# Global languages: don't leave home without one



## edsg25 (Jul 30, 2004)

If you were going to come up with a list of global languages the knowledge of which would allow you to have a degree of ability to negotiate most cities in the world, *which languages would they be?*

To clarify: I'm talking of languages that would be included where a city has tourist or visitor information listed in a variety of versions (signs and literature), that the ability of getting a translator would be possible, that may even have a significant number of people within cities throughout the world speaking that language.

I realize that there will be a wide range of differences in how successful each of these languaes would be....but the list itself would be interesting.


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## Kazurro (Jan 23, 2005)

Well it depends of the place where the city is. But in general i think they must be English, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, French, and perhaps Portuguese and German


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## Audiomuse (Dec 20, 2005)

Top 10
1English
2Mandarin/Cantonese
3Hindi
4Arabic
5French
6Japanese
7German
8Spanish
9Portuguese
10Korean

Others: Italian, and Russian


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## null (Dec 11, 2002)

English/Spanish/Chinese/French and perhaps Japanese


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## RobertoBKK (Apr 6, 2005)

I would say English/Arabic/Spanish/Mandarin/French/Japanese/Portuguese


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## Fallout (Sep 11, 2002)

English would be first of course. But positions of other languages would greatly depend on the cities location. in Europe, german and french would be next important, while in Asia obviously chinese and japanese would follow.

About the global importance of languages, i think this list gives a good view. It is internet usage statistic (how many % of web users use that language):

english 35,8
chinese 14,1
japanese 9,6
spanish 9,0
german 7,3
korean 4,1
french 3,8
portuguese 3,5
italian 3,3
russian 2,5
malay 1,9
dutch 1,9
arabic 1,4
polish 1,3
swedish 1,1


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## aspirin (May 3, 2006)

it's hard to say. at most places you do well with english, but at some others, you're lost with english. (even in europe; try english in france...) 

the other most important are imo Spanish, Portugese, French, Hindi/Urdu, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese and Russian. 

With these languages you should be able to comunicate in most countries. 

The problem with Chinese is, that even if you speak the most common dialect, Mandarin, the chances that you meet someone who speaks another dialect are still quit big. 

The reason why i didn't put German on the list, is that a lot German speaking people also speak one of the other languages on the list. 

but anyway, imo the whole world should change to the one and only language: swiss-german


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## edsg25 (Jul 30, 2004)

aside from any US pressure, do you believe there is a pressure to learn English as a universal language?

If in fact this constantly more interconnected world ever decides on linking its fortunes to one language...would you expect that language to be English (based not only on how many people speak it as their native tounge, but the vast number of people in the world who can speak it even if it is not their nation's language).

What can compete? Spanish, as strong as it is, derives most of its strength from one region, Latin America (massive, of course, and increasingly important). Chinese is still centered in China and, as mentioned, runs into more dialectical differences that hurt it in its relaltinship with English.

I can't imagine any language being primed for future global dominance than English...of course, I could be wrong.


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## aspirin (May 3, 2006)

^^ at the moment i see it the same way. English is the most 'dominant' language worldwide, especially in business. 

but as you say, you never know. remember the middle ages / the renaissance? in that time the english royal family and their fellow noblemen were all speaking french as formal language.


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## OtAkAw (Aug 5, 2004)

I think English will stay dominant for a few more decades, the geographical reach of the speakers of the language is wide, you have the US, UK, Australia, and even alot of developing nations like the Philippines and India and small city-states like Singapore. And English is probably the easiest one to learn among the global languages. And just read SSC posts, international threads are in ENGLISH right?


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

I would say the ones that the most overarching global body, the UN, uses could be considered global.

English
Russian
Arabic
French
Mandarin
Spanish.

I would also throw in Portuguese, as more people speak Portuguese worldwide than French.

These are the only languages that are as globally distributed as possible/large populations. Languages like German, Japanese, or Italian IMO would not count because the are really only spoken in a couple of coutries and all European or only in Asia.


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## Arpels (Aug 9, 2004)

dont you forguet Portuguese Donqui? :?


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## Arpels (Aug 9, 2004)

English
Spanish
Mandarim
Portuguese
Frensh
Russian


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## edsg25 (Jul 30, 2004)

aspirin said:


> ^^ at the moment i see it the same way. English is the most 'dominant' language worldwide, especially in business.
> 
> but as you say, you never know. remember the middle ages / the renaissance? in that time the english royal family and their fellow noblemen were all speaking french as formal language.


probably the biggest difference today is that we are more on the cusp of a totally interconnected world, the one time in history that the world could come together with one predominante langauge. 

that would be a far cry from the issues of the middle ages, the renaissance, and even the colonial era when no single language could ever come into the type of position that one could today.

asprin, I think English just might be the right language at the right time here at the start of the 21st century to become the first real "total global language"


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## edsg25 (Jul 30, 2004)

OtAkAw said:


> I think English will stay dominant for a few more decades, the geographical reach of the speakers of the language is wide, you have the US, UK, Australia, and even alot of developing nations like the Philippines and India and small city-states like Singapore. And English is probably the easiest one to learn among the global languages. And just read SSC posts, international threads are in ENGLISH right?


I'd give English another point in making it the top candidate for global language: 

it is, by far, the richest of the world's languages.

That sounds like opinion, and perhaps it is, but it sure borders on fact.

Consider:

English, of all European languages, is the closest to a compilation of Germanic and Greco-Roman roots. The former are based on the Germanic roots of the Angles and Saxons. The later comes through Roman and Norman control. THe two mixed and produced an extraordinary language....witness the arts in Europe. The visual arts were certainly dominated by the continent. One could arguably rate the art of language to England above all others...literature was England's strong suit and the language is what allowed it to flourish.

Take that extraordinary base and add to it the effect of a British empire on which the sun never set....and all the words added to the language by through the vast colonial territories.

And then, towards more modern time, the extradordinary influence on English that comes from the US in so many areas (but so heavily into technology and life style) and the US's dominance of world culture, you have a language like no other.


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

Arpels said:


> dont you forguet Portuguese Donqui? :?


:yes: edited.


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

edsg25 said:


> I'd give English another point in making it the top candidate for global language:
> 
> it is, by far, the richest of the world's languages.
> 
> ...


There is not really a fact in that post. Most of it is opinion. There are plenty of European languages that are just as, if not more, poetic and flowery than English. French (philosophy), Italian (Renaissance), Spanish (Don Quijote anyone), Russian, German (philosophy) are all languages that have had significant output. So you are simply imprinting English's global dominance world wide onto the development of English literature, which frankly is rather absurd.


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## kashyap3 (Jul 11, 2006)

in no particular order

English
Japanese
Mandarin/Cantonese
Hindi
French
Spanish
Portuguese
Korean
German


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## Chilenofuturista (May 24, 2005)

DonQui said:


> *There is not really a fact in that post. Most of it is opinion. There are plenty of European languages that are just as, if not more, poetic and flowery than English. French (philosophy), Italian (Renaissance), Spanish (Don Quijote anyone), Russian, German (philosophy) are all languages that have had significant output. So you are simply imprinting English's global dominance world wide onto the development of English literature, which frankly is rather absurd*.


You're absolutely right. :yes:


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

I calculated interesting statistics some years ago regarding the economic "weight" of global languages. I added the GDP of countries according to what business language is used in the country, and in the end I get a ranking of the global languages according to their total GDP.

I updated the list today using 2005 GDP from the World Bank, calculated at real exchange rates (not purchasing power parity). For those countries where the business language varies across regions or provinces, such as Canada or Switzerland, I used regional or provincial GDP figures to get exact ratios for each business language. There were a few countries which had to be assigned to two different languages. These are: Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Lebanon, where both French and Arabic are business languages, so I assigned the GDPs of these countries to both languages. In Mauritius both English and French are business languages, so again I assigned it to both languages. In Singapore both Chinese, English, and Malay are used as business languages, so again I assigned it to each language. For Spain, I added the GDP of the whole country to the Spanish language, even though in Catalonia part of business is actually conducted in Catalan.

Here is the list of the 12 languages with the highest GDP. I don't think I have forgotten any country or language. Figures are in trillions of US dollars (1 trillion = 1,000,000,000,000). Note that for English I only added up the "white" English speaking countries (US, UK, Australia, NZ, etc.). If we were to add all the countries where English is used as a business language, it would be hard to decide where to stop. In any case, even with just the "white" English speaking countries, we get the picture that English is arch-dominating in the economic field. The list is more interesting for the relative position of the other languages with each other.

1- English: 16.78 trillion +
2- Japanese: 4.51 trillion
3- German: 3.38 trillion
4- French: 2.94 trillion
5- Chinese (in any dialect form): 2.85 trillion
6- Spanish: 2.81 trillion
7- Italian: 1.72 trillion
8- Portuguese: 1.01 trillion
9- Arabic: 0.99 trillion
10- Russian: 0.89 trillion
11- Dutch and Korean: 0.8 trillion each


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

brisavoine said:


> For Spain, I added the GDP of the whole country to the Spanish language, even though in Catalonia part of business is actually conducted in Catalan.


If anything in general it is almost perfectly bilingual, but when oriented to the rest of Spain, the region's largest market (38 million other Spaniards versus 7 million in the region), I can assure you they deal with the domestic market and with other members of the business class in Spanish. 

It is more valid to include this region than the French parts of the Arabic speaking world, because not only are they VASTLY more oriented towards Arabic, but, if anything, many are switching to learning English and the populace learns less and less of French. This is no way comparable to Catalan versus Spanish within Spain.


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## djm19 (Jan 3, 2005)

If you're going in the business world, probably English, Japanese, German, both chinese


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

DonQui said:


> If anything in general it is almost perfectly bilingual, but when oriented to the rest of Spain, the region's largest market (38 million other Spaniards versus 7 million in the region), I can assure you they deal with the domestic market and with other members of the business class in Spanish.


Which is why I included the Catalan GDP in the Spanish language, as I said.



