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May 27, 2012
Chinese should be taught in schools: minister
Published: 6 Jul 11 09:41 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/34768/20110706/
Learning Chinese at any elementary school in the country could become reality for children in Sweden within the next decade, if education minister and Liberal Party head Jan Björklund gets his way.
- Non-EU students drop Swedish unis as fees bite (23 May 12)
- 9 untranslatable Swedish words - caught on film (9 May 12)
- 'Immigrant kids need more schooling': Sweden (8 May 12)
French, Spanish and German are today the languages commonly offered in all elementary and high school language classes.
Björklund wants Sweden to be the first European country to introduce Chinese language classes in all schools, in a bid to strengthen the country's competitiveness.
"Not everyone in the business world speaks English. Highly qualified businesses are now leaving Europe and moving to China," he points out to business newspaper Dagens Industri.
"If we look towards the next generation, it's almost unavoidable to think anything else than that China will be a very important global actor," said the minister in an interview with Sveriges Radio (SR).
He calculates that it will take between ten and fifteen years to recruit sufficient numbers of teachers able to teach the language.
"It all boils down to teacher training colleges and other institutions expanding their programmes, and if we decide to do this, it's definitely possible," said Björklund to SR.
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Yes they do Jan! They do if they want to get a decent job in a multi national.
75 years ago it was German, then it was Russian, then, in the eighties, it was Japanese, now it's Chinese. Sorry Jan, I find it hard to take seriously yet another politician telling us what language will be the next lingua franca of business. Especially as tens of millions of Chinese are busy learning English right now. Maybe you might benefit from spending less time in politics, and getting out into the real world more often.
The battle of the future global business language was fought, won and moved on decades ago. Chinese and Swedish people will indeed do a lot of business together in the future, but they will do it in English.
A person who speaks several languages has a big advantage when it comes to high level careers. I wish these options had been available to me when I was in school.
By being negative and seeing the aquisition of various language programs being added to the academic curriculum as a threat to the current society, we are actually being detrimental to our youth.
Globalized economy is here, and our youth need to grab every option available to them to increase their potential to compete in todays Global economy.
Please implement that idea and give every kid the chance to learn chinese.
In an effort to promote internationalism, China is learning English.
In the next five years, all state employees younger than 40 will be required to master at least 1,000 English phrases, and all schools will begin teaching English in kindergarten. The government also is funding extensive teacher training programs to find new models for language learning and develop new textbooks.
Check the end of this story for a few phrases in Mandarin, courtesy of LonelyPlanet.
Parents who can afford to, are sending their children -- some as young as 2 -- to private language schools that are popping up all over the country. By the time they are 10, the children will be fluent.
"China is more open to the world," said one teacher. "We [the older generation] want our kids to open their eyes to get to know the world [and] look at China not only from standing in China but from outside of China as well."
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/China/china-pushes-english-language/story?id=12154435
I guess my point is even if the office speaks English, if anyone wants to live in China, speaking Chinese would make that experience much more enjoyable. I know English is aggressively being taught there, but it is still very rare to find English speakers among the native population.
And what mkvgtired said is also right to me. Something mkvgtired does not know, most likely, or hasn't pointed out, is that the English teaching in China so far is mainly targeted for taking exams (of which the ultimate goal is to get qualified for university entrance and graduation through the fierce competition), but not for communication purposes. The majority of Chinese people who can communicate with English proficiently are either people majored in English learning in universities or people who have been studying or/and working abroad, the sum of which is a small fraction to the total population who has learned English for at least 10 years.
english has been accepted as a basic language for multicultural understanding.
chinese is too much of a mess of a language for anyone to learn specially since they themselves have different dialects that in their own country cannot understand eachother.
So only people who brainwash their kids to become bankers that want to rape the world and everyone in it should focus on that not random people who probably will never even see a chinese in their lifetime.
Stop the English colonization now!
You're a fool.
I have to agree with Calebian22. English is my mother tongue and I speak 3 other languages and many of my native English speaking colleagues at least one other language. So don't be fooled naive American pop culture. I would love to learn Chinese as soon as I get my Swedish to a sufficiently advanced level.
In the US a metaphor for 'chaos' is "Chinese fire drill."
There is no phrase in Chinese that means "alphabetical order."
IA
http://www.lonfonschoolofislamics.org.uk
but it has nothing to do with business.
Those learning Chinese will be the next spies for their home country decoding Chinese language broadcast during the coming wars with the Chinese.