An emerging culture comes to class
October 18, 2010 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Thanks to an international learning program, Duluth high school students are learning about the world’s fastest-emerging culture.
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An emerging culture comes to class
12 Comments
The fastest emerging culture? Then it would behoove high school students to learn the chinese language!
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>”it would behoove high school students to learn the chinese language!”
Uh, thats what Mandarin is.
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um, Mandarin is just one of several languages or dialects spoken in China. There IS no single Chinese language. Mandarin is not even necessarily the majority tongue – but it is more and more recognized and expected as the language of government and business. Putonghua is the common spoken language of many Chinese, and there are so many common dialects that even in China itself, the Mandarin dialect must be taught to its citizens who aspire to higher employment.
tom koehler
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***** the Mandarin dialect must be taught to its citizens who aspire to higher employment. *********
So obviously that’s what American s students should learn, no?
I’ve got two kids in the program. One third year, one second year.
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The instructor must be teaching them the Mandarin word for antler.
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Right ObamaNation, Mandarin is the language spoken by the vast majority of Chinese. It’s good to see some high schools making the righ choices by adding classes related to Mandarin and dropping language classes that have seen brighter days, such as French. Really, who needs to learn French unless they are moving to Canada or something.
Like it or not, China is growing faster than any other industrialized country economically by leaps and bounds. Our childrens’ futures will be helped along much more by learning Mandarin than by learning French.
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Well, I really dont care what language you want to learn, but I still think that if you speak English, you should still study at least one of the romance languages, they are all offshoots of the original Latin.
Chinese is fine, if thats what you want to learn, but it does nothing to teach our children where their mother tongue came from.
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Teach children where their mother tongue came from?
What?
I should put my kids in a Norwegian or German language class to culture them or something? Come on, man…
I studied German and even minored in it in college. It’s done nothing to teach me about my “mother tongue” and to be honest that term sounds strangely indicative of an Oedipus Complex. :p
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OMG, LOL.
Dont be thick. What I said was I thought it was good for someone to study the evolution of their primary language.
You say you went to college?
Lmao
Doubtful.
Sounds like to didn’t develop much of an appreciation for knowledge OR reason.
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Yep. I even graduated with a degree.
But why the hostility? I didn’t think my comment earned that from you…
“What I said was I thought it was good for someone to study the evolution of their primary language.”
Well, no, that really isn’t what you said. What you said was this:
“you should still study at least one of the romance languages, they are all offshoots of the original Latin.”
and
“Chinese is fine, if thats what you want to learn, but it does nothing to teach our children where their mother tongue came from.”
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I suppose they might as well learn it. Lord knows if China were to cash in all the US debt they hold we’d have to learn “Would you like fries with that” in all Chinese dialects.
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Hats off to Sarah Fleissner for having the foresight to study Mandarin Chinese. If she does manage to stick with it and graduate with a college degree in international business and a minor in Chinese, I believe she is assured of landing a good job. Go, Sarah. Go! It takes a super human to learn a language this difficult. Anybody who has ever tried learning a tonal language will know what I’m talking about.
It’s unfortunate that French was dropped from the curriculum. It is a beautiful language. The French are blessed with a culture world-renowned for its art, literature, and philosophy—a culture best understood by learning the language. I have always been favorably impressed with the French people, and look upon my time spent developing a reasonable fluency in the French language as time well spent.
It’s unfortunate that language instruction isn’t begun in the lower grades; young learners pick up languages so much faster and more accurately. (As far as I know it isn’t started then.)
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