DonQui said:


> It is more valid to include this region than the French parts of the Arabic speaking world, because not only are they VASTLY more oriented towards Arabic, but, if anything, many are switching to learning English and the populace learns less and less of French. This is no way comparable to Catalan versus Spanish within Spain.


Wrong. You've probably never been to Morocco or Tunisia. Most of business is done in French. If you go to Casablanca, you'll notice the French language everywhere. My cousin, who doesn't speak a work of Arabic, has just been hired by the national TV of Morocco as a journalist. That tells a lot about this country.

Here I have Tunisian neighbors and I asked them once, what's the name of the main cell phone company in Tunisia? So they told me it's: "Tunisie Télécom". So I said: "This is a French name, what's the Arab name?" They told me the Arab name, but then they said nobody uses the Arab name, everybody uses the French name only, even when they speak Arabic. That's another example.

Even in Algeria, despite the nationalistic Arab policies of the government, lots of the business is done in French. Even on the Arab-speaking Algerian TV, I've noticed when they have "serious" economic or political debates people in front of the camera often switch from Arabic to French, and then back to Arabic, and vice versa. If you'd been to Algeria before, you'd know that the largest newspapers are French speaking. In fact when I went to Algeria, I didn't speak a word of Arabic, but I had no problem being understood everywhere. The weirdest thing is people still use the French names of streets and avenues, as they existed before independence in 1962, and nobody uses the new Arabic names, except the government of course.


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## samsonyuen (Sep 23, 2003)

English, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic


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## SE9 (Apr 26, 2005)

English

Mandarin

Spanish

French

Arabic

-------------------------

Portuguese

German

Japanese

Hindi

Russian


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

I would say
English
Spanish
French
Chinese
Japanese
Italian
Portuguese
and Russian


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## desirous (Jun 10, 2006)

What would be a practical language to learn, having already learned Mandarin as a foreign language? I'm thinking about French or Japanese, but can't decide.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

Hey check this out.. http://global-reach.biz/globstats/details.html
The figures in the first column are not meant to represent the number of people who speak the languages in question. They correspond to the number of people online in each language (native speakers), *in millions.*
so the list show as how many people (native speakers) are ONLINE right now.
al right. 
1. So the list says that English has 295.5 millions ONLINE RIGHT NOW  and 194 millions in the U.S, 20 millions in Canada and 18 in Indonesia, and the rest in other countries.

2. Okay Chinese has 110 millions ONLINE RIGHT NOW; 87 millions in china and 11.6 in Thailand the rest in other countries..

3. Spanish is the third one.. It has 72 millions ONLINE RIGHT NOW;26 millions in the United State, 14 millions in Spain, 12 millions in Mexico and the rest in other countries.

4. Japanase has 67 millions ONLINE RIGHT NOW; 66 millions in Japan.

5. German has 55.3 millions ONLINE RIGHT NOW; 47 millions in Germany and 3.7 millions in Austria.. the rest in other countries.. 
For futher info.. go to..
http://global-reach.biz/globstats/refs.php3


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

This topic interests me greatly cause i am a linguist. My rankings:

1. English *
2. Mandarin *
3. Spanish *
4. Hindu
5. Russian
6. French *
7. Japanese
8. Portuguese *
9. German *
10. Arabic

The languages i speak or will learn at my uni are noted with * I also speak Greek and the Greekcypriot Dialect


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## Ohno (Jul 1, 2006)

For me, English and Japanse already are my second foreign language while mandarin is my mother language. So the list is:
1. English
2. Japanese
3. Spanish
4. German 
5. French


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## Falubaz (Nov 20, 2004)

1. i hope there wil be never something like the only one language. that'll be pity. 
2. english - even if some peolple say, it would be the richest language - isn't it in the fact. there are many words in the lexicon, but those words come from different parts of the world, and in fact they come from different dialects of english.
in my opinion the really rich language is that which can do new words and change them if there is a need to. 
for example:
in german u can say: 'Buch' - is just a book but if you need or want to say something more u can say 'Buchlein' - 'little book' - such things u can do potentially with every noun (many languages can do this, italian, spanish, polish) in english u can't say it 

some can do these things even with adjectives (italian: caro-carino, polish miły-milutki 'nice-very nice' or 'more than nice')
adjectives and nouns can also make the opositive process to that one from above 

such things are possible even with verbs (i.e. german)

the different languages have so many different possibilities that
english speaking people can't even imagine such richness

so i think, english is a very poor language

3. english is a global language for sure, but stop gloryfying it. it's that not because of the many words or so, but because of the history, just by accident. it's useful, but only an accident.
i hope some day - in the far future - esperanto will be the real global language, but only to communicate between nations and between languages, not to make them disapear but to let them be as they are and help people come together.


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## miamicanes (Oct 31, 2002)

I'd like to point out an often-overlooked strength of English: built-in error correction. 

Y cn wrt nglsh wtht th vwls nd stll b ndrstd.

Ya kin like tot'ly mangle it 'n STILL be havin' dem chillin folks unnerstan yu.

Even when mangled you the verb tenses, and around the word moved, can understood.

English has an *incredible* ability to be completely, thoroughly mangled, mutilated, shredded, and fried, yet still be comprehensible (to a native speaker, at least). Compare that to a language like Mandarin Chinese, where a single wrong tone can _easily_ leave everyone in the room scratching their heads wondering what the hell you just said (or rolling on the floor laughing, or covering their children's ears and staring in horror). Of course, English has words like that too, (like someone taking a shit of paper) but not many, and even then, on second glance, English's amazing forward error-correction kicks in and usually makes it blatantly obvious from the rest of the sentence what the person REALLY meant. It makes English "wordy", but that's precisely what silently encodes all the extra error-correction cues into a sentence that make it relatively easy to decipher.


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

miamicanes said:


> I'd like to point out an often-overlooked strength of English: built-in error correction.
> 
> Y cn wrt nglsh wtht th vwls nd stll b ndrstd.
> 
> ...


Erm, that is just the difference between character based languages versus alphabet based ones.

Peus, yo si halbraia preo cmabiadno aglnuas lteras, peudes leer en epsnaol tabmein


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## Petronius (Mar 4, 2004)

-Global: English


-Europe, South America and some bits of Africa and Asia: Portuguese and Spanish

-Asia: Chinese, Hindi

-Africa, Middle East: Arabic

-Europe, Africa: French

-Europe: German 

-Europe and Asia: Russian



:sleepy:


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## Indyman (Apr 1, 2005)

English 
Mandarin
Spanish
Portugese


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## schmidt (Dec 5, 2002)

English is so successful because out of the European languages, it is the easiest. And maybe some guy from China may say "But hey, English is not easy for me!" then I'll say "Fine, then try learning German, Russian or Portuguese". I think that's the point. And as most of the world speaks European languages, it's pretty clear that the global language will come from Europe, and it must be the easiest one.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

English isn't easy to learn, but it helps when going abroad...

But I think it is better to learn some words of the local language of where you go. You get a better experience that would have been limited when you just spoke English.


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## desirous (Jun 10, 2006)

English is relatively easy given two things:

1. Spelling is not a factor, i.e. when not writing. English spelling is completely illogical and hopelessly complex for many non-native users. Here's an example:

* If gh is pronounced p as in hiccough
* If ough is pronounced o as in dough
* If phth is pronounced t as in phthisis
* If eigh is pronounced a as in neighbour
* If tte is pronounced t as in gazette
* If eau is pronounced o as in beau
* Then the correct way to spell "potato" should be ghoughphtheightteeau

2. One is learning functional language, and not slang or new terminology. The speed at which English evolves is one of its greatest difficulties. A majority of new technical and pop-culture vocabulary first arrives in English.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

1) English
2) Spanish
3) French
4) Portuguese
5) Arabic


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

English is probably the closest to being a global language, but then, outside the business world, there is a huge diversity in spoken languages out there, which is great for some culture shock when I go on trips.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

thunderC said:


> It is interesting to see that ATM Machine of Chase Bank nearby my residence now lists the large selection of languages on the display besides English.
> Bank one, that was Chicago based bank had ever not provided the service with such a many languages prior to merging with Chase Manhattan based in NYC.
> From that point, I got an idea of more ethnical diversity in NY; it makes sense that Bank in NYC metro provides the larger selection of languages to customers in general because there are a wider variety of ethnical groups over there.


I also notice a lot of Spanish-only ads on the New York subway.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

hkskyline said:


> I also notice a lot of Spanish-only ads on the New York subway.


It's not just in NY but in LA as well. In fact most of the ads you'll see in an MTA bus or subway is Spanish.


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## Sexas (Jan 15, 2004)

Effer said:


> That's bullshit... :bash:


Do you know German or Dutch, how do you know it's bullshit? I was in Holland and Germany and I say I can understand a good deal of it.

How about let somebody from Holland or Germany say I'm bullshit or not, not a somebody from middle of US and never been over sea.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Sexas said:


> Do you know German or Dutch, how do you know it's bullshit? I was in Holland and Germany and I say I can understand a good deal of it.
> 
> How about let somebody from Holland or Germany say I'm bullshit or not, not a somebody from middle of US and never been over sea.


Never been to both countries so I wouldn't know. But between German and Dutch, I think Dutch is more important


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## Sexas (Jan 15, 2004)

null said:


> not a chance


Why is not a chance, go to Japan and tell me if you don't know what they selling by read the sign, like "Tea", "House", "One" "Two" .....it is the same word in Chinese and Japanese. I have no problem in Japan asking Japanese by writing, yes it's a problem but bottom line is I got my information.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Sexas said:


> Why is not a chance, go to Japan and tell me if you don't know what they selling by read the sign, like "Tea", "House", "One" "Two" .....it is the same word in Chinese and Japanese. I have no problem in Japan asking Japanese by writing, yes it's a problem but bottom line is I got my information.


