Chinese Most Popular Foreign Language For Thai Students

[Kananga]

Chinese is much more useful for Thais than English. There are more Chinese speakers within 4 hours from Bangkok than the total population of Europe and Northern America, and as has been pointed out: there are lots of similarities between the Chinese and Thai languages.

Rubbish. English is the primary international language for all purposes, throughout the world. The fact that China is nearby, has a lot of people and a language similar to Thai make very little difference to the fact that English is far far more useful to Thais than Chinese.

And this will remain so. Chinese will never replace English as the primary international language, for a whole host of reasons.

In fact there are more people learning English in China than there are English speakers in the US. English is and for the forseeable future will continue to be the international language of business.

Just see how long your application to be an airline pilot would last if you just spoke Thai and Mandarin.

[otherstuff1957]

Thai and Chinese aren't closely related, they in separate language families.

http://en.wikipedia....betan_languages

http://en.wikipedia....Kadai_languages

There are some loan words of course because of immigration. Thais don't use Chinese writing and instead use an alphabet, so that alone makes Chinese harder to learn than English. Learning how to read and write Chinese is a major undertaking.

While it is true that Chinese and Thai are not considered to be part of the same language family, they are both tonal languages and there are many Chinese loan words in Thai.

As no European language uses tones, Chinese have a big advantage when learning Thai and vice-versa.

[Card]

Thai and Chinese aren't closely related, they in separate language families.

http://en.wikipedia....betan_languages

http://en.wikipedia....Kadai_languages

There are some loan words of course because of immigration. Thais don't use Chinese writing and instead use an alphabet, so that alone makes Chinese harder to learn than English. Learning how to read and write Chinese is a major undertaking.

Yes, from what I've read Chinese is extremely difficult to write and read, even for Chinese. That's why Chinese will never become a world language unless they reform those aspects and I expect that's exactly what they will do. I bet there are a team of linguists somewhere in China working on it at the moment.

[DP25]

Thai University students can speak Chinese at near native level. This contrasts to English. They respect Chinese, they like Chinese and they love learning Chinese. They have a passion to learn Chinese and this is why their Chinese is so incredibly excellent, spoken and written.

Thai university students that can speak Chinese at near native level are most likely third generation Chinese-Thai whose grand parents speak only Chinese.

Few of those kids with a Chinese speaking grandparent would speak it themselves though. Thai Chinese are mostly descended from Teochew and Hakka speakers as well, so they would not be able to speak Mandarin Chinese if they just learned from grandparents.

[cup-O-coffee]

Well tra la la for Usanee Watanapan. Isn't that special! Who cares?

Please cite the origin for the motivation to study Chinese, and please also dispense with the B.S. that Thai students are concerned about things like "'China's economy is strong and growing, while the economies of Western countries are weaker. This has caused students to pay more attention to Asian languages. [The upcoming] Asean Economic Community...'"

Learning a new language is certainly good for the person, but only if they use that language to their benefit, and they do so with a cognitive intelligence that transcends what I have seen demonstrated herein.

With that in mind, I'll wager that the definition of a Thai doing something to their benefit (learning Chinese) is going to hit a hard brick wall when they find out that Chinese are far better at doing things to their own benefit (Taking advantage of Thais).

Score: Chinese = The boss, Thai = the sub minimum wage earner

Results: Nothing will have changed exept Thais can now complain in Chinese!

Edited April 24, 2012 by cup-O-coffee

[wolf5370]

This is just pandering to the Chinese ego IMO (and the Chinese probably sit back and snigger at it). English is the international language, and a heck of a lot of Chinese students spent a heck of a lot of time and effort learning it.

I would imagine most Chinese hearing this would think - it's good that people from lesser ASEAN countries learn Mandarin, so that they can follow the instructions of their Chinese supervisors on the factory floor and leave the business side of things to the English speaking Chinese bosses.

Lamb's to the slaughter!

