The time to learn Chinese is RIGHT NOW (2020 to 2040)

there was one little thing I heard on
the radio when I was a kid that stayed with me my whole life there's a meteorologist on the radio who was being asked a tough question and he said back to the news broadcaster he said look forecasting is an art and a science and that's not what I'm doing here that's not what I do on the radio he said what I do is describe to you problems that are already happening right now I give you an analysis of events now as they're unfolding and that's completely different from forecasting that's completely different from predicting how much rain will there be in the next 12 months or in the next 6 years or you know how how well is the wheat crop gonna do I mean weather forecasting for farming can be very very serious business right he says no no what I'm doing right now on this radio program I'm telling you about a storm or I'm telling you about a hurricane it's happening right now we have satellite images right now I'm giving you analysis of reality as it unfolds right now that's very very different it's different from forecasting ok people ask me all the time should they learn Chinese two different people talking about this today from the year 2020 to the year 2040 if we're talking about the immediate future in my lifetime in your lifetime yes right now is the time to learn Chinese as a language as never before I got I got sympathy for other languages I have interest in other languages historical interest academic interest scholarly interest there are fascinating languages in India okay and you know what maybe in the next 200 years India is also going to be of this kind of immense political cultural and economic importance but right now not forecasting talking about the reality right now as it's unfolding right now the opportunity is Chinese Chinese is the language to learn whether you are in California or New York City or Hong Kong or Taiwan or Athens Greece wherever you are in Europe or Africa or South America right now Chinese is the language to learn so I got Melissa on on the wire here I got Melissa on the phone and your perspective on this a little bit different just because you have to deal with a different kind of skepticism in your life right which so these same people like okay the Chinese language is so iconic it's instantly recognizable don't you see Chinese don't you see the writing on the wall as we say in English don't you see it on neon signs in Los Angeles in New York City in London England on't you see it everywhere don't you hear about China on the news every night you have like keeping it really show talking about ordinary people not people who are specialists or scholars or somebody don't they have some sense of the enormous unique importance of China in the world right now and in the immediate future but look I don't look I've got all the sympathy in the world for Bangladesh I got all the sympathy in the world for the Tamils these are important language I have all the sympathy in the world for people who make the commitment to learn a tiny language with a small number of speakers like Irish you know Irish Gaelic or creed or a Jib way those are very very different kinds of commitments to make it's a very very difficult argument ask are you the right person to commit to studying this language but I mean right now 2020 a Chinese I really feel the writing is on the wall it's completely obvious you and I were in Athens Greece together not we didn't talk to that many people but you remember I talked to the owner of that bookstore and that guy just didn't get it so this guy this guy owns a bookstore he speaks good English I could say like 10 words in Greek you know my ability in Greek was almost zero but I was studying before I went over talking this guy in English and I'm really trying to let him know look you know you need to start carrying books for people learning Chinese the Athens the Piraeus harbour the famous ancient harbour of Athens is now owned by the Chinese this is the place where China meets Europe this is where all of the industry and all of the shipping and they had just announced a whole long list of new institutions to be built this is where you know Chinese people are gonna be learning Greek and Greek people are gonna be learning Chinese as never before and there are billions of dollars involved and all kinds of opportunities and guess what do a little bit of math compare the total population of Greece to the total population of China the influence China has on Greece is going to be so much bigger than the influence Greece says in China and that guy he just didn't get it I mean you remember his reaction like the rental properties has now grown to become such a huge source of Chinese immigrants right that most of the property is owned by people of Chinese descent right and it takes it takes less than 1/2 of 1% of China to totally transform Greece forever and that partnership is very real ongoing and it's it's exploding right now you know not not just economically not just politically but yes including economically and politically so so really briefly this phone call with my girlfriend it's inspired by the fact that I had a conversation with an old friend the two of us have had for several years and this old friend of mine was at first asking me whether or not he should learn Japanese and then long story short I started talking about Japanese French and several other languages and asked him would why are you considering learning another language at all like what's motivating you take on another language you know and he gave me a complex answer that I think is true of many people who are you know like as grown adults thinking about making a serious commitment to another language that included you know wanting to branch out intellectually wanting to have a more fulfilling life emotionally but yes you know there is a huge component here which is just an economic concern he's concerned about his own employability in the future he's concerned about how much of the map of planet Earth he's really gonna have access to for the rest of his life so and so forth so there was there was a big big fear of being economically marginalized and wanting to learn a language for that reason and you know I just said it will look if this is what we're talking about Chinese is the language free to learn there is no comparison of Japanese now babe sorry I'm gonna keep talking for a minute but babe I think you you don't see this side of Western culture there's this whole discourse we're obsessed