The only thing I know about Chinese is, they *don't* have an alphabet system unlike Japanese kana. Though there are some similarities for example in numbers


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## Sexas (Jan 15, 2004)

WANCH said:


> Never been to both countries so I wouldn't know. But between German and Dutch, I think Dutch is more important


Let's say 
English: Good Morning
German: Guten Morgen
Dutch: Goede Ochtend

English: wonderful 
German: wundervoll

English: Good night
Dutch: Goede nacht

I didn't say it's SAME!! I say you will very easy to understand Dutch and German when you understand English. and German is more important that Dutch...seems like most Dutch speak German but German don't speak Dutch ...so better to understand German


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## Sexas (Jan 15, 2004)

WANCH said:


> The only thing I know about Chinese is, they *don't* have an alphabet system unlike Japanese kana. Though there are some similarities for example in numbers


That's what I try to proof ------- SIMILARITY! since nobody can learn all the langauges in the world, I will go learn the major one out from each group: Chinese, English, Spanish and Arabic.


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## xAKxRUSx (Mar 7, 2006)

Sexas said:


> Do you know German or Dutch, how do you know it's bullshit? I was in Holland and Germany and I say I can understand a good deal of it.
> 
> How about let somebody from Holland or Germany say I'm bullshit or not, not a somebody from middle of US and never been over sea.


No, a person who has never studied German or Dutch would not be able to understand them. Yes, maybe random words here and there, but not enough to actually communicate and understand much.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

WANCH said:


> It's not just in NY but in LA as well. In fact most of the ads you'll see in an MTA bus or subway is Spanish.


Also in SD


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Sexas said:


> Let's say
> English: Good Morning
> German: Guten Morgen
> Dutch: Goede Ochtend
> ...


The reason why Dutch is more important because The Netherlands had colonized several countries unlike Germany. Countries such as Surinam speak Dutch. Indonesia as a sizable population of Dutch speakers. Belgium has Dutch as it's official language. What other countries speak German besides Austria or Luxembourg


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

WANCH said:


> The reason why Dutch is more important because The Netherlands had colonized several countries unlike Germany. Countries such as Surinam speak Dutch. Indonesia as a sizable population of Dutch speakers. Belgium has Dutch as it's official language. What other countries speak German besides Austria or Luxembourg


Switzerland and Lichtenstein. 

There are more native German speakers than Dutch (~90-100 million versus ~ 25 million for Dutch), and Indonesia really uses English internationally not Dutch and Suriname really is not exactly a powerhouse.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

DonQui said:


> Switzerland and Lichtenstein.
> 
> There are more native German speakers than Dutch (~90-100 million versus ~ 25 million for Dutch), and Indonesia really uses English internationally not Dutch and Suriname really is not exactly a powerhouse.


Forgot about Switzerland and Zurich is one of the most important cities in the world!


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

I would love to learn Dutch because of my admiration of Netherlands for its people and culture. But for some reason it is very difficult for me even though i speak german and english.


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## Mekky II (Oct 29, 2003)

To make happy a bit french speakers. In memory of the normans.

Composition of the english language :


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

DonQui said:


> Switzerland and Lichtenstein.
> 
> There are more native German speakers than Dutch (~90-100 million versus ~ 25 million for Dutch), and Indonesia really uses English internationally not Dutch and Suriname really is not exactly a powerhouse.


Only parts of Switzerland speak German. Zurich is the major financial centre and they speak German. Geneva is the major government / NGO centre and they speak French.


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## Amit (Apr 30, 2005)

alex537 said:


> Hindi is NOT important as English, Spanish or French


As I mentioned before, there is a difference between 'language spoken by most people' and 'language spoken in most countries'. English, Spanish and French are spoken in more countries than Hindi. But even if you add up all the numbers, Spanish and French speakers are less than Hindi speakers. English speakers are barely more than Hindi speakers  

Number of people with first language as:

English 510 mn

*Hindi 490 mn*

Spanish 425 mn

French 130 mn


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

WANCH said:


> The only thing I know about Chinese is, they *don't* have an alphabet system unlike Japanese kana. Though there are some similarities for example in numbers


The Japanese also write in hanzi, which is a direct descendent from Chinese (traditional).


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## Amit (Apr 30, 2005)

Many people in India are multi-lingual. They can speak atleast 3 languages: the national language Hindi, a regional language, and an international language English. We are taught as many languages in school. 

Officially, India has *22 * languages, not counting English. And I donot mean dialects, there are 22 different languages with their own alphabets for many of them. 9 of these languages are in the top 30 list of most spoken (first) languages in the world. It is really diverse.

The world is an incredibly diverse place. Besides preserving our own cultures, it will only help if we adopt the languages and cultures from other countries


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## Amit (Apr 30, 2005)

sogod said:


> I would correct this to say that both countries dont have a _successful_ agressive history. At least a recent one, compared to Europe.


I am pretty confident that at no stage in India's 5000 year history, have we tried to colonize another country. It is not in our nature.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Amit said:


> As I mentioned in an earlier post, India's civilization was at its peak during the Maurya empire and later the Gupta empire during 300 BC - 500 AD. The Maurya empire spread its cultural influence throughout Asia, and that is how Buddhism propagated to China and South East Asia. But it was a CULTURAL influence; at no point did they invade any country to expand their empire.


The Khmer Empire and the Javanese empires were founded by locals, but before these empires there existed Indian kingdoms ruled by settlers from India who established colonies in Java and the Mekong delta. I suggest you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambojas_and_Kambodia if you want to learn a bit more about this. The article clearly talks of a colonial relationship.


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## Amit (Apr 30, 2005)

brisavoine said:


> The Khmer Empire and the Javanese empires were founded by locals, but before these empires there existed Indian kingdoms ruled by settlers from India who established colonies in Java and the Mekong delta. I suggest you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambojas_and_Kambodia if you want to learn a bit more about this. The article clearly talks of a colonial relationship.


The article you refered to was very interesting; I have never heard anything remotely close to it. Nevertheless, the article itself presents a probable theory of historical events and doesnot say they are facts. At the top of this article, Wikipedia has put a note that this article is marked for deletion. So the theory presented in this article is questionable; nevertheless it is an interesting speculation.

Its basic thesis is that people from Persia came to settle in western India around 200 BC; they were called Kambojas. Later, they established a trading post in Sri Lanka. This post in Sri Lanka was used as a launching pad for sending ships to trade with Malay peninsula/Cambodia. 

The article, by self-confession, doesnot present any definite evidence of colonization of this region. It is more certain of a trading relationship and only speculates about colonization.

Even if the hypothesis of colonization is true, the supposed colonizers in question were originally from Persia not India!

Just out of curiosity.. where are you from? How do you know all this


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## Amit (Apr 30, 2005)

brisavoine said:


> To this day, the Cambodian and Thai languages are still written using indic alphabets, and Javanese, Malay, Cambodian, and Thai languages use an extensive amount of Indian vocabulary


Majority of Indians donot know about this. 

Just as an example, I was seeing pictures of Bangkok's new international airport on the infrastructure forum (it is simply gorgeous!). And the airport is named 'Suvarnabhoomi' airport. I was surprised to read its name, since it is a Hindi word meaning 'Golden land'. 

If memory serves me right.. a while back, I think I was watching a Thai movie; it was really good and set a few hundred years back in Bangkok. While I had to read subtitles for pretty much the most part, a few words here and there made sense to my ears since they were in Hindi


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## Amit (Apr 30, 2005)

Let me diverge to a topic creatively related to language.

*Mathematics* can be considered as a scientific/logical language through which laws of nature can be expressed in equations. The number system can be considered as the alphabets of this language and algebra/calculus etc can be loosely considered as grammar. It goes without saying that the very foundation of science is dependent on the language of mathematics for expressing itself.

Various civilizations/countries have contributed to the development of the 'grammar' of mathematics: Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Indians, Chinese, Arabs & Europeans. 

But where did the 'alphabets' used in today's mathematics come from? India  To begin with, ZERO was invented in India. Modern computers understand only 0 and 1 as a binary language. Besides, the positional number system we use today also came from India. The numbers we use in today's math look remarkably similar to the Indian number system. 

A positional number system means that a digit to the left of its neighbouring digit has 10 times more value (25 = 2*10 + 5, 371 = 3*10*10 + 7*10 + 1). The great benefit of such a system is that it enables us to write even MASSIVE numbers in a compact form. Operations such as multiplication and division are also quite easy. Compare this to a Roman number system (X, V, L etc). Try writing just 867 in Roman numerals. To top it, try multiplying it with 56! The difficulty in expressing even moderate size numbers and cumbersome arithematic operations using Roman numerals quite clearly shows the benefit of Indian positional number system.

The positional number system originated in India. It was then adopted by visiting Arab traders from middle east. They further transmitted it to Europe. Initially, there was a lot of resistance to this idea among Europeans, especially the concept of ZERO, who wanted to stick to Roman system. Over time, positional number system gained acceptance and formed a critical, if subtle, link towards scientific renaissance some 500 years back.


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## Amit (Apr 30, 2005)

I am loving this thread. Thanks to the person who created it


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## will.exe (Aug 9, 2006)

English truly is a near perfect global language because:

a) it is one of the only languages that is a cross between Germanic, Romance, and even Celtic languages

b) It uses an alphabet that is only 26 letters long and easily transcribed by hand or electronically

c) rather than making up a new word for something, like French, we borrow words from their native language (ex: kimono, feng shui, cinnamon, bungalow, etc)

d) It is spoken on almost all of the world's land surface.

How we should improve it to make it more globally appealing:

a) standardize letter usage, ie: k should always be "k" as in "kent"...c should only be used for a soft "s" sound as in "ice"...q should be removed completely

b) verbs should all be regular except for "have" and "be"


It seems crazy but keep in mind that a few languages, like Turkish, are very close to being entirely standardized like that.


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## desirous (Jun 10, 2006)

> b) verbs should all be regular except for "have" and "be"


Naaah. English verbs can be butchered and still be intelligible. Conjugate French verbs wrong and you mess up the implied pronoun, which is not pretty.


