Arabipod.com
shenyanger
October 06, 2007, 11:48 AM posted in General DiscussionIs there really no association with chinesepod.com as they say. If not it's a big rip-off with everything from "arabic in you pocket" to the design resembling an earlier version of chinesepod.com
BTW, any plans for a Russian version of chinesepod.com
Your site is amazing.
Thanks.
John
October 10, 2007, 02:54 AMmongo, It's required by law that schools use Mandarin to conduct class. The students are all supposed to speak to each other in Mandarin as well. For that reason, many Chinese young people go through the experience of speaking Mandarin with all their classmates, but a dialect with their parents, and then either Mandarin or dialect (or both) for their jobs after university, depending on what kind of jobs they get. Mandarin is used from kindergarten. I have noticed, though, that some of the older teachers in Shanghai "cheat" and use a bit of Shanghainese. This problem gets worse and creeps into higher grades as you move out into the countryside. The overall Mandarin level of teachers is getting much better, though, which results in the students speaking more standard Mandarin. Hong Kong has a special situation re: the use of Cantonese.
Kyle
October 06, 2007, 11:45 PMWell, according to my stats, which are a few years old, Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world by native speakers. It beats English by around 10 million.
goulnik
October 07, 2007, 12:34 AMhighest number of speakers doesn't necessarily means largest learning-as-foreign-language market though, e.g. Chinese until recently
Kyle
October 07, 2007, 01:04 AMThat's very true. English is obviously the #1 foreign language. Anyone know what #2 would be? Mandarin? What about 3#? Most high schools in the States only get to choose from Spanish or French. Most take Spanish becaues it seems the most practical (Hispanics being a large minority in the States). Languages like Chinese, Japanese, German etc. are offered, but are uncommon mostly due to the lack of teachers and/or interest.
sparechange
October 07, 2007, 04:26 AMI thought Hindi was up there somewhere in the top 10, but that may be including non-native speakers. Most Indians I know speak Hindi and English, while their native language is something different entirely. I'm a little disappointed there aren't more resources for learning Hindi. I think it's a fascinating language.
Kyle
October 07, 2007, 04:57 AMBengali is 4th, Hindi is 5th.
shenyanger
October 07, 2007, 03:32 PMFor the record, Kyle, numbers are highly disputed.I've always found widely varying numbers. Also, www.englishpod.com started before spanishsense.com Again, I don't know for a fact it's under Praxis but the blurb written on the site about changing business models sounds like it is directly from Ken's mouth. I'm thinking about Spanish but I'd really love a Russian version of this site Ken/Praxis.
shenyanger
October 07, 2007, 03:35 PMAnd arabicpod.com has no option to pay is it being funded or given source code by Praxis. Just some enthusiasts working for free for now until it really gets going. If it is under Praxis why isn't it promoted in a news letter. I only ask because I want to know if it is going to definitely get better or if there is a chance it is going to die like some of these language learning podcasts seem to do.
pulosm
October 07, 2007, 04:52 PMI think the statistics on this are all skewed when it comes to Chinese. They count every single Chinese person as speaking Mandarin as their first language. As we know, this is patently false.
man2toe
October 06, 2007, 01:37 PMKyle, are you sure Spanish is # 2?
mongo
October 09, 2007, 07:30 AMseems a bit high...but then again there are at least 6.7 billion people on the earth.... that figure would put it at about 2.7 people out of every 10 people speaking english.... its probably more like 1 out of every 10 people speaks english (670 millon speakers)....
mongo
October 09, 2007, 07:45 AMhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
Kyle
October 09, 2007, 08:23 AMMy records of "native Mandarin" speakers says 885 million. That's of 1.3 billion Chinese. Secondly, the only "native Mandarin" speakers are in NE China. Everyone else learns it as a second language in school.
pulosm
October 10, 2007, 12:46 AMRight. Does the NE really account for 885 million speakers? I don't think it does. Plus, you gotta count the Taiwanese people, I guess. But I say can't be more than 500 million true native speakers.
pulosm
October 10, 2007, 01:11 AMAlso, I always find these lists shady because they put down "Mandarin" as the native language for people in places not big enough to have their own language "minority" (sounds contradictory, I know). Look at this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_(linguistics). I think this is how they get Mandarin having over 800 million "native" speakers. Mandarin is simply NOT the native language to people way down south like that map shows But, I guess, what difference does it make after all.
John
October 10, 2007, 02:05 AMKyle, Sorry, I have to point something out. You said:
Secondly, the only 'native Mandarin' speakers are in NE China. Everyone else learns it as a second language in school.You seem a little confused about what "first language" (i.e. "native language") and "second language" mean. From the Wikipedia entry on second language:
According to some researchers, the defining difference between a first language (L1) and a second language (L2) is the age at which the language was learned. For example, linguist Eric Lenneberg used second language to mean a language consciously acquired or used by its speaker after puberty. In most cases, people never achieve the same level of fluency and comprehension in their second languages as in their first language. These views are closely associated with the Critical Period Hypothesis.This definition is the one used by the universities when I studied linguistics. In actuality, many, many people in China have two first languages. In other words, they're bilingual. Take my wife for example. She has grown up in Shanghai and speaks Shanghainese, but she's equally fluent in Mandarin (if not more so). To say that she is not a native speaker of Mandarin because she doesn't come from the northeast is just not true.
man2toe
October 10, 2007, 02:34 AMTaiwan, like China also has an indigenous language or two (Hakka and Taiwanese) in addition to learning Mandarin. As John points out, making most Taiwanese bi to tri linguals. In addition, most children start formal English training in preschool lasting through high school. When it comes to language training, America's High Schools are like Galapagos turtles, slow, old, evolving at an incredibly slow rate, and way out of touch with the rest of the world. Taiwan has a mere 22,858,872 左右個人:( Seems like the Taiwan population is headed south:( http://www.nationmaster.com/country/tw-taiwan
mongo
October 10, 2007, 02:41 AMJohn, here's a question for you: In areas where the local dialect is different from Mandarin, for instance Shanghai, are the K-12 classes held in Mandarin or the local dialect? At what point is Mandarin introduced and to what extent? does this vary by region and dialect? I had always guessed that since the official language of the country as of the 1950's, or possibly longer, is Mandarin then that would mean that all the schools would use this language as their primary means of communications... On the other hand, I've often heard that Cantonese are quite passionate towards their language... yet, i've never met a person that speaks Cantonese from mainland China that also doesn't also know how to speak Mandarin in my limited experience...
mongo
October 09, 2007, 06:39 AM"Nowadays English is used by an estimated 1.8 billion speakers (about 400 million of them being native speakers). " (See, [http://www.ehistling-pub.meotod.de/01_lec06.php])
Kyle
October 06, 2007, 12:25 PMI'm pretty sure that the umbrella corporation is "Praxis Language" which includes Chinesepod and Spanishsense. If I'm correcting in assuming that Praxis is following the largest markets (Mandarin #1 with around 900 million native speakers, and Spanish #2 with around 350 million) then the next target would be English--the 3rd most widely spoken language in the world by native speakers. If not English, then Bengali which has around 200 million native speakers. Russian is #6 with around 170 million and Japanese #8 with around 130 million.