Posted on 01/29/2006 4:43:03 PM PST by Dick Bachert
Just caught a network news segment on how the Chicago government schools – at the alleged urging of parents – are teaching kids there CHINESE, a language having 3 gazillion unique GRAPHIC – as opposed to our 26 alphabetical – characters and 4 or so basic SOUNDS!
They claim they’re doing this so our kids can COMPETE with the Chinese – most of whom are busy learning a much easier language: ENGLISH!!
I think teaching American kids Chinese is wonderful. These kids will then be able to explain why they are ignorant of biology, physics, math, basic science, etc. – IN CHINESE because their local educrats stole time from THOSE vital skills necessary for us to compete with the Europeans and the Chinese – to teach them CHINESE!
Chinese solves that problem by making the written form of the word completely unrelated to anything about how it sounds.
Chinese has 40 characters and is one of the easiest languages there is. English is considered difficult.
Greek (classical) has the most phonetic alphabet ever.
they are learning the language of their future masters :)
Complaints continue about that defect in the English written language, and even more so in French.
Think about this: KNOW THINE ENEMY.
Geez... what's wrong with learning a different language? I only wish I had the option of something other than Spanish and French when I was in school.
"Yea, we don't want some of our kids learning Chinese because they might go forward and get a job with the CIA, Military, Big Business or some kind of other un-American occupation."
Thanks for stating the obvious.
It's hard enough being a conservative, I really hate when people give liberals free ammunition to make us look like out of touch bumblers.
Absolutely true. Kids are like sponges when they're young. It is much easier for them to learn foreign languages. I began taking Spanish when I was in the second grade, and even had a little French in the third grade. After seven years of Spanish, I had a breeze of a time in high school Spanish, and cruised through a Spanish minor in college.
As a non-native speaker, let me tell you that English is extremely difficult to learn. I've learned to speak a number of languages. Nothing for me is so hard as Mandarin -- I gave that up.
"Good, maybe they will do better with Chinese than they do with English!"
There's no way a kid can fail a written exam in chinese. All you've to do is scribble something that looks like a chinese character and you're through!
Unrelated but when I was in grade school many year ago [40+] my 4th grade teacher had us learn several Japanese phrases... Does that mean I'm turning Japanese, that I'm turning Japanese, I don't think so...
Doesn't Latin as well?
That's a language I'd really like to learn. If nothing else, I could impress babes by posing as a lawyer...
I'm confused. Chinese is an extremely useful language to learn, and it is increasingly so. What's wrong with learning it? It'll give these kids a huge competitive edge in applying for all kinds of employment.
I read somewhere a long time ago that the odds of a child attending a university more than doubled if they spoke more than one language. More education is never a bad thing. Learning Chinese could benefit OUR government too -- after all, the NSA needs people fluent in all languages.
JSL
Chinese is on my list, probably about fourth now. I am remaining optimistic on that one.
Out of curiosity, 40 characters? Not when I was learning it. Maybe they've downsized.
Or rather, not learning it.
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