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## tayser (Sep 11, 2002)

standardisation is how you kill variety and that's what English's main strength is.

different spelling and using different words in English compared to other groups of English speakers should be fine as long as you're consistent.


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## desirous (Jun 10, 2006)

tayser said:


> standardisation is how you kill variety and that's what English's main strength is.
> 
> different spelling and using different words in English compared to other groups of English speakers should be fine as long as you're consistent.


That too.

I don't think English is the only butcher-resistant language (conjugate anything in any way in any order and still be understood - you just risk being assumed stupid)... I find Chinese to be similar. There isn't really any critical conjugation that can utterly confuse listeners, or varying emotional tones, e.g. subjunctive in Spanish and polite in Japanese. Remembering the pitch tones is another story though. How much grief did mixing up the 3rd tone on "ma" for horse bring!


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## sravan2569 (Mar 22, 2006)

will.exe said:


> English truly is a near perfect global language because:
> 
> a) it is one of the only languages that is a cross between Germanic, Romance, and even Celtic languages
> 
> ...


eurocentric isn't global... but i agree it is most used language, only because the British forced it down everyone's throat, not because it's the best canidate.


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## desirous (Jun 10, 2006)

> eurocentric isn't global... but i agree it is most used language, only because the British forced it down everyone's throat, not because it's the best canidate.


Down everyone's throat and then up their anuses.

But whatever language came out on top would've followed the same path anyway.


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## kashyap3 (Jul 11, 2006)

standardizing English is a waste of time

thats like another attempt at esperanto

if people want to learn english, let them learn the proper language' not some degenerated form of it


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

Esperanto is totally different because it is an invented language. It was invented to be simple, easy to learn and to represent all major european languages.


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## oz.fil (Jun 2, 2006)

Amit said:


> Let me diverge to a topic creatively related to language.
> 
> *Mathematics* can be considered as a scientific/logical language through which laws of nature can be expressed in equations. The number system can be considered as the alphabets of this language and algebra/calculus etc can be loosely considered as grammar. It goes without saying that the very foundation of science is dependent on the language of mathematics for expressing itself.
> 
> ...


hey... math can be the worlds 'official' language! since everyone all over the world can understand 1+1=2 ;] i mean ... think about it, we might say it in different languages but the characters are common to everyone :]


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## kashyap3 (Jul 11, 2006)

WhiteMagick said:


> Esperanto is totally different because it is an invented language. It was invented to be simple, easy to learn and to represent all major european languages.


it was based on latin and germanic languages, simplifying conjugations etc
and was a major failure


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## will.exe (Aug 9, 2006)

kashyap3 said:


> standardizing English is a waste of time
> 
> thats like another attempt at esperanto
> 
> if people want to learn english, let them learn the proper language' not some degenerated form of it


Well I'm not saying English should be standardized. But I think that if i were to choose the perfect global language it would be a standardized form of English. Unlikely of course, but interesting to think about.


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## Chicagoago (Dec 2, 2005)

I've gone all over Europe 10 times, and I definitely noticed that, at least as a tourist, many people communicated in English. I heard German tourists in Italy asking questions in English. Asian tourists in Barcelona were asking directions in broken English. In Stockholm I would listen and hear German/French/Japanese/Korean people all talking to themselves, then turn to the storekeepers/waiters and have conversations in English and visa versa. 

I felt guilty that I actually speak English as a first language and get to have this luxury of communication for free - whereas it seems all these other people - even the ones in their own country - were relating to one another in a second language to their own.


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## Imperfect Ending (Apr 7, 2003)

English, Spanish, French and Arabic IMO

Chinese may have the second-most speaker but it's only spoken in one country.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Aquamadoor said:


> English, Spanish, French and Arabic IMO
> 
> Chinese may have the second-most speaker but it's only spoken in one country.


You're forgetting Singapore and to some extent, Taiwan  Also the millions of Chinese worldwide!


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## null (Dec 11, 2002)

> Chinese may have the second-most speaker but it's only spoken in one country.


it's the no.1

1.4 billion speakers worldwide


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## fernao (May 14, 2006)

Hi. I am Portuguese. As portuguese always loved to, I walked all around and have seen the world.

Let me tell you what I have seen about topics discussed here:

- English speakers do not understand german or dutch. I can say that because that is what I see and also because I can speak english and there is no way i can understand german. One word or two can be comprehensible but not a decent phrase (after all they have similar origins!). However, Germans pick english perfectly and I believe the difference lies on native english speakers arrogantly making no effort to learn any other language, so they have "hard ears". 

- German is much more important than Dutch. Noone speaks Dutch except Holland and residually here and there (at most 25 million). German is spoken in Germany (85 million) and also Austria, Switzerland etc. It is the most important language in central Europe - a business language due to the powerfull german companies and a culture language.

- Latin languages, on the other hand, have much similarities in vocabulary. Not having learnt spanish or italian in school, a moderately inteligent portuguese can understand these languages written and spoken. The verb conjugation is the tricky part...
One of these days I was amazed when a german-swiss understood all that was writen in portuguese on a can. This was explained by the fact that most portuguese words derive from latin and so he, also knowing french, could get perfect sense of writen portuguese, but understood nothing of spoken portuguese.

- Mandarin, Arabic and Hindi may have their numbers in their region... but there is no way they get global! No European or American or African or Australian is going to learn them! They are too complicated for us, too different, their drawing makes no sense to us and they are pretty much useless worldwide. On the other hand I see many indian people speaking english in their families. Do not rely on the India diaspora in UK or US - they all speak english and kids do not care about Hindi at all.

- Spanish is not spoken in any part of Brazil. Portuguese is spoken in Spain (Galicia - 3 million people). Do not tell me it is not portuguese because I see TV Galicia and speak to Galicians and, trust me, I can recognize portuguese when I hear it. It is wrong to say that Spanish is the most important language in South America as Brazil comprises more than 50% of the land area and 51% of the population and growing - it is also the only one economically relevant worldwide.

- Portuguese is spread around the world and may have a word to say because of that. It is spoken in Portugal (10 Million, Europe plus 5 million emmigrants worldwide), Galicia (3 million, Europe), Brazil (190 million, America, actually the country that makes portuguese important because of its potential economic and demographic growth), Cape Verde (0.5 million, Africa), Guiné-Bissau (1 million, Africa, but native languages are predominant outside cities), Angola (12 million, Africa, with a good dominance including rural areas), Mozambique (16 million, Africa, native languages dominate outside urban areas) São Tomé (0.1 million, Africa) and East Timor (0.8 million, Oceania, although minoritary language). Residual populations in other African countries, India (Goa, Daman and Diu) and Malaysia.

Concluding, the only ones that can be global: 
- English - definitely, just look at us... all new technology is in english, english speaking countries are the wealthiest, globalized culture (movies, music) is all in english, and the more developed, science, knowledge, blah blah blah... Also because it is damned easy! I myself only learned 3 years in normal school but everyday listen TV, films, music use the internet, etc... so don't speak it perfectly but can understand it and it will do... The english verbal tenses are appalingly dumb! Do not have the complexity of the other global languages - the latin ones.
I believe it is a different story when you talk about culture, not pop culture.

- Spanish - If it can take over the USA. Also because somehow it became trendy to learn spanish in Europe, although to my ears it sound really awefull.

- Other globals: French maybe can make it... depends of Africa. Portuguese maybe depends of Africa and Brazil. Remember Africa speaks mostly native languages, but the ones that span several countries and can trade to outside are English, French and Portuguese.

No way:
- German and Italian will be important in Europe and nowhere else. Germans speak too good english to make german important. Dutch no way.

- Hindi, Chinese, Arabic, Farsi are regional and very complicated and will not go global, partly due to the weak economic and technological power of these developing countries. No Bollywood will export Hindi - noone is going to learn Hindi, it is strange and economically poor and not cool. Bollywood movies are regarded in the West as garbage, worse quality than detergent commercials and good to make fun of.


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

fernao said:


> - Spanish is not spoken in any part of Brazil. Portuguese is spoken in Spain (Galicia - 3 million people). Do not tell me it is not portuguese because I see TV Galicia and speak to Galicians and, trust me, I can recognize portuguese when I hear it. It is wrong to say that Spanish is the most important language in South America as Brazil comprises more than 50% of the land area and 51% of the population and growing - it is also the only one economically worldwide relevant.


Ehhhh wrong! Galician is a separate language my friend. And Brasil only has 180 million citizens and is the only Portuguese speaking nation in the Americas, whereas there are 330 million people in 20+ countries in the Americas. Not including the number of Spanish speakers in the US. 



> - Spanish - If it can take over the USA. Also because somehow it became trendy to learn spanish in Europe, although to my ears it sound really awefull.


If it can take over the USA? Spanish on its own without any importance in the US. For example, in nominal terms, the Spanish economy alone is bigger than Brasil, and the Brasilian one only barely larger than the Mexican one. So unlike Portuguese, the Spanish language is an important language in Europe, Northern America, and Southern America, whereas Portuguese is only important in Southern America. 



> - Other globals: French maybe can make it... depends of Africa. Portuguese maybe depends of Africa and Brazil. Remember Africa speaks mostly native languages, but the ones that span several countries and can trade to outside are English, French and Portuguese.


French *maybe* can make it?! :crazy: French already WAS a global language and its dominance was ended only by American and British dominance! And French West Africa has many times more population than Portuguese Africa. So, really in Africa, only two European languages are important: English and French. 

What matters internationally is what the business elite speaks. As the business elite is much more bigger in French West Africa than Mozambique (which by the way is a member of the BRITISH commonwealth ), I do not think I would lump Portuguese with English and French.


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## VIRUS (Dec 29, 2004)

DonQui said:


> Ehhhh wrong! Galician is a separate language my friend. And Brasil only has 180 million citizens and is the only Portuguese speaking nation in the Americas, whereas there are 330 million people in 20+ countries in the Americas. Not including the number of Spanish speakers in the US.
> 
> 
> If it can take over the USA? Spanish on its own without any importance in the US. For example, in nominal terms, the Spanish economy alone is bigger than Brasil, and the Brasilian one only barely larger than the Mexican one. So unlike Portuguese, the Spanish language is an important language in Europe, Northern America, and Southern America, whereas Portuguese is only important in Southern America.
> ...


