33 replies to this topic

[SuperSwing]

Mandarin is the standard accent spoken on national news stations and being taught in schools. It's the official accent. The different "languages" people speak in different provinces are dialects. The dialect in Beijing is closest to Mandarin as Chinese government created Mandarin based on this dialect.

I don't know about other countries in Asia but India has a similar issue with its linguistic variations. But Indians think of their dialects as languages because some of them involve different writing (spelling) systems, if my memory serves me right. Both countries have a long history with wars, invasions & conquers of different ethnic groups and cultures, and hence different dialects (or languages). But Indian used to be the colony of the Queen so there are a lot of more Indians speaking English than Chinese. And I believe the same with SG. As for China, although people are catching up, once you are out of modern cities like Beijing, Shanghai, HK, etc., the majority of citizens don't speak English. So a really good interpreter is a necessity.

You run into that problem in Vietnam too. The South and the North don't understand each other.

To succeed in doing business with Chinese, not only do you have to learn the language, but also the culture, norms and etiquette (which is more important than the language). But I do think you are humorously correct when you said we just need to know math and science well. Everyone knows alpha, beta, what's a circle and what makes the Earth rotate.

Porche, ppl in SG speak Chinese and English, right?

Yes but when you go to China, the DIFFERENCE in Mandarin across China is Starling. There are just too many provinces. Their language style is not the type that you learn.

The worst part is what seems for example calling a girl "young lady" in madarin seems acceptable in Singapore and some provinces in China, but can be offensive in Shanghai when the term is taken as "prositute"

When doing business and you're not sure of the language either a) get some who can interpret the langauge or don't do the deal if the other party can't understand the language you're speaking in.

Certainly learning a language in 10 days is rubbish to me. I'll probably land up offending the other party and getting no deal done.

[NAV]

NAV,

how about that Bloomber report's $2 daily income in India? You must be Buffett class rich over there!

I sure would like to hire those $2 per day workers, wherever they exist today !


There is only one rich class in India and they are called Politicians. The rest are all poor suckers !

[porsche911sg]

But I do think you are humorously correct when you said we just need to know math and science well. Everyone knows alpha, beta, what's a circle and what makes the Earth rotate.

Ah maths and Science is sort of universal, One single platform same in every country, city, province... I have nothing against language but as i was saying, its a beautiful form of art, but learning a language for business as a main basis is not what should be right.

Madarin by itself has different style apart form all the other dialect. They write charther with a bit of variance, Something like American english and english but the variant of mandarin is much larger.

[iloli way]

Yes, history and biology, two of my best sources of sentiment/contrarian reading ability, if I can tell you how to use them, I would. China, every bit of likeliness as Europe historically, should be in many political states. Since Qin Shi Huang Di, the First Ever King and Emperor Combined title, 'unified' China's last 7 waring States more than 2000 years ago, he sat up one Federal standard for all states under his control: same written characters, same widths of roads, same measurements units but keeping each dialects for local needs. For all bureaucratic practicality purposes. Even today, if chinese can't understand each others accent dialect, they can write to communicate. Yet, speaking Mandarin and writing calligraphers in the long past were only affordable for the elite ruling classes and merchants, that's why when Red China embraced the idea of "People's everything", they changed the writing part of the language first - by simplify the traditional 'Complicated style' way of writing; so more or all of the populations can learn and use understand each others, easier to govern too. It's always easier to teach to write one 'simple codes' than to speak one 'Pu-Tung-Huaw- ordinary dialect- Mandarin'. That's also why numbers, codes, alphabets, and science, math, TV jingles, Beatles and bibles are more universal. Now you sure if i speak all I just wrote in English that you can understand what i was saying? Can EU one day read, write and speak in ONE? So can China, I guess. Tower of Babel? Nah, we can just use translating softwares and drive everyone crazy!

[porsche911sg]

Something translating softwares don't work too well. I once sold a rolleiflex camera on ebay a few years ago in my ad I stated "lense has scratches" "had some delimination" After the buyer from china received he asked why there scratches when stated "no scratches" according to his translation, I don't know why the translator did not give the exact meaning in his case.

[NAV]

Talking about translations, the phrase "Out of sight, out of mind" got translated into another language, in the United Nations, as "Invisible, Idiot"

[goldswinger]

Talking about translations, the phrase "Out of sight, out of mind" got translated into another language, in the United Nations, as "Invisible, Idiot"

I am convinced the english language was designed to confuse the rest of the world. That nvisible idiot, the maesto "bubbles" greenspeak is the bankers representative in that regard.

GS.

[dasein]

I think Sinclairs business is selling newsletters. I love languages - I worked in HK and everyone said - dont be crazy to learn Cantonese. I could read some stuff - that helped more than speaking. I worked in Russia, and mz translator was the best - I agree you will never get the nuances right in most languages, and a great translator - thank you Anatoly - makes a world of difference - just learn day to day speech - peaople really appreciate the effort, but dont risk important decisions without a translator. my POV is everyone talks about the China thing, and I agree they are the country being most sensible now, but they have a lot of difficult problems to solve - tho they may well manage it. No one talks about Russia, that is the language I would pick.

Edited by dasein, 16 November 2009 - 11:35 AM.

[iloli way]

I think Sinclairs business is selling newsletters.

In January 2003, Mr. Sinclair launched, “Jim Sinclairs MineSet,” LINK which is a free service to anyone knows how to click a mouse.

Misinformation is worse than no information.

[dasein]

thanks for the correction - he did sell newsletteers as my father was a subscriber. nonetheless, mz point was he makes his money from investors motivated by certain beliefs about the market, and from the mineset info, which is indeed free, i think this is probablz still the case.