with with you know the decline of the Roman Empire and like when you use the word decline people assume it means something it really doesn't mean decline decline doesn't mean that Rome completely burned down and disappeared okay Rome is still there um but Japan right now Japan right now is in decline okay beautiful country great place to go on vacation they have democracy and freedom of speech high quality of life good health care very low crime rate a lot of great things to say about Japan and none of those things are true of China confidence China is not a democracy don't have a low crime rate you know okay a lot of guess what Japan is in decline well maybe you're planning to live forever whoever you are watching this in the audience maybe you're planning to live another 100 years I'm worried about the next 20 years I've got to live for today I've got to live for now okay in the next 20 years Japan is in decline and it is going to continue to be in decline the significance of the Japanese language even within Japan and internationally is going to continue to decline speaking Japanese is not important or useful in Paris London Berlin Los Angeles or New York City it's not and 20 years from now that trend is going to continue Japan will become less and less significant okay a lot of wonderful things about Japan but that is the truth Japan is in decline there's no comparison to Chinese Chinese is already a tremendously important language in Los Angeles London Paris Berlin New York City right it already is and 20 years from now it is only going to be more so I have all kinds of sympathy for the people of India and the politics of India and the languages of India within 20 years that's that is not that is not a prediction I can make and there is no other language there no other culture there is no other political discourse that is in terms of scale and depth is as can compete with China it can even be compared to Chinese as a language I got I got love for France you know I got love for French culture and French people and you know I have my own reasons to be motivated to learn French in the next 20 years to talk about to talk about learning French being attached to some kind of opportunity the opportunities attached to the French language would be trivial just no comparison compared to what learning Chinese means now you ask yourself these questions - okay you talk about the way it's meaningful to you we talked about the economic edge which well okay something I said to him surprise me slightly I surprised myself a little bit I said to him look when you're thinking about learning a language you have to ask yourself a little bit is this language interesting to me in itself look am i interested in these this history this culture am i interested in the politics that are unfolding now you know in and of itself or am I only interested in it in connection to other things as a means to something else right and I said some look I I used to study Japanese right Japan is interesting Japan is fascinating to me right but only as it's connected other things and I think this also does relate to the nature of the economic opportunity you know really like you know what's interesting Japan's role in world war two but that's not Japan it's Japan's role in the Russian Revolution did research on that you guys might not know but that's not Japan right that's Japan's connection to to Russia you know it I would say history you know what's interesting what's interesting is how a whole bunch of really important European texts including like European philosophy were first translated into Japanese and then went from Japanese into Chinese and how this totally transformed Chinese culture you know how Japan reinterpreted European culture and science and technology and then the rest of Asia got influenced that's interesting okay oh that's interesting to me but Japan in itself of itself for itself I'm not really interested in Japan and look just briefly to flip that around I think a lot of Japanese people if they're studying World War one they might be interested in Canada's role in world war one I think if they're studying World War two they're interested in Canada's role in world war two but they're not really interested in Canada you know that's that's I'm Canadian I'm not insulted but it's just I think you really have to be honest with yourself about that and let me tell you something China is interesting to me for China like Chinese politics matter when they have no connection to the outside world when it's were just talking about China Chinese history you know going back 2,000 years or more whatever you want to say with that if I were really Chinese I'd say 5,000 years they always wanted a kid hey we don't we don't really have 5,000 years history to work with but anyway getting into fragments of pottery from 5,000 years ago right well a you know however many thousand years and current and ongoing China you know is interesting and rewarding and important economically politically and in every other way sure you know just it just as China so for me I think that's that's something you have to kind of examine yourself you have to consider your own feelings you have to come to your own conclusions so I think you never mention that before that's trying to get here is when I was in high school I felt that the languages that were just put just pause one second just buzz within think about how how demented that is think about our ridiculous that seems now in 2020 think about how ridiculous is say to a kid the future economic opportunity is in Mexico like and if you didn't mean Mexico do you actually mean that the future economic opportunity is in Spain you know Spain went completely bankrupt during our lifetime just a few years ago they run a state of total total economic crisis total economic collapse one of the most extreme economic collapses in history they had more than 25 percent unemployment right just sorry I want to I want you to continue but like what could be more ridiculous than saying to a kid you know the future is Mexico where the future is Spanish even you know again I'm not talking about a hundred years of 200 years I'm living for today I mean the next ten years I mean the next 20 years I've got to make it happen now now now because I don't have 200 years to live start going back great Japanese and we're going to get you a private tutor or something one way or another it would be one hundred percent of your parents yep you know there was no focus on Asian languages and even I know we met somebody in the