[regine]

As no European language uses tones, Chinese have a big advantage when learning Thai and vice-versa.

Norwegian, Swedish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Serbo-Croatian, Limburgish?

[Docno]

I've met a number of Thais here in Singapore who have tried to learn both Chinese and English. To a person, they say that Chinese--speaking, not writing--is much easier to learn than English because of structural similarities, the fact they're both tonal languages, and the fact that English is pretty dam_n inconsistent in terms of 'rules'.

[sparebox2]

An other clear message for the "what will they do without us" brigade.

I also predict the end of the western expat. Two month ago, we had to fill urgently an expat position and the best candidate was a young Hong Kong Chinese guy. It's a fantastic success. He get along very well with his local colleagues, we don't need to babysit him like his western colleagues. After two month he is able to speak basic Thai. We know realize that in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan we have a big source for our future expat executives, we will now think twice before hiring European expats.

I predict the end of the western expat PACKAGES. Western expats are still in demand, but they are not getting the salary packages they once got.

(there are always exceptions of course.)

Farang wants to be in Thailand.

So why pay a premium for a dream job.

There is more supply and demand, so Farang should be paid a discount.

[mac1970]

Good incentive to learn but pretty hard to do in the real life. Everyday things go fine but when we start to talk about real business details and especially things related

technology, way of functionality aso. it turns back to english. This is just the way how it goes evenif I would say that some of our guys really have very good chinese

skills to manage most of ordinary stuff. And it would be better to learn reading (and writing), otherwise you're screwed in the business sooner or later and most likely sooner. Chinese are most innovative nation when there is the need to create money by any means. I have never seen anywhere so good and brilliant people to find the way to make money even if it would mean that they loose business partners or this famous face thing...personally I think that the whole story is big joke.

[sparebox2]

Thai University students can speak Chinese at near native level. This contrasts to English. They respect Chinese, they like Chinese and they love learning Chinese. They have a passion to learn Chinese and this is why their Chinese is so incredibly excellent, spoken and written.

Thai university students that can speak Chinese at near native level are most likely third generation Chinese-Thai whose grand parents speak only Chinese.

Few of those kids with a Chinese speaking grandparent would speak it themselves though. Thai Chinese are mostly descended from Teochew and Hakka speakers as well, so they would not be able to speak Mandarin Chinese if they just learned from grandparents.

If they knew Teochew and/or Hakka, Mandarin Chinese is just a piece of cake.

[osiboy]

Both economically and geographically, Chinese is an obvious choice to study.

However, it's the quality of output that matters. Until I see native Chinese tour guides replaced by Chinese-speaking Thai tour guides, then I won't believe in any eventual success stories that are peddled around.

Thai University students can speak Chinese at near native level. This contrasts to English. They respect Chinese, they like Chinese and they love learning Chinese. They have a passion to learn Chinese and this is why their Chinese is so incredibly excellent, spoken and written.

all of them ??................ a few more like !

[wolf5370]

An other clear message for the "what will they do without us" brigade.

I also predict the end of the western expat. Two month ago, we had to fill urgently an expat position and the best candidate was a young Hong Kong Chinese guy. It's a fantastic success. He get along very well with his local colleagues, we don't need to babysit him like his western colleagues. After two month he is able to speak basic Thai. We know realize that in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan we have a big source for our future expat executives, we will now think twice before hiring European expats.

I predict the end of the western expat PACKAGES. Western expats are still in demand, but they are not getting the salary packages they once got.

(there are always exceptions of course.)

Farang wants to be in Thailand.

So why pay a premium for a dream job.

There is more supply and demand, so Farang should be paid a discount.

