How can a large company not have heard of Mandarin?
sebire
October 06, 2008, 12:48 PM posted in General DiscussionI'm attempting to fill in an application form for a British subsidiary of a large German company, and there is a drop-down list for languages, which list includes the following languages I've never heard of: Kannada, Kiswahili, Marthi, Oria, Sindebele, Thelugu, Xhosa and Yoruba; but not Mandarin! Unbelievable! (It does have Cantonese, but still...)
Anyone speak any of the above?
changye
October 07, 2008, 01:19 AMYou are mistaken if you think that all the people in the world need to learn Chinese. Your needs are not necessarily other people's needs. Even the smallest language in the world is a precious jewel for people who need it.
hitokiri6993
October 06, 2008, 01:41 PMI know Cantonese.:)
nashry
October 06, 2008, 01:48 PMXhosa ist spoken in Southern Africa, it's a tonal language (yeaH!), a distinct feature are the dental clicks. Yoruba (also tonal), on the other hand ist spoken by the Yoruba people of West Africa. Kannada is one of the dozens of languages spoken in India.
bababardwan
October 06, 2008, 01:54 PMActually,I've been hanging out for Yorubapod for sometime now :)
sebire
October 06, 2008, 02:21 PMI would name and shame the company, but you never know if one of their grad recruitment team are learning Chinese (but then again, the above evidence would suggest that they aren't!) I doubt very much that it is to do with where their offices are based (I think it is mainly a European business), considering that "Latin" is also listed. Mandarin or Chinese are definitely not on the list. The list is for applicant's language skills. I just throw Mandarin in for good measure, I'm not good enough for it to be of any use, however it's better than my school French, which I also list for good measure.
I didn't realise that Kiswahili was the same as Swahili, which I definitely have heard of.
henning
October 06, 2008, 02:48 PMProbably the intern who prepared this form just carelessly dropped one or two languages while copying & pasting from Wikipedia.
Alternative: Chinese is a prerequisiste so there is no need to put it on the list. Is English included? ;)
nashry
October 06, 2008, 04:29 PMSebire, you want to be careful mentioning languages for "good measure". I once put French and Japanese into my CV (nowhere near fluent, reading is ok though). Quite unexpectedly, the interviewer was a Frenchman who had spent most of his childhood years in Japan.
I wonder whether selecting Latin as one's mother tongue would elicit collective puzzlement in the human resources department ;-)
vikram
October 06, 2008, 04:30 PMHa Ha. Kannada is the language spoken in my hometown in India. Bangalore :D
bababardwan
October 06, 2008, 01:37 PMjambo jambo;that's just about it [anythings better than zilch I say].I believe Kiswahili [or often referred to as just Swahili] is widely spoken throughout East Africa [though mainly as a second language or lingua franca ].Don't know anything about any of the others [though I've heard of Xhosa].Tanzania where Swahili is spoken was of course a former German colony.And of course Kenya next door was a British colony and Swahili is also spoken there.HK former British [and of course Cantonese].I may be reading way too much into this as I don't know what business the company is in,but could it have to do with where it's offices are set up [even though Mandarin is spoken by the most people in the world, maybe it doesn't have offices in China or Chinese speaking countries]? I wouldn't presume anyone to be that ignorant.
nashry
October 06, 2008, 06:49 PMYeah. I got the job though, they were probably impressed by my level of self-confidence. ;-)
"our training scheme is world class. Please describe something you have done which is world class" "I've worked my way through this darn form. That's universe class." What did you write? Or did you just 吃不到葡萄说葡萄酸?
frances
October 06, 2008, 07:10 PMA lot of places consider Mandarin and Chinese to be equivalent, so they might only list other Chinese languages, like Cantonese, separately.
Consider ChinesePod itself, which so far is an exclusively Mandarin site but does not make this explicit. "Learn Chinese on your terms!" Quickly looking at the CPod intro pages, (new user tour, "About Us", etc...,) I couldn't find an instance of the word "Mandarin" being used.
Now, if "Chinese" isn't on the list of languages either I would be extremely surprised!
sebire
October 06, 2008, 08:32 PMFrances, the list is in alphabetical order, and around the C's it goes "Burmese, Cantonese, Czech, Danish" and near the M's it has "Luganda/Lusoga, Malay, Marthi, Nepalese"! It's just a bit stupid.
Nashry, what does that saying mean? All I can find is something to do with not eating sour grapes. In this case, I have not answered the question yet, it is far too much like hard work! Maybe I will consider Goulniky's answer due to my lack of achievements that a normal person would consider world class (any Olympic medallists among us? Anyone cured any diseases? I haven't!)
Cornelia
October 06, 2008, 09:56 PMHi Sebire,
don't worry too much about "world class"... Germans often are not really fluent in English, maybe due to so many anglicisms which are even positively wrong for a native English speaker.
If a German thinks of "Weltklasse", it means something that cannot easily be done better anywhere in the world, it's sufficient to reach this level of accepted best-in-class. Think of opposite to "provincial" or average.
And yes, Goulniky's idea is excellent for this: that you know how best to learn languages, with maximum outcome and most relevant content. That you are not afraid to embark on really tricky matters, that you are never discouraged by topics with reputation "difficult". You may have more examples for this than learning Chinese.
Good luck, Cornelia
Cornelia
October 06, 2008, 10:23 PMA cultural note to "Latin":
It is still widely taught at German high schools, it is posh, considered as an asset for the "truly educated" - at least in families of several generations of academic education.
Apart from that there is the general expectation that you would have a steep ramp-up curve should you be required to make your way in any "Roman" language, such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, French - because you have got the tool-kit. Which is indeed helpful for passive understanding/reading.
sebire
October 06, 2008, 10:50 PMThanks Cornelia, though the "world class" question is for a different training scheme, I think it probably just means "what have you done that's good".
I'm surprised Latin is still taught much in Germany. It's not taught much in the UK these days, though I imagine it's useful for stuff like French.
pearltowerpete
October 06, 2008, 11:34 PMHi Cornelia and sebire,
As a devoted student of Latin, and as someone from the other side of the pond, I'd point out that learning that language gave me a much firmer grasp on English. This is surely partly due to the sad state of English language education in America, but also because it gave a different perspective on the mechanics of a language.
I imagine the benefits to your English (or other Romance languages) of learning Latin are similar to the benefits of learning classical Chinese for us here. It's not essential, and there is no oral component, but it will make you better at reading and writing.
Incidentally, since they are roughly from the same time and because both are not nearly appreciated enough, I have often thought of translating Virgil into classical Chinese. That's why you have to marry for money and translate for love.
sebire
October 06, 2008, 04:47 PMOh it's ok nashry, you're expected to put your level of ability too, so I just selected "basic". Did the interviewer start quizzing you in Japanese?
Henning, English was included. Maybe you're right, it is a prerequisite.
As for other awful application forms, I had another question that went something like "our training scheme is world class. Please describe something you have done which is world class". I'm still puzzling this one.
nashry
October 06, 2008, 01:37 PMI know a smattering of Kiswahili...Perhaps Mandarin is listed under another term? What's that drop down list for - the applicant's language skills?