if taught in pinying as you don't have the characters to contend with and it is gramatically a lot simpler than most European languages, imagine 'I am, he am, we am, they am' rather than the different verb endings. The pronunciation is where things get harder but I'd imagine a child would pick this up easier than an adult.

I suspect it'll be useful for the future to at least have a grasp of the language. I'd say go for it!

Hmmm, I can see where you are both coming from re dropping German. He seems to have a talent for languages (like DD and DH who speaks french & german).
Just wanted advice on how difficult it is to learn compared with MFL. I wish the school would do taster sessions before having to decide.
Thanks for your advice. Will mull it over today as he has to write a letter detailing why he wants to study chinese and hand it in tomorrow!

P.s.

Ni hao ma?

(Chinese written in pinying)

Wo hen hao. Ni ne?

If he's good with languages then definitely a bonus. Personally I find I am good with languages as I am quite happy to just launch in. Being corrected by a native speaker vastly improves pronunciation and language skills.

If he's adept at trying pronunciation it'll be a good language to go for.

Wo hen hao, xie xie!

Actually, although pinyin makes it easier to learn, it's better if the characters are introduced from the beginning - so they get used to seeing them both. If you rely too much on pinyin it can make it harder to then start using the characters.

Edith - hen hao. Ni chu le ma?

Was asked this constantly in China. Sweet, but at twice the size of everybody, it was a given! Sunday morning Chinese very rough though, apologies

But that's just a social convention, isn't it? Relating back to when times were really tough - it's a bit like us asking 'how are you?' We're not really interested in how people are - it's just something we say!

Mandarin isn't a complicated language to learn (the grammar is pretty easy actually), but you have to attune to the tones which is difficult if you are from a language group where tones (even, rising, dipping and falling) do not alter meaning.

Also you have to learn characters by sight recognition (there are some clues in how some characters are composed, but not enough to rely on) - you simply cannot decode as you can with an alphabetic language. This means a lot of rote learning.

Wo chi le fan, xie xie.

(But my knowledge is sketchy and very rusty these days - perhaps you need CaoNiMa to appear on the thread if you want a pinyin chat?)

Yes, it's a shame he can't do all three, although this would be a heavy workload. Spanish of course has the factor of being very widely spoken across the world but it will still be there in a few years' time and he may find German more useful for family holidays in the short term. I wouldn't push him to drop it if he'd rather keep doing it - he already speaks English and has a grasp of Spanish so he's fairly well covered for the world's lingua francas (linguas francas, I assume it should be) as it is.

I'm sure the school will teach Chinese at a comparable level to other modern languages, and I'm guessing if he was really struggling after half a term they would allow a rethink?

Have you had a look at the Beeb site?

One thing I would be very keen to know is who is teaching the subject, and how well they speak Mandarin themselves. Picking up on Edith's point, the tonal aspect of the language is critical. It really is vital that the students are taught how to pronounce the words properly and that they are constantly reminded to use the correct pronunciation. IME all too often this is something we're very lazy at in Britain - we think that as long as we use the right words we can pronounce them any way we like. You might be able to get away with this (awful though it is to hear) with a European language, but it won't work in Chinese. For example, the word 'ma' means either mother or horse, depending on how you pronounce it. You might not want to get that one wrong ...

Thank you ladies - what a linguistic lot you are:)
Tribpot great website, ds is looking at it now.

Mandarin's bloody hard and needs to be taught by a native speaker IMO. I tried learning some before a business trip - I am polylingual and really struggled. In China nobody understood a bloody word I was saying. It takes real effort.

I think I would treat it more as a taster thing & only encourage if DC tended to be good at languages; we have Latin at local HS as an extra.

Cao ni ma - shame on you!!

DD is coming to end of her second year in mandarin at school and she is 8. They have taught by a native speaker using both pinying and characters she has found it much much easier than Latin languages ( has done 4 years of French and 1 of Spanish ).

I believe the great difficulty with Chinese is the pronunciation, and only a few gifted westerners get it right when they start learning this languages after they pass babyhood. As an example, I have a colleague whose wife is Chinese and has always spoken Chinese to the children. Eventually, they went to spend a whole year in China when the kids were about 5 yo, to make sure they were going to grow up speaking it properly. Otherwise they could feel that their pronunciations was already getting corrupted by the influence of English. On the other hand, I have a Swedish friend who learnt it without much problems (helped by the fact that Swedish has many more sounds than English).

So, in conclusion, I would take this language up, but with the understanding that he will most likely never speak it as well as he will speak Spanish if he keeps up with it.

Not necessarily so, SoldeInvierno, if you put the effort into learning and speaking. Why on earth would it not be possible to speak it 'properly' if you put the effort into it?

There is no reason why you can't speak Mandarin as well as any other language, as long as you have been taught properly and you are prepared to put the effort in. There are four tones - it's not that hard.

Which language to learn will depend on the child's strengths and interests. If your ds may want to study engineering for example then German would be very useful - he could even study in Germany (for much less than uk). Spanish is spoken more widely but don't see it as so critical for business. In terms of Chinese I personally think it is too early to say how our kids may benefit later on.

We will find out today if DS has been given a place on the course, have decided if he is successful to keep up with German as his other MFL and study Spanish after school.
Thank you for all your input, great advice as ever!!

Fingers crossed!

However hard you try you'll never be able to use Chinese to the level of a native speaker as they spent 12 years at school mastering this subject with lots of tears and sweat. Most international business conmunication with the Chinese will be conducted in English anyway because it is widely recognised that very few westerners could have the proficiency to use Chinese in business, and they cannot afford to exclude talented engineers/businessmen who arent ad fluent in Chinese. Having said that learning Chinese is a great way if not THE best to learn about oriental cultures. The language itselt carries thousands of years of civilisation so if children are interested in history, archeology, far eastern culture, definitely learning Chinese is the best approach.