It's your country's laws that make it so - minimum wage per Nationlity group. Also, why do you think your companies are going abroad for staff in the first place? They have to pay more to entice quality staff here - if Thailand had the quality staff in enough numbers there would be no demand. The demand is created by that not being so (at least in the eyes of these companies), so supply obviously does not meet demand and carrots are needed. When the West's economy is good, the carrots need to be bigger - now the economy is generally in the toilet in the west (though not everywhere), it may require smaller carrots. Even so it is a large undertaking to move abroad to work, so by the fact they are still hiring us foreign devils, shows the level of respect corperations here have of the Thai management workforce (and is a possible reflection too on the general level of competancy of English language skills at these levels - especially when hiring a Chinese with English as a third or fourth language after Chinese dialects and no Thai in preference to Thais with English degrees).

//EDIT: Typos

Edited April 24, 2012 by wolf5370

[BigJohnnyBKK]

Sure seems to be a lot of knee-jerk reactions here, even if the words are true the mood's pretty defensive.

Of course English will continue to dominate world trade for at least a few more generations, most likely longer than the USD will be the dominant currency.

However there are many scenarios that would end in Chinese being just as if not more valuable for Thais business-people to learn. And let's face it most students need the supposed competence indicated on their CV to get a better job, doesn't mean it actually gets put to use.

Rubbish. English is the primary international language for all purposes, throughout the world. The fact that China is nearby, has a lot of people and a language similar to Thai make very little difference to the fact that English is far far more useful to Thais than Chinese.

And this will remain so. Chinese will never replace English as the primary international language, for a whole host of reasons.

Never is a very long time; I'm sure the Romans said the same thing about Latin, and that lasted a lot longer than the current global empire will.

Every civilization has its rise and fall, and it seems pretty clear the western one's passed its peak, and not even recently. Thais are correct in seeing the upward trend of China continuing to rise. Think of the energy that will be released when the equivalent of the fall of the Berlin wall occurs.

Never say never.

[osiboy]

would this have anything to do with a thai education cert being excepted in china but being worthless in the E.U & the U.S ??....and i suspect thais can travel to china alot easier than they can to the west ? ....road and information signs are often also in english in china , .... dont think in china they will ever be in thai !, ......i have purchased electrical goods made in china while in thailand and the instructions were in many languages BUT NOT IN THAI . To choose it as an extra language is a fine idea , to choose it OVER english ..........hmmmmmm , i can't believe it will be more useful on a global scale imho.

[h90]

Both economically and geographically, Chinese is an obvious choice to study.

However, it's the quality of output that matters. Until I see native Chinese tour guides replaced by Chinese-speaking Thai tour guides, then I won't believe in any eventual success stories that are peddled around.

Thai University students can speak Chinese at near native level. This contrasts to English. They respect Chinese, they like Chinese and they love learning Chinese. They have a passion to learn Chinese and this is why their Chinese is so incredibly excellent, spoken and written.

And many students in Thai Universities are in fact ethnic Chinese....

[Unkomoncents]

I've met a number of Thais here in Singapore who have tried to learn both Chinese and English. To a person, they say that Chinese--speaking, not writing--is much easier to learn than English because of structural similarities, the fact they're both tonal languages, and the fact that English is pretty dam_n inconsistent in terms of 'rules'.

Yep. It's the reading Chinese characters part that'll get ya. Thais don't worry too much about reading though, so they likely wouldn't comment on that element of language-learning.

[osiboy]

Sure seems to be a lot of knee-jerk reactions here, even if the words are true the mood's pretty defensive.

Of course English will continue to dominate world trade for at least a few more generations, most likely longer than the USD will be the dominant currency.

However there are many scenarios that would end in Chinese being just as if not more valuable for Thais business-people to learn. And let's face it most students need the supposed competence indicated on their CV to get a better job, doesn't mean it actually gets put to use.

Rubbish. English is the primary international language for all purposes, throughout the world. The fact that China is nearby, has a lot of people and a language similar to Thai make very little difference to the fact that English is far far more useful to Thais than Chinese.

And this will remain so. Chinese will never replace English as the primary international language, for a whole host of reasons.