Estoy de acuerdo.. i Agree.


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## fernao (May 14, 2006)

DonQui said:


> Ehhhh wrong! Galician is a separate language my friend. And Brasil only has 180 million citizens and is the only Portuguese speaking nation in the Americas, whereas there are 330 million people in 20+ countries in the Americas. Not including the number of Spanish speakers in the US.
> 
> 
> If it can take over the USA? Spanish on its own without any importance in the US. For example, in nominal terms, the Spanish economy alone is bigger than Brasil, and the Brasilian one only barely larger than the Mexican one. So unlike Portuguese, the Spanish language is an important language in Europe, Northern America, and Southern America, whereas Portuguese is only importan in Southern America.
> ...


You do have some points. I am not hiping portuguese. I am just telling the facts, precisely, look:

1. Noone questions spanish is more important than portuguese in Americas and so the world!!! You have to read carefully... I said South America, not Central America or North America. According to CIA Brazil has 188 million, South America should be about 370 million. That is why I put spanish in the global ones with English.

2. Galician. You are probably not a linguistic and me neither, I probably know better than you about it (may be wrong). In Galicia itself there is a debate about it and actually there are two ways of writing galician - Isolacionista and Reintegracionista, being the latter one exactly like portuguese. I hear galician in TV and from people and I can tell you it is pretty much the same - verb conjugation, vocabulary, they have a funny spanish accent, words shared with north rural portuguese and not "civilized portuguese" and a couple of strange words, but then Scots also differ from English...

3. I totally agree french was. I was refering to the future not to the past, this is not about history of languages, otherwise I would tell you that in the XVI century the only global one would be portuguese 

4. I partially agree that what is important is the commercial elite. Sweden or Germany are huge economically and will not throw a global language. You live in Congo and can learn german or swedish to get a job but you won't speak to your kids and people in the streets in German or swedish. I also have to say that I have much more faith in the economical growth of Angola than in French West Africa. I agree with your order of colonial languages in Africa: mainly English and French and much far away Portuguese.

Also to say that the potencial of grwoth of Brazil is enormous and that is way I put portuguese future in tha hands of Brazil.


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## Dino Domingo (Jan 5, 2005)

fernao said:


> - Spanish is not spoken in any part of Brazil. Portuguese is spoken in Spain (Galicia - 3 million people). Do not tell me it is not portuguese because I see TV Galicia and speak to Galicians and, trust me, I can recognize portuguese when I hear it. It is wrong to say that Spanish is the most important language in South America as Brazil comprises more than 50% of the land area and 51% of the population and growing - it is also the only one economically relevant worldwide.


Spanish doesn't dominate Brazil, but there are Spanish-speakers there. Spanish _IS _ the _MOST_ important language in South America because it is spoken in every other country but Brazil, and Brazil is only _one _ country in South America. Majority rules. The amount of land Brazil occupies also has nothing to do with the language dominance in the continent, so don't get off topic. 



fernao said:


> - Spanish - If it can take over the USA. Also because somehow it became trendy to learn spanish in Europe, although to my ears it sound really awefull.


Spanish is smooth, sexy, and romantic. Portuguese however, sounds very harsh. More Russian or Israeli with all the "aggh-ing"

Eesh!


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

In the United States, college students are flocking to learn Spanish... Major US books companies are publishing Spanish language editions, available at the local Borders bookstore.. Corporate America is increasingly selling itself through Spanish language ads, and following the lead of CNN en Espanol, Discovery Channel en Espanol, MTV, Discovery Kid en espanol, etc.. new arrival CBS Telenoticias is competing head to head with Univisión and Telemundo for the US and Latin American Spanish speaking audiences, and immigration continues to swell the ranks of Spanish speakers in this country. There are more than 45 million of them by 2006, more than, french, portuguese, chinese, and even more than the combined total of speakers of all other non languages.


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## Kaique (Aug 15, 2006)

Anyway, I think if all countries repect the other cultures and evrybody do a lilttle to learn another lenguage all be fine.
I'm Brazilan I must to study English since elementary school, I prefer Spanish couse there are more brazilian's intrestings, and the both lenguages are more close, than Protuguese with English. 
Actually I didn't like english, it's a deficienty lenguage of sounds and words wich talk about feelings, it's really pratice to do buisness but it's all. 
There are something else, Brazilians learns and understand almost in Spanish the opposit is most difficult. A lot of sounds we use don't appear in grammars or dictionary, (we use 4 verb "conjugations", 3 generes, 6 persons, 12 kinds of words)*, evrywhere say that english is the lenguage that have more words maybe, but it get it from other lenguages, some words are the same as in Português, Fraçais, Espñol, Deutsch...In portuguse we heve words for all as frenches do, but in Brasil people don't uses, this is another argue hehe :bash: 

* not official brazilian grammar (Nomenclatura Gramatical Brasileira)

I'm sorry about my terrible english hehe


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

German and Dutch are two separate languages and dutch is not a dialect of german what so ever. They are both germanic languages like english but like english they developed from different branches of germanic languages. 

I speak German fluently and I could understand some written dutch but accoustically i could not understand almost anything in Dutch. And in the same way i couldn't understand almost anything written or spoken before i learned german and spoke just english.

English is both a global and a business language and will forever be as such. German is a business language but not a global language eventhough 120 million people speak it. Dutch is a language i am currently learning because of my interest in germanic languages and my admiration of the dutch culture and people. Yet it is neither a global nor an important business language especially with the high profficiency of dutch people in english. 

Now as far as Hindi and Mandarin. Hindi will never be a truly global language unless the whole population of India itself speaks it fluently but this is decades away from happening. Hindi is also a business language of growing importance but nowhere near languages such as Russian, German etc 
Mandarin on the other is a global language because of the large number of countries which host a very large chinese population. In addition in China almost all the population speaks the language at sufficient extend and thus can be used throughout the country. China is also the 4th largest economy ready to undertake germany in the coming 4-5 years, japan in 10-15 years and the US within 25-30 years. And this is in the nominal GDP and not in the Purchasing Power Parity theory calculations in which china is already 2nd. A lot of people are learning Mandarin, more than the general public knows of and almost all governments including the EU and the US have called upon the general population to start learning Mandarin for the benefit of their economies in the future.

Now as far as Spanish and Portuguese. Spanish is spoken by more than twice the people who speak Portuguese. It is undoubtedly the most widespread when compared to Portuguese. Spanish is a global language as well because it is spoken in many countries throughout the world. It is also gaining a business importance because of the growing Hispanic US population, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and of course Spain! 

But you shouldnt also undermine the importance of portuguese. Keep in mind that even though is its spoken by half of the number of people as Spanish it is spoken in one of the four most important emerging economies, Brazil (along with Russia, China and India) 
Learning Portuguese is very important and i would recommend learning it before you learn Spanish because those who learn Portuguese can also understand Spanish and learn it much faster than vice versa. Portuguese though is not a global language but it is important nevertheless for business.

I speak Spanish at a good level in my opinion. I just need to enrich my vocabulary since i have learned most of the grammar (i am at nivel 2 out of three) I am also learning portuguese because it is accoustically my favorite language after Quenya. It reminds me of my mother language (Greek-cypriot) and it is really easy to learn. It has a Spanish charm and romance and a French sexuality and beauty in it.

Comparing Portuguese accoustically to Russian or Hebrew (there is no such thing as israeli) is very poor. I live in a rather culturally diverse country. I have a strong interest in hebrew and russian friends. Even Russian and Hebrew dont sound the same on the radio and definately neither sounds like Portuguese.

Russian is a harsh language like German and Hebrew uses a lot of voiced vowels like Arabic. Portuguese has exotic sounds and it is quite different and more beautifully than both. Portuguese is as lovely as Spanish.

Just my collective humble opinion because I love this topic. I am a language-fan


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## bayviews (Mar 3, 2006)

The "Big Six" 

English
Chinese
Spanish
French 
Arabic
Hindi


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## null (Dec 11, 2002)

so,which language(besides English) do you believe have the largest vocabulary?(sorry for being off the topic)


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

null said:


> so,which language(besides English) do you believe have the largest vocabulary?(sorry for being off the topic)


Hmm i dunno.. but it might be Spanish or chinese.. who knows?


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## oliver999 (Aug 4, 2006)

alex537 said:


> Hmm i dunno.. but it might be Spanish or chinese.. who knows?


1000 chinese characters, you can read newspapers,understand all daily talkings.
as for english, i handle 6000 words, but seems can only understand 25% in an english movie, and 65% of english newspaper.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

oliver999 said:


> 1000 chinese characters, you can read newspapers,understand all daily talkings.
> as for english, i handle 6000 words, but seems can only understand 25% in an english movie, and 65% of english newspaper.


WHO?


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## null (Dec 11, 2002)

> 1000 chinese characters, you can read newspapers,understand all daily talkings.
> as for english, i handle 6000 words, but seems can only understand 25% in an english movie, and 65% of english newspaper.


when we are talking about the 'vocabulary',it's a totally different story


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## Valeroso (Sep 19, 2004)

WhiteMagick said:


> Comparing Portuguese accoustically to Russian or Hebrew (there is no such thing as israeli) is very poor. I live in a rather culturally diverse country. I have a strong interest in hebrew and russian friends. Even Russian and Hebrew dont sound the same on the radio and definately neither sounds like Portuguese.
> 
> Russian is a harsh language like German and Hebrew uses a lot of voiced vowels like Arabic. Portuguese has exotic sounds and it is quite different and more beautifully than both. Portuguese is as lovely as Spanish.
> 
> Just my collective humble opinion because I love this topic. I am a language-fan


I'm a language-fan also!  In my opinion, whenever I listen to Portugese, to me it almost always sounds Russian or something Slavic. One time all these languages were being spoken on TV, and I was guessing them all correct! Then Portugese came on and I instantly thought Russian, only to find out it was actually Portugese. So it depends on the person I guess! (And to me, Hebrew sounds like French mixed with Arabic). 

