I CAN TEARTH YOU WITH CHINESE.我能教你们关于中文

[Reki]

I was only in Singapore for a couple of days, but I thought it was beautiful!

I apologise about the English-speaking Chinese - it is from this article in the Irish Times - simply because the population of China is so enormous, even if only a moderate percentage of the people is learning English, that equates to an huge number, so by the end of the year, China will be the country with the biggest number of English speakers. I accidentally conflated it with an article that said that the number of English speakers in China will exceed the number in the rest of the world by 2025.

Chinese people are becoming increasingly obsessed with speaking English, and efforts to improve English-language proficiency mean that at some stage this year, the world’s most populous nation will become the world’s largest English-speaking country. Two billion people are learning English worldwide, and a very large percentage of them are in China

I do think we have a real beautiful country, but studying here, while I have to admit that it is a privilege, is really stressing me out. Oh dear, how am I going to survive in the corporate society!?

Ah yes, I do get that by association of numbers, it's easy to think that China would be the largest English-speaking country; but I guess that's only so if all of China is partaking in this. It is moving gradually towards that though, so I guess it's only a matter of time.

Sidetrack though, it's crazily stressful studying in China.

[peak]

There are quite a lot of Americans on these forums, but one would expect that. The site was started by a chap in the US because of peculiarly US problems with a peculiarly US education system. Also, there are more English-speaking North Americans (USA and Canada) than there are British and Australian people. There are a scattering of people here for whom English is not the first language, but there are Pastafarian sites in other languages so I expect most non-English speakers go to one of them.

I expect that the reason more Australians than others are contributing to this thread is cultural; of the four countries I have mentioned, only Australia teaches Chinese in primary school and only Australia has close cultural ties with China and a lot of Chinese immigration. Many of my and my sons' friends are Chinese, whereas I knew very few Chinese people back home.

I am aware that by the end of this year there will probably be more people who can speak English in China than English speakers in any other country, even India.

May I ask where you are, Reki?

I couldn't find a good Chinese Pastafarian website though, you would have thought it would be possible seeing that FSM has its own page on the Chinese version of Wikipedia... I didn't find the whole Chinese/Australia relationship surprising, because I do know that there are many Chinese immigrants there (though I have to say, knowing that they teach Chinese in primary school is really a pleasant surprise!) since, well, I do have friends there.

I highly doubt that there would be more people who can speak English in China though. They would mostly be concentrated around the economic hubs like Beijing and Shanghai, but two out of the many provinces/cities in China is a tough call. I go to China on a yearly basis and am shocked by the disparity in Beijing and Xiamen alone. The people in my village don't even really speak Chinese (more of dialect), and they don't understand a single word of English.

And they have graduated through high school/university in Xiamen.

I might be bullshitting though, but personally I don't think so. It might change, but I think saying end of this year is really...pushing it? My opinion, entirely though.

I'm from Singapore. Can't say I'm really proud of it, but I won't say I am ashamed of it either...

Most Chinese are atheist and less concern about religion and god. And there are rarely sanctimonious Christian upset other's day life. I think that's the reason why His Word is not famous and popular in China. But the state is changing...
Reki, maybe you can come here, it is a small group built in 豆瓣--a famous web2.0 in China sharing reflections on books, movies and musics.
Tigger, It is true that there are many and many Chinese learning English, but it is only a "learn" and in fact most of them can't even speak English fluently, that's because English is set to be the second language in China's compulsory education.

[S'presso]

You can't learn much of English if all you are taught are grammar lessons from a Chinese person that was taught English the same way...

I mean... I learned English for 3 years when I lived in China, and all I had remembered was "hamburger" and "air conditioner."

[bacon]

:guilty:
You can't learn much of English if all you are taught are grammar lessons from a Chinese person that was taught English the same way...

I mean... I learned English for 3 years when I lived in China, and all I had remembered was "hamburger" and "air conditioner."

what else would you need to know?

[S'presso]

"Bathroom" would have been helpful...

[daftbeaker]

:guilty:
You can't learn much of English if all you are taught are grammar lessons from a Chinese person that was taught English the same way...

I mean... I learned English for 3 years when I lived in China, and all I had remembered was "hamburger" and "air conditioner."

what else would you need to know?

Mend this *points*.

Fixes everything from toasters to hunger to needing to pee to ordering a beer

[clh_hilary]

我看到一個帖子錯誤一些中文 is not grammatical...

[DavidH]

我看到一個帖子錯誤一些中文 is not grammatical...

Shouldn't that be are not grammatical?

[black bart]

I think that's what it said on my Chinese T Shirt.

[Mad Willyum Bonney]

Are there a lot of positions for folks willing to teach English over there ? I dont know the slightest Mandarin andy Cantonese is FSMawful .

Also , if you answer yes to the aforementioned query , what is the pay like ?

[clh_hilary]

我看到一個帖子錯誤一些中文 is not grammatical...

Shouldn't that be are not grammatical?

Not if you see it as a single sentence.

[black bart]

Right that's it...start the cultural revolution all over again.

[DavidH]

Death to the grammar nazis and their paper tigers and running dogs.