Photo from Flickr/stepsaheadlearners
I came across this article in More Intelligent Life, the Economist's 'Lifestyle' arm, entitled "Should you teach your kids Chinese?". The article in fact addresses a much more specialised question - "In light of "China's rise", will Chinese become the world's lingua franca, and hence, should you jump a step ahead and make sure your kids learn it to get an advantage over everyone else?"
The writer, Robert Lane Greene, an international correspondent for the Economist, basically says no, because it's unlikely that Putonghua will become the world's lingua franca, mainly because of its complicated writing system (characters that even native speakers take years to master).
I agree with the first bit, that it's unlikely that Standard Chinese (or Putonghua, Mandarin - call it what you will) will become the world's lingua franca. I just didn't like the way he says it - "America’s superpower status has made it everyone’s favourite second language." Dude, the world does not revolve around America. The proliferation of English has the British Council to thank too. If we only learnt English through American media we'd all be speaking like the sex-up sluts in B-grade Hollywood movies.
Americans and Euro/Anglo-centric writers and journalists, stop talking like you are the centre of the universe. Firstly I doubt the universe, or our globe at least, really has a centre of 'power', and secondly, just because you got rich more quickly (partly because you went and colonised resource-rich Asian and African nations), it doesn't mean your theories are going to work globally, all the time, or that you should impose your values on us.
Anyway, I digress. Parents have all sorts of reasons for wanting their kids to learn particular languages, arts or skills, and as the principal carer of the child, it's their choice. I agree with Greene that it shouldn't be solely because China is "rising" (by the way, you should think again when you blurt that out at another Manhattan dinner party, and here's one reason why). If you love Chinese culture, or think you'll move there, or that your kid will, then yeah, by all means, go for it, but these are the same reasons why you should be sending your kid to Spanish classes, Taekwondo practice or choir.
As for the Chinese-is-too-difficult-to-write argument, well all I can say is, Arabic looks pretty damned hard too.