airport in Beijing in in Beijing Airport who said that Chinese was not offered at his high school so he had to you know get a private tutor of course I think things are changing and more and more you'd be able to learn an Asian language in America it definitely depends on where you live I don't know if it's more normal group students who grow up in to study an Asian language in high school but ya know I I just thought of German culture French culture or Spanish culture is not so porn but you know then I had this experience of living in China with you and getting accustomed to the language familiar with with how to you know how to survive in China and learning more about the history it just you know grew over time to be something that I do have an interest in I do have an interest in China like you say like we're talking about with you know an interest in Japan in terms of world war two is well when I when I was a little kid in Toronto sorry going judgement when I was a little kid in Toronto you you saw my neighborhood but that same neighborhood when I was a kid it had quite a few Jamaican shops I think there were still a couple when we were there but anyway neighborhoods changed that way over as the decades come and go and you know I said to my parents one day I was a little kid I said do you realize that Jamaica is a much smaller country than China and my father laughed he was like yes of course Jamaica is only a small island and I said you know I said basically I thought Jamaica and China were countries of equal size and equal importance like equal population like you know because growing up in that neighborhood again Chinese was very prominent you saw the Chinese language I mean you you can reckon if you don't know any Chinese it just aesthetically and graphically looks different you know when you're looking at a Chinese restaurant or a restaurant with a sign in Chinese it's obvious right so I mean that neighborhood there was a very big Chinese presence but then there wasn't there was an equally large Jamaican presence so in terms of what you're saying like how we grow up perceiving one language as important or one country as important you know again it is partly political it is partly cultural so on and so forth but Amin you know now we're adults now we've got to make some we've got to make some decisions um within my lifetime so I'm 41 years old when I was a kid Singapore spoke a totally different language from mainland China right Hong Kong spoke a totally different language from mainland China right the level of language diversity and mutual and comprehension within China was way higher than it is now okay today and in the next 20 years as never before all of the Chinese people are united by a common language especially a common written language but even so the spoken language being okay that's not true of India that that could change in future okay that could change fifty years from now or something but again today part of the power and depth of what's going on and with the Chinese language and Chinese political discourse is that this is one language that reaches over a billion people and get when I was a kid that really wasn't true I mean the government of Singapore had a massive program to try to educate Singaporeans to speak read and understand standard Chinese they really didn't forty years ago it's and the story not worth telling right and then within China province by province city by city it's a different story in different places but of course it's partly the influence of television and the internet and all these other things Chinese has emerged within China as this mega language and look I used to study the Kree language there is no ancient literature in Cree I literally owned or got out of the library every single book ever printed in the Korean language all of them you know so it's a small language spoken by smaller vulé it doesn't have 2000 years of literature it doesn't doesn't write great but you can't write it doesn't exist on paper it has it I mean Christian great you know basically the colonisers great right of interest in that but why what is the future you've you've had the experience of learning all these different languages and you have the experience of saying okay no I don't think creative ways the future generally if you know generally speaking it but if I speak to somebody you know who lives in Europe who wants to learn another language of course you're sure you're not gonna recommend you should learn a creative way sure on a global scale sure you're definitely gonna be more focus on Chinese sure it's a no-brainer what but I think that that's why this that's why this conversation with Mohammed kind of got me out of my comfort zone is because normally I'm giving advice to really scholarly people for really scholarly reasons for the for the right person learning creative way is a great idea like it could be good for you in specific as one specific person I mean though I mean doctors do I talk to very unusual people in universities who are learning languages for a reasonable reason for a very very rare and unusual reasons it could be part of a meaningful life and you could do really meaningful humanitarian work and you can be part of a really meaningful research project in anthropology or whatever it is okay I mean I've asked this question all the time on YouTube you know if not you then who are you the right person to take this on maybe you are as an individual but it's really rare that I deal with that kind of general question for an ordinary person that Muhammad was putting to me and again he's he's a guy who already knows Arabic English and German so for him to learn French would be 1% of the work of learning Japanese but here's another comparison here's another comparison no here's another comparison for him to learn Persian for him to learn the languages of Iran would be 1% well okay maybe 5% of the work right because he already knows Arabic so learning Persian he'd have it's a different language I'm not going to aggression to the differences and similarities okay but still okay it will be much easier for him to learn Persian than to learn Japanese and Chinese right but now think about it intellectually emotionally personally politically and economically in the next 20 years there is no comparison between Chinese and Persia between China and Iran and there's no comparison between China and France either there you go guys for once from this channel reckless optimism reckless encouragement right now 2020 is the time to learn Chinese as never before