English is obviously the world language now, and I think it'll be the world language for a very long time. I don't think Mandarin will ever replace English, partly because I don't think the West would ever really have a desire to learn it, but it may be the lingua franca of Asia! Aside from that, I guess English is here to stay, and I don't see a real need to change that. At least in Europe, no one seems to be complaining except for the Latin countries.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Here in Switzerland it was always German, French, Italian and English - but as more tourists have come from Asia recently, you see a lot of hotels, restaurants, and tourist guides with Japanese, Hindi and Mandarin/Cantonese translations. Especially in Zurich we also have a lot of Brazilian tourists, so Portuguese is quite important as well. 

Travelling worldwide I would say:
1 - English (without you hardly have any chance, with it you can practically get along everywhere more or less)
2 - Spanish (I wish I would know more)
3 - French (especially in Africa)
4 - Portuguese

Speaking at lest two of these 4 languages you shuold get along everywhere in the world


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Dino Domingo said:


> Spanish doesn't dominate Brazil, but there are Spanish-speakers there. Spanish _IS _ the _MOST_ important language in South America because it is spoken in every other country but Brazil, and Brazil is only _one _ country in South America. Majority rules. The amount of land Brazil occupies also has nothing to do with the language dominance in the continent, so don't get off topic.
> 
> Spanish is smooth, sexy, and romantic. Portuguese however, sounds very harsh. More Russian or Israeli with all the "aggh-ing"
> 
> Eesh!


The latter is about to discuss and a question of taste... Portuguese has some very diverse dialects and pronounciations - as well as Spanish. So you can't generalize.

And about the first: 
- Brazil is NOT the only non-spanish country in the continent.
- The country takes about 45% of the southamerican landmass and 55% of the continent's pop, with 2 out of the 3 major cities of SA laying in Brazil and about the importance of its economy we don't want to talk now... so it's for sure a bit more than "only one country"

It's not about stupid envy and rivalisms but about facts.


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

True. Surinam is Dutch, Guanana and Trinidad & Tobago is English and French Guiana. Am I forgetting a country?

Valeroso

How often do you hear portuguese or russia in order to confuse them? lol I still find them to be quite different since i know some spanish and come make out some words and because i hear russian and portuguese often. I still dont understand why people would confuse them.


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## Un known (Feb 7, 2006)

English

Chinese - with 1.3 billion speakers it will definitely become of the most important languages. In China few people speak anything other than Chinese and if you want to do business there you have to speak it. 
Japanese- only 125 million speakers in a rather small area but very important in business. 
German - same as Japanese

Spanish and Portuguese - large number of speakers but regions are far away from the main financial centers.


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## capslock (Oct 9, 2002)

Falubaz said:


> 2. english - even if some peolple say, it would be the richest language - isn't it in the fact. there are many words in the lexicon, but those words come from different parts of the world, and in fact they come from different dialects of english.
> in my opinion the really rich language is that which can do new words and change them if there is a need to.
> for example:
> in german u can say: 'Buch' - is just a book but if you need or want to say something more u can say 'Buchlein' - 'little book' - such things u can do potentially with every noun (many languages can do this, italian, spanish, polish) in english u can't say it
> ...


I couldn't disagree with this more. I think English is incredibly flexible exactly because it does so easily what you say it can't

'Buch' to 'Buchlein' as your first example. So 'Book' to 'Booklet' doesn't work? You can add suffixes and prefixes so easily to English words to create new ones that may not be strictly in a dictionary but are still instantly understandable. Endings such as 'er' 'esque' 'ish' 'y' and others all enable a noun to become incredibly nuanced in their meaning and inflexion.

Your 'nice' example is partially correct but also is slightly misleading in that to the extent that it is true, I would contend that this is is because of the large number of synonyms for words that exist in English - another advantage in my book. Chucking 'nice' into an onliune thesaurus gave me the following:

OK, admirable, agreeable, amiable, approved, attractive, becoming, charming, commendable, considerate, copacetic, cordial, courteous, cultured, decorous, delightful, ducky, favorable, friendly, gasser, genial, gentle, good, gracious, groovy, helpful, hunky-dory, ingratiating, inviting, kind, kindly, lovely, neato, nifty*, obliging, peachy*, phat, pleasant, pleasurable, polite, prepossessing, seemly, simpatico, superior, swell, unpresumptuous, welcome, well-mannered, winning, winsome, accurate, becoming, befitting, careful, choosy, conforming, correct, critical, cultured, dainty, decent, delicate, discerning, discriminating, distinguishing, exact, exacting, fastidious, fine, finespun, finical, finicking, fussy*, genteel, hairline, hairsplitting*, meticulous, minute, neat, particular, persnickety*, picky*, proper, refined, respectable, right, rigorous, scrupulous, seemly, squeamish, strict, subtle, tidy, trim, trivial*, virtuous, well-bred, acceptable, dandy, delicious, delightful, ducky, enjoyable, fair, far out, fine, gratifying, hunky-dory*, mild, nice, peach*, peachy*, pleasant, pleasurable, pleasureful, ready, spiffy*, swell*, welcome 

Now some of those might be dubious as being everyday usage to anyone going through the list, but each commincates again a different degree of nuance about both the subject of the description and the person describing it.... or you could just use 'nice' 

Note that I am not seeking to glorify English in some sort of attempt at linguistic imperialism - just seeking to correct some of your assertions.


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## TeKnO_Lx (Oct 19, 2004)

Donqui said:


> And I re-iterate, no it is not. Portugal has an economy smaller than the province of Madrid. Spain's economy as a whole is bigger than Brasil and is the fourth largest of the eurozon, the 5th or 6th largest out of Europe's 40+ countries. And Mexico, while having a much smaller population, in some economic measurements, is barely behind Brazil.
> 
> So let me fram it another why. Brazil is the only country that makes Portuguese important. Portuguese in Europe and Africa are small languages. However, Spanish is an important European language, and is the language of Mexico. Thus it is important in the Americas and in Europe, unlike Portuguese. Then, you add the other 20 countries that speak Spanish, and I have to say, I respectfully disagree.
> 
> So stop attacking me personally.


what do u disagre? i never made a comparison with portuguese and spanish language speakers i never said portuguese it´s more important then spanish.
of course hardly portuguese can ever match spanish or english or aspirate to be at that level. but can grown and alot, and be a link between these 2 languages, especialy when Brazil become the superpower we all want (..) but now remains only important in South America and in some african countries

my point is portuguese ppl in this globalized world and where 2 languages are importants like English and Spanish in a minor scale, are in advantage comparing to any other countries. u didn´t contradict my point so i assume im right .i found an article on spanish ( made by a spaniard) paragraph 3 which says it´s all. we are talked about this issue

now the economic datas u say i dont know where they fit in the subject. like I was preety clear making a point saying portuguese language growth is hostage of Brazil. 
also We can´t make miracles with our 10 milion again 40 milion of Spain, even more with slow economic growing, but growing steady. 
Spain could be the "lider" of Hispanoablantes while Portuguese is virtualy impossible due to massive diference of population between Portugal and Brazil. Even if we were richer than Spain portuguese wiil always become hostage of Brazil to grow worldwide. diferent dimensions, diferent cases
Spanish is globaly more important than Portuguese and i dont have problems with that


this "battle of speakers of diferent languages" doesn´t fit in the subject of my original post, although i understand, when u lack arguments u start with the old " we have more speakers, we are better, we are richer" blha blha blha


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## trooper (Jun 29, 2005)

For me are the global languages English, Spanich, French, Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, Russian.
and what about Africans?

I think the most used language can change very fast it depends on one countrys economical weight. Thats why most people learn English because of the USA and the long historical strenghts of Great Britain. And as second example many have counted German as an global language, but only ca. 100Mio speaks german (mothertongue, the amount of customers is for example less then of indoneisias))


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

> regarding Spanish i talk about it before, it´s a language that every portuguese knows something (portunol), and b´cause we are bordered with them it´s more than natural we receiveid many spanish influence, much more than the oposite. it´s considered an easy language that´s why the 2nd internacional language thaught in school´s is french, although naturaly spanish popularity have incresied alot these past years
> For Brazil i don´t know how it works
> our old generations speak french very weel, the new one´s suck hard like me,
> 
> ...


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## garpie (Jan 5, 2006)

BUT, what if we use List of Countries by GDP NOMINAL? That is, what a country really produces (without adjustments for living standards comparisons, which is the reason for using GDP PPP):

List of countries by GDP (Nominal) 
Rank Country GDP (millions of USD) 
— World 44,433,002 
— European Union 13,446,050 
1 United States 12,485,725 
2 Japan 4,571,314 
3 Germany 2,797,343 
4 People's Republic of China 1 2,224,811 
5 United Kingdom 2,201,473 
6 France 2,105,864 
7 Italy 1,766,160 
8 Canada 1,130,208 
*9 Spain 1,126,565 * 
10 South Korea 793,070 
*11 Brazil 792,683 * 
12 India 775,410 
*13 Mexico 768,437 *


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

garpie said:


> BUT, what if we use List of Countries by GDP NOMINAL? That is, what a country really produces (without adjustments for living standards comparisons, which is the reason for using GDP PPP):
> 
> List of countries by GDP (Nominal)
> Rank Country GDP (millions of USD)
> ...


The true value of what a country produces is represented in PPP GDP. Nominal bases the value of products in the official exchange rates which often do not show the actual purchasing power of a country's economy and currency.

Economical and social statistics are quickly dropping nominal GDP indices because of poor representation on a country's standard of living, purchasing power etc.


