Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rapier]

[mithridates]

Here are the new stats:

English 31.9% (+126.6%)
Chinese 12.8% (+284.8%)
Japanese 8% (+65.8%)
Spanish 6.5% (+159.7%)
German 5.7% (+99.9%)
French 4.1% (+228.9%)
Korean 3.3% (+71.1%)
Italian 3% (+118.7%)
Portuguese 3% (+280%)
Dutch 1.5% (+171.2%)

Other 20.2% (+169.5%)

The numbers in brackets show the growth in internet users from 2000 - 2005. Since the world average is 169.5%, anything below that means that it's falling behind.

Weird though, the number of internet users in the world still hasn't even reached a billion. That's a bit of a waste.

[tzechuk]

I have followed China's economy for a decade - well, almost. My bachelor's degree thesis was on business in China.

Frankly, China's growth rate is extremely misleading. Nothing is ever all that true in China, so you really can't say that China will expand exponentially over the next 10 years or so. Until they are done with their creative accounting and further promote a market-driven economy, also to reinforce copyright and patent issues etc., their growth rate will slow down and might possibly come to a halt, because salary in China now is not really *that* low.

[Tiger Beer]

[Bee Positive]

[Bee Positive]

[Butterfly]

[mithridates]

[Qinella]

Mith, you read these numbers as English losing ground, but I'm looking at them as non-English languages gaining ground. You know what I mean? The further English sinks in the numbers, the better it is for the whole world, if you consider Internet access to be a good thing.

I saw earlier you said that not even 1 billion people in the world had acces yet. Is that still true? If not, I think that's the most pressing number in this whole thread. That gobsmacking figure belies the poverty still encompassing this planet, for what other major reason besides poverty is there for not having internet access?

A few weeks ago, I watched an interesting CNN report about a company that's producing portable satellite Internet accessible computers (more like mini-laptops) that would sell for something like $20 a pop, to be distributed by charitable groups throughout Africa and India's impoverished regions. The internet is information, and information is power, and wouldn't that be a great thing if it gets off the ground... though it may increase French web site percentages for a trade-off of English ones.

[mithridates]

[mithridates]

[Zulu]

The numbers here simply show that people in other countries are now able to buy computers, not which languages they plan to use internationally as scientists, businessmen, diplomats, etc. As some posters have commented we are not going to witness Mandarin (nevermind Korean) displace English as the world's lingua franca in our lifetimes. Rather, Mandarin will join Japanese, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, French and other langauges as a potentially useful second, third or fourth tongue.

Why? Well, as a business guy who has worked in my share of countries I've seeen that those now learning Mandarin are primarily interested in doing business in China and nowhere else. And as big as China's economy may get in the coming decades remember that about 90% of its growth is actually due to foreign investment - and most of those multinationals use - you guessed it - English. Those foreign multinationals will also get richer and even more powerful as their Chinese market expands. I've recently been to meetings in Beijing between Hong Kong and Beijing companies where they use English in lieu of Cantonese/Mandarin. There is very little chance that China's economy will ever overtake the combined economies of English-speaking countries
(the US, EU, India, Oceana, Canada, the other Commonwealth nations, etc.).

Then there's the little fact that 300 million Chinese people themselves will soon be studying English. In other words, more than if the entire population of the US were to study Mandarin. In fact, people there are going crazy to have their kids learn English - at a much higher rate than westerners who are learning Mandarin or Cantonese. Once wages increase expect the market there to explode - there will be many more jobs in English teaching opening up. Actually, I believe this may already be happening and that some western English teachers are even leaving Korea for China. And consider that given the CPC's tendency to censor the Chinese internet, foreigners won't be using it much (presuming they can actually understand Mandarin); and that many Chinese net users now actually try to access uncensored, external English portals.

But China ain't the be all end all anyway. There's that other little country in Asia, India, which is now just getting off its feet but will overtake China's population (and give its economy a good run) in about 20 years. What are the two official languages of India you may ask? Hindi and English. In fact India has more English language dailies than any country - many of them quite good. Multinationals like HP use English as their offical langauge there, not Mandarin, not even Hindi, Bengali or Urdu.

Of course English is also the official language of the EU (730 million people), the UN, the WTO and NATO (the world's only military power, really). It has the world's largest vocabulary (much of it technical/scientific) of any major language and it's the official language of international sport, trade, business, international diplomacy, air traffic control, oceanic navigation, you name it. The vast majority of the world's scientific publications are in English. Its writing system is far less time-consuming to master than even simplified Mandarin. On it goes, etc. etc. etc.

So it simply doesn't matter how many Mandarin speakers use the internet for chat or gaming or whatever- it won't change any of the above. More than 3 billion people - far more than the entire population of Cantonese and Mandarin speaking China (1.3 billion) + overseas Chinese (only about 55 million) combined, will be speaking English as a first or second language in the near future, a trend predicted to increase if the world's population hopefully gets accesss to health, sanitation and education services. That said, it never hurts to learn any second or third language.

Mithridates - could it be Macedonia? It's small enuff to qualify for economy of scale and they want to expand.

[mithridates]

[mithridates]

[jaganath69]