Never is a very long time; I'm sure the Romans said the same thing about Latin, and that lasted a lot longer than the current global empire will.

Every civilization has its rise and fall, and it seems pretty clear the western one's passed its peak, and not even recently. Thais are correct in seeing the upward trend of China continuing to rise. Think of the energy that will be released when the equivalent of the fall of the Berlin wall occurs.

Never say never.

some good points, but look where europe is now after the ''fall of the wall'' !

[Unkomoncents]

Sure seems to be a lot of knee-jerk reactions here, even if the words are true the mood's pretty defensive.

Of course English will continue to dominate world trade for at least a few more generations, most likely longer than the USD will be the dominant currency.

However there are many scenarios that would end in Chinese being just as if not more valuable for Thais business-people to learn. And let's face it most students need the supposed competence indicated on their CV to get a better job, doesn't mean it actually gets put to use.

Rubbish. English is the primary international language for all purposes, throughout the world. The fact that China is nearby, has a lot of people and a language similar to Thai make very little difference to the fact that English is far far more useful to Thais than Chinese.

And this will remain so. Chinese will never replace English as the primary international language, for a whole host of reasons.

Never is a very long time; I'm sure the Romans said the same thing about Latin, and that lasted a lot longer than the current global empire will.

Every civilization has its rise and fall, and it seems pretty clear the western one's passed its peak, and not even recently. Thais are correct in seeing the upward trend of China continuing to rise. Think of the energy that will be released when the equivalent of the fall of the Berlin wall occurs.

Never say never.

I agree with everything but I think you're jumping on the media's bandwagon pretty quickly. The US is a case in point: everyone just loves to talk about how America's time is over but the US still manages 25% of the world's GDP. When China surpasses the US, it will still take decades, if not a century, before Chinese citizens even come close to the GDP of your average American. Europe is similar in a lot of ways. Yes, Europe has poisoned the global economy just like America did in 2008 with the US housing crisis. Nevertheless, Europeans are still, by-and-large, incredibly wealthy, productive people relative to those in the rest of the world. Those that build the global economy are struggling and those that benefit from it are complaining. I do get a kick out of BRIC and their latest effort to house themselves in a central location. They cannot agree on ANYTHING. I don't think the world should declare the US and Europe dead yet. Most have already done so. They haven't been paying attention much to who still holds the reigns though. It's big news that China and others are rejecting the dollar as the global currency. What isn't such big news is that the US, for the purpose of global stability, supports such moves. It's just good business sense to diversify assets and variegate holdings of all varieties. China's ascension to world's-largest-economy status is politically invaluable for the ruling class in Beijing. It isn't a panacea however. China faces significant future economic problems that are equally magnified by Western media agents. My sense is that the picture is significantly more complicated than even we are capable of acknowledging. If economics were a science, we'd all be millionaires.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Unkomoncents

[bigbamboo]

The best foreign language for any Thai or Asian child to learn is still English, simply because it is the world's lingua franca. Of course Chinese would be very useful in this part of the world but guess which language is studied now from a very early age by all well educated Chinese students, those who are likely to interact with similarly educated Thais? That of course is English.

[lungmi]

The link shows you the HSK test levels for mainland Chinese (simplified Chinese) , Taiwanese (classic Mandarin) is at a higher level.

12 levels, the basic levels correspond with the TOEFL Test.

http://www.china.org.cn/english/MATERIAL/105441.htm

How many Thais survive the TOEFL Test? For Sino-Thais the HSK Test would be a little bit easier, but it is a Mandarin Test.

Most Sino-Thais speak a Chinese dialect, the reading of simplified Chinese is limited.

Most Mandarin speakers in Thailand have connections to Taiwan (descendants of Kuomintang refugees.)

My wife is Sino-Thai, she speaks Mandarin (working 2 years in Taiwan), but she cannot read.

The global languages will be English, simplified Mandarin and Spanish.

[hearditallbefore]

Bullshit

[Skywalker69]

An other clear message for the "what will they do without us" brigade.