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## trooper (Jun 29, 2005)

garpie said:


> BUT, what if we use List of Countries by GDP NOMINAL? That is, what a country really produces (without adjustments for living standards comparisons, which is the reason for using GDP PPP):
> 
> List of countries by GDP (Nominal)
> Rank Country GDP (millions of USD)
> ...


russias GDP is alreday over 900 Mrd $ real and will reach this year perhaps 1000


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

However,, Spain is a first world country and Brazil is a third world country. kay:


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Take care with that!
1. Third world is a cold war term that means block free countries - IF then development country
2. A lot of Latin American countries are transition countries and NOT what you would call third world. The problem is the Gini coefficient and regional disparities that in big countries as Brazil, Argentina or Chile. The difference between Buenos Aires, Santiago, Sao Paulo or Porto Alegre to the real marginal areas of these countries are enrmous.
3. The GDP per capita of these countries is comparable to most Eastern European nations. Call them once third world! 
4. The sad thing is that nearly ALL Brazilians have the opinion that they are indeed as they say third world. And I know several that come to Europe and were astonished that also here there is poverty and marginalization... And also the US is not just Manhatten and Celebration... but it's the propaganda and the world bank that give them the impression they are "underdogs"


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## garpie (Jan 5, 2006)

PPP GDP may be useful for comparing "living standards". That is, which is the equivalent of a spanish' 1500 €/month salary in Brazil.

BUT

For sure a spaniard's nominal salary, in case the españolito goes to brazil (say for tourism) will be able to purchase a greater amount of services and products than its PPP-equivalent brazilian salary.

In my opinion the only valuable measure is that of PER CAPITA PPP-GDP, so that you can compare salaries in different countries taking into account the level of prices (Purchasing Power Parity), that is, on a PER CAPITA basis and asuming that you are considering both economies *isolated* and with no cross-relations (of purchases, for instance)

But when comparing different nations' economies as a whole, PPP usage is, in my humble opinion, misleading. 1000 € are 1000 € everywhere: in Spain, Morocco, Brazil and Japan.


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

Hehehe i find it rather confusing and funny to actually consider PPP-GDP per capita valuable and not PPP-GDP as a whole because the first is derived from the latter. Anyways. 

The reason why I dont like nominal GDP is because it is based on official exchange rates. So a country starts to depreciate its currency on purpose for various macroeconomic reasons it automatically raises its GDP artificially. Thus it is totally misleading and innacurate as a way to represent the real purchasing power of a country.

I also disagree that 1000Euros are 1000Euros everywhere because even in different countries in Europe itself a basket of necessities will be bought by a different amount of money. You don't expect to buy the same things with 1000Euros in Luxembourg as you will in Portugal or Spain. The Euro countries have a very long way to go to full price equity.


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## Kaique (Aug 15, 2006)

WhiteMagick said:


> Hehehe i find it rather confusing and funny to actually consider PPP-GDP per capita valuable and not PPP-GDP as a whole because the first is derived from the latter. Anyways.
> 
> The reason why I dont like nominal GDP is because it is based on official exchange rates. So a country starts to depreciate its currency on purpose for various macroeconomic reasons it automatically raises its GDP artificially. Thus it is totally misleading and innacurate as a way to represent the real purchasing power of a country.
> 
> I also disagree that 1000Euros are 1000Euros everywhere because even in different countries in Europe itself a basket of necessities will be bought by a different amount of money. You don't expect to buy the same things with 1000Euros in Luxembourg as you will in Portugal or Spain. The Euro countries have a very long way to go to full price equity.


I agree.
I think that the most apropriate estatistic to compare countries is GINI index wich mensure the distance between Richs and Poors.
For exemple, in Brasil 1000 Euros, today, is around 2.750 Reais in Northeast is a really good salary for a single in a big city as Fortaleza (3 millon), but in Slavador(3millon) is a middian, in São Paulo(11millon) isn't a lot, in Brasília(2.5 millon) the enought to survive living in a small apartament.


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

garpie said:


> BUT, what if we use List of Countries by GDP NOMINAL? That is, what a country really produces (without adjustments for living standards comparisons, which is the reason for using GDP PPP):
> 
> List of countries by GDP (Nominal)
> Rank Country GDP (millions of USD)
> ...



yep, thats the correct statistic.


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## Dino Domingo (Jan 5, 2005)

alex537 said:


> However,, Spain is a first world country and Brazil is a third world country. kay:


_1st_, _2nd_ and _3rd_ world countries are no longer politically correct terms. It would be better to stick to _developing_ and _developed_ countries.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

Dino Domingo said:


> _1st_, _2nd_ and _3rd_ world countries are no longer politically correct terms. It would be better to stick to _developing_ and _developed_ countries.


alright
However,, Spain is a developed country and Brazil is a developing country.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Would you two please read my post not so far above?


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

Along with those meanings you posted for me a developed country is also a country that has reached its potential and peak and is growing slowly but steadily. A developing country is a country that is growing fast and is far from reaching its potential and peak. 

Now look how important spain is which is developed and how important brazil while still being developing.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

You can also say: a country that is NOT developping anymore is dead on a high level - see western Europe... 

Spain/Portugal and Brazil/Argentina are also not compareable: 
The first were European empires that missed the investment in modern technologies and industrialization during the colonial times (the prime material was just collected or sold without increasing its values). Therefore their importance and economy became marginal status in the 19th and 20th century. Thanks to tourism sector and membership of EU the iberian peninsula is developping again - and especially Portugal is one of the fastest growing in that sence within Europe. Just remember Ireland: in a few years it grew from Europe's poorhouse to the richest society!

And the latter: the colonialists were bleeding out the country's economy til the revolutions. Later there was war and political crisis but the ecomony was steadily growing. Sao Paulo became the fastest growing city also in terms of industrialization during the 1950s and 1960s. The military dictators were again bleeding out the country and later the inflation rate was beyond discription - also don't forget the big crisis in Argentina that affected the whole continent. Since a few years whole LA is booming again - and maybe is the biggest growing economy and society apart from China/India.

That's two different - and also similar - developments. Only because the mediterranean area is Europe and Brazil South America doesn't mean that you just can devide it into "developped" and "developping" countries - also regarding the geographical and demographic size and distribution. The biggest difference I see is the Gini coefficient...


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## Dino Domingo (Jan 5, 2005)

alex537 said:


> alright
> However,, Spain is a developed country and Brazil is a developing country.


Now that's better...


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Ehm, after half of the thread is about Spain vs Brazil can we please go back to the topic? :cheers:


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## Kenwen (May 1, 2005)

well, i think chinese is rising 2 become at least the second language on earth,firstly, so many people learn chinese now, just in my uni which is kingston uni in london, there r so many people learning chinese, my best friend a spanish is learning chinese and so many others. In all the important countries such as usa and canada, if u go 2 vancouver, is like hk, so many chinese, and all the overseas chinese knows mandarin and cantonese. As china pretty soon will be as important as usa, people who want 2 do business with china have 2 study chinese. Also there is strong cultural and regional influence already, if u tell people in east asia or south east asia, people such as japanese, korean, thai, vietnamese......all these people, if u tell them count 1 to 10 in their language u will find out they sounds so similar to chinese, that was because of chinese historical influences, these countries were either chinese tributary states or once been rule by china, so is easy for them to learn chinese, and also alot of them learning chinese now. As someone point out, if u know mandarin u can travel through the whole south east asia without difficulties, 20% of thai speak chinese, 40% of malaysian, all the singapore people and so on..........So many people r learning chinese now, i mean including all the races.....so chinese will be very important, at least after english. African countries r doin alot of business with china, mainly resourses, and i have seen a reasonable black population in city like Beijing, China is goin 2 be very cosmopolitan


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

Kenwen said:


> well, i think chinese is rising 2 become at least the second language on earth,firstly, so many people learn chinese now, just in my uni which is kingston uni in london, there r so many people learning chinese, my best friend a spanish is learning chinese and so many others. In all *the important countries such as usa *and canada, if u go 2 vancouver, is like hk, so many chinese, and all the overseas chinese knows mandarin and cantonese. As china pretty soon will be as important as usa, people who want 2 do business with china have 2 study chinese. Also there is strong cultural and regional influence already, if u tell people in east asia or south east asia, people such as japanese, korean, thai, vietnamese......all these people, if u tell them count 1 to 10 in their language u will find out they sounds so similar to chinese, that was because of chinese historical influences, these countries were either chinese tributary states or once been rule by china, so is easy for them to learn chinese, and also alot of them learning chinese now. As someone point out, if u know mandarin u can travel through the whole south east asia without difficulties, 20% of thai speak chinese, 40% of malaysian, all the singapore people and so on..........So many people r learning chinese now, i mean including all the races.....so chinese will be very important, at least after english. African countries r doin alot of business with china, mainly resourses, and i have seen a reasonable black population in city like Beijing, China is goin 2 be very cosmopolitan



Nah.... Chinese is NOT important in the United States.. Spanish is the second MOST important in the nation... with more than 45 million spanish speaker..


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

The Asian population as a whole is not even larger than 6 million people, and that is split among various non-Chinese nationalities, so this 2% is not in the US going to have a significant impact. We can argue about global impact yes, but in the US, not even close.


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## Kenwen (May 1, 2005)

well, as the economy grow, the language that the country speak became more important, and china will be the nation with the highest gdp soon, and its language will become important and influence on the world


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## silly thing (Aug 9, 2004)

english must be the most important language around the world
after that i would suggest chinese and spanish


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## Fallout (Sep 11, 2002)

Chinese and Spanish struggle for the 2nd place now, thats for sure. Chinese may be spoken by greater number of people, but I think spanish is more international. Hindi may eventually become important with the rise of India to global power status, but it will never get such status as chinese. The languages of major industrial powers (japanese, german, french, italian) are also important for now, but they will probably loose some of their position in future. Same with russian. Arabic, indonesian and portuguese (brazilian) may also strenghten their position in future.

