I don’t see Mandarin taking over English as the default language, so to speak. Mainly because it’s way easier for people who know languages like Spanish, German, other European languages to pick up English as a second language then it would be for them to learn Chinese or another Asian one.
Yeah, but there are probably more of Mandarin speakers than all the others combined.
Native English speakers are definitely a minority globally. And I’m not even saying taking over, just that in some places it might be an additional one, and English won’t be the language, only a language.
To the point that not knowing Mandarin at all might be a similar disadvantage in the world as not knowing English at all.
The writing’s been on the wall for a while hasn’t it? Several of my non-Chinese classmates I graduated university with took Mandarin as their 2nd language since elementary school and speak it as well as the mainlanders (according to the Chinese exchange students, anyways).
It kinda looks like the US might move to the other end of the cultural colonialism thing.
It might be worth it to pick some mandarin up.
I don’t see Mandarin taking over English as the default language, so to speak. Mainly because it’s way easier for people who know languages like Spanish, German, other European languages to pick up English as a second language then it would be for them to learn Chinese or another Asian one.
Yeah, but there are probably more of Mandarin speakers than all the others combined.
Native English speakers are definitely a minority globally. And I’m not even saying taking over, just that in some places it might be an additional one, and English won’t be the language, only a language.
To the point that not knowing Mandarin at all might be a similar disadvantage in the world as not knowing English at all.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers#Ethnologue_(2024)
The stats seem to indicate that English is the most spoken language still, though Mandarin wins on first language speakers by far which makes sense.
The writing’s been on the wall for a while hasn’t it? Several of my non-Chinese classmates I graduated university with took Mandarin as their 2nd language since elementary school and speak it as well as the mainlanders (according to the Chinese exchange students, anyways).