I also predict the end of the western expat. Two month ago, we had to fill urgently an expat position and the best candidate was a young Hong Kong Chinese guy. It's a fantastic success. He get along very well with his local colleagues, we don't need to babysit him like his western colleagues. After two month he is able to speak basic Thai. We know realize that in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan we have a big source for our future expat executives, we will now think twice before hiring European expats.

Make sure to let us know when he replaces you.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

some good points, but look where europe is now after the ''fall of the wall'' !

Sure, in support of my contention that the west is likely to continue to decline.

I was talking about the transformation that has come to most of Eastern Europe after the collapse of the USSR.

Ask the residents of what used to be East Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia etc to compare their future prospects now with thirty years ago. Imagine the same transformation happening to mainland China.

I agree with everything but I think you're jumping on the media's bandwagon pretty quickly. The US is a case in point: everyone just loves to talk about how America's time is over but the US still manages 25% of the world's GDP.

. . .

I'm talking more about longer term trends, specifically responding to an opinion that used the word "never".

Admittedly not relevant to the OP, bit of a [rant] I think the moral/philosophical/political bankruptcy of my home country is much more significant than macro economic measures. The idiotic "war on drugs", "war on terror", the near-total corruption of our political processes, practically explicit class warfare, the ruthless "winner take all" rules of the current economy, abandonment of even lip service to the ideals of our founders - all these things represent to me the "hollowing out" of a society that used to lead the world in hope for man's progressive evolution.

If we want to regain upward momentum in our leadership of the world we need to recapture - or rather make more genuine once again - our willingness to structure society - not just our own but the others where we have strong influence - in alignment with our ideals, and stop letting our greedy elite drive the use of our international power to serve only their definition of our "national interest".

[/rant]

[monkfish]

I don't quite understand the Paranoia on this thread.

Where in the article which does it actually states Chinese is more important than English?

What it says is most Thai Students are choosing to learn Chinese as a foreign language opposed to other western languages

and I assume English isn't mentioned cos it's already being taught in schools.

[LPCustom69]

Both economically and geographically, Chinese is an obvious choice to study.

However, it's the quality of output that matters. Until I see native Chinese tour guides replaced by Chinese-speaking Thai tour guides, then I won't believe in any eventual success stories that are peddled around.

Thai University students can speak Chinese at near native level. This contrasts to English. They respect Chinese, they like Chinese and they love learning Chinese. They have a passion to learn Chinese and this is why their Chinese is so incredibly excellent, spoken and written.

Yeah, whatever.

[sparebox2]

This is the end of White Farang supremacy.

The new dawn for the Yellow man.

[h90]

The link shows you the HSK test levels for mainland Chinese (simplified Chinese) , Taiwanese (classic Mandarin) is at a higher level.

12 levels, the basic levels correspond with the TOEFL Test.

http://www.china.org...RIAL/105441.htm

How many Thais survive the TOEFL Test? For Sino-Thais the HSK Test would be a little bit easier, but it is a Mandarin Test.

Most Sino-Thais speak a Chinese dialect, the reading of simplified Chinese is limited.

Most Mandarin speakers in Thailand have connections to Taiwan (descendants of Kuomintang refugees.)

My wife is Sino-Thai, she speaks Mandarin (working 2 years in Taiwan), but she cannot read.

The global languages will be English, simplified Mandarin and Spanish.

I would say English and Spanish.

Because Chinese will learn English so there will be less need for the others to learn Mandarin.

While English and Spanish speaker don't often learn other languages.

[Kananga]

This is the end of White Farang supremacy.

The new dawn for the Yellow man.

Until a little creativity or responsibility is required. Then they come a runnin.

[sparebox2]

This is the end of White Farang supremacy.

The new dawn for the Yellow man.

Until a little creativity or responsibility is required. Then they come a runnin.

God made Earth and man.

Everything else is made in China.