Here's two stats I found:

Global languages by GDP of their speakers:










Internet languages by usage:

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

Interesting graphic... 
Without a doubt.. The most important language are:
ENglish, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and German (on internet)


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## miamicanes (Oct 31, 2002)

Chinese has another potential marketing advantage over Hindi and Spanish -- movies. More specifically, the same kind of high-budget spare-no-expense CGI-rich Action/Adventure movies that historically have only come from Hollywood. 

Bollywood is Bollywood. It's its own genre (or collection of genres), and likely to be permanently happy to stay that way. Chinese filmmakers, on the other hand, are slowly acquiring the same toys, CGI, and budgets as their competitors in Hollywood. There's major, obvious commercial overlap between what Chinese audiences like, and what American/European audiences like. I give it 5 years, max, before a major Chinese studio cranks out a couple of Matrix-like movies produced simultaneously in Chinese and English, using different actors, but the same sets and (expensive) CGI. If they become major hits in the American and European markets, Hollywood's going to be in deep doodoo, because for the first time in history it'll be up against studios with the budgets and business plans to take them on & go at it <<mano-a-mano>> in Hollywood's own back yard.


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## silly thing (Aug 9, 2004)

Chinese has its international power in asia actually, as it's so wide-spread within quite alot asian cointries not only China, Taiwan and Hong Kong

most singaporeans and malays also speak chinese


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## null (Dec 11, 2002)

you'd better speak the 'BIG 3'


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

null said:


> you'd better speak the 'BIG 3'


I already speak the big two (as u said)... English and Spanish


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## Brizer (Nov 26, 2003)

Which Chinese, Mandarin or Cantonese? The languages are similar but not the same.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

Brizer said:


> Which Chinese, Mandarin or Cantonese? The languages are similar but not the same.


oh no.. i thought u were talking about english, spanish and chinese.. and i said english and spanish.. :dunno:


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

i found this interesting article about the SPanish Language in the world.. 
Is in spanish but im too lazy to translated it into English :scouserd: ... it says that Spanish is the second most studied language in the world. (after English)
EFE
El Universal
Madrid, España
Martes 25 de abril de 2006

11:54 El director del Instituto Cervantes, César Antonio Molina, 
aseguró hoy que el español se afianzará en el futuro como la segunda 
lengua de comunicación internacional, durante su intervención en un 
acto celebrado en Madrid. 
El Instituto Cervantes es una institución creada en 1991 para 
promover y enseñar español o castellano y para difundir la cultura 
de España e Hispanoamérica en el mundo. 

Molina añadió que el español es ya la lengua extranjera más 
estudiada después del inglés, y que donde más crece su aprendizaje 
es en los países anglosajones o de influencia anglosajona. 

También dijo que en España este idioma, con las cerca de 500.000 
personas que trabajan en torno a él, aporta el 15 por ciento del 
Producto Interior Bruto (PIB) y que "su valoración económica está 
sólo en sus inicios". 

Los datos, señaló, proceden de la "Enciclopedia del español en el 
mundo", que el Instituto Cervantes publicará en septiembre para 
celebrar sus quince años de vida y que, en sus más de 600 páginas, 
presentará por primera vez la situación del idioma país a país. 

Una situación que, según Molina, es de clara pujanza y continuará 
siéndolo durante este siglo, debido, entre otras razones, a que* el 
español lo hablan casi 500 millones de personas * (*More than 500 million speak SPanish worldwide*)y es una lengua muy 
homogénea y unitaria, además de la cuarta más hablada del mundo. 

Asimismo, dijo, es una de las pocas lenguas internacionales de hoy y 
una de las grandes lenguas de cultura, que hace que escritores, 
cineastas, dramaturgos y músicos sean vistos como miembros de una 
misma y potente cultura. 

*Sus hablantes representan el 6 por ciento de la población mundial*(*6% of the world population speaks Spanish*), 
frente a un 8,9 por ciento que habla inglés y a un 1,8 por ciento 
que habla francés, idiomas ambos que están extendidos sólo en dos 
continentes. 

"*El español es hoy una lengua esencialmente americana, ya que nueve 
de cada diez de sus hablantes son de ese continente, y sólo el 
décimo pertenece a Europa,* su cuna", dijo el director del Instituto 
Cervantes. 

*(TOday, Spanish is essentially American, because 9 out of 10 Spanish Speakers are from America and the rest are from Europe)*

Durante la última década, explicó, es la lengua cuya demanda más ha 
crecido, junto con el inglés, superando al francés y al alemán en 
casi todos los lugares y despertando interés en zonas hasta hace 
poco impensables, como Costa de Marfil o Senegal. 

Agregó que donde más crece es en los países anglosajones o de 
influencia anglosajona y que sólo en Estados Unidos lo estudian seis 
millones de personas, aunque "el mercado está lejos de la 
saturación" y las expectativas de crecimiento son del 60 por ciento, 
3,5 millones de hablantes más. 

Con respecto a la Unión Europea (UE), donde el alemán, el inglés, el 
francés e incluso el italiano superan en número de hablantes al 
español, César Antonio Molina señaló que su presencia en las 
instituciones es "insoslayable". 

"Es la única lengua que seguirá creciendo demográficamente en las 
próximas décadas y la única lengua internacional *en Estados Unidos, 
donde en 2050 habrá más de cien millones de hispanos*" (*In 2050 there will be more than 100 million SPanish speaker in the U.S.*), precisó. 

"Europa no sólo se debe relacionar consigo misma", dijo Molina, que 
vaticinó que el tema de su oficialidad acabará arreglándose "porque 
muchos funcionarios acabaran hablando esa segunda lengua de 
comunicación". 

China necesita el español para su crecimiento hacia Latinoamérica, y 
otro tanto ocurre con respecto a la India, afirmó Molina, quien 
recordó que toda esta eclosión ha coincidido con la expansión del 
Instituto Cervantes, que hoy está presente en 56 ciudades de 37 
países. EFE


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

If you add up the population of the countries whose official language is spanish the native spanish speakers population doesnt even add up to 400 million. Would you expect that there are over 100 million of second language speakers of spanish? I find that kind of hard to believe. 

And then it goes on to say that:

6% x 6.5bn people = 390 million speak spanish of the total world population.

doesnt make any sense


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## polako (Apr 7, 2005)

DonQui said:


> The Asian population as a whole is not even larger than 6 million people, and that is split among various non-Chinese nationalities, so this 2% is not in the US going to have a significant impact. We can argue about global impact yes, but in the US, not even close.


Actually in 2000 there were 10.48 million Asians(3.7% of the total population) in the US according to the Census Bureau. Since 2000 their growth has been around 400,000 a year, which would equal to 12.88 million today(4.3% of tp). By 2050 there will be around 40 million Asians(10% of the t.p.).


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## AdamChobits (Jun 7, 2006)

null said:


> you'd better speak the 'BIG 3'


I'll do it uhohohohohohhoh. I'll start mandarin soon.


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## AdamChobits (Jun 7, 2006)

About Chinese, It will have influence and it's going to be important. But never above english and spanish. Even if GERMANY is the 3th richest country, german is not so "important" around the world. what makes a language "important" in the international area is how spread it is. And about that, Spanish is more spread and also, the second language more learnt. 

Anyway, last century was the american one, this one is the chinese one, and the next one (if we're still alive) is going to be the south-american one.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

WhiteMagick said:


> And then it goes on to say that:
> 
> 6% x 6.5bn people = 390 million speak spanish of the total world population.
> 
> doesnt make any sense


there are almost 400 million native spanish.. and around 100 million speak SPanish as second language..


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

^^ The article says that 6% of the world population speaks spanish implying the total population in the world both native and second that speaks spanish which is roughly 390million and thus does not match what it says earlier on about 500 million speakers of spanish. 

I am just pointing out an inconsistency with the article. I know spanish is an important language. That's why I am learning it along with Portuguese and Mandarin.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

WhiteMagick said:


> ^^ The article says that 6% of the world population speaks spanish implying the total population in the world both native and second that speaks spanish which is roughly 390million and thus does not match what it says earlier on about 500 million speakers of spanish.
> 
> I am just pointing out an inconsistency with the article. I know spanish is an important language. That's why I am learning it along with Portuguese and Mandarin.


Also says that there are almost 500 million Spanish speaker...


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

^^ Yeah I actually pointed that out


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## Kenwen (May 1, 2005)

Adam_Woowei said:


> About Chinese, It will have influence and it's going to be important. But never above english and spanish. Even if GERMANY is the 3th richest country, german is not so "important" around the world. what makes a language "important" in the international area is how spread it is. And about that, Spanish is more spread and also, the second language more learnt.
> 
> Anyway, last century was the american one, this one is the chinese one, and the next one (if we're still alive) is going to be the south-american one.


But the point is, china will be the world biggest economy, it will be like usa 2day.....by that time people will imigrate 2 china like thay do 2 usa now, so they need 2 learn chinese


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## island_boi (Oct 25, 2006)

it would definitely be English.. no question about that.. spanish, french or arabic maybe.


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

Which important language do you think is fading in importance quickly??


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

Spanish


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## Fallout (Sep 11, 2002)

WhiteMagick said:


> Which important language do you think is fading in importance quickly??


French and German obviously. They were 2nd and 3rd world language 100 years ago.


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## Fallout (Sep 11, 2002)

Kenwen said:


> But the point is, china will be the world biggest economy, it will be like usa 2day.....by that time people will imigrate 2 china like thay do 2 usa now, so they need 2 learn chinese


LOL people don't immigrate to US because its world biggest economy, but because it's rich. China mayy become bigger economy than US thanks to its far bigger population, but it they still will be much poorer than USA.


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

Look said:


> French and German obviously. They were 2nd and 3rd world language 100 years ago.


I agree that German is a language of fading importance. Its speakers are growing at an extremely low pace and in the future it is projected that with the falling population of germany they will decrease. 

French on the other hand I believe arent loosing importance. their speakers are growing at a substantial rate and not just because of the african french speaking countries with growing population but also because of france. France's birth rate boosted from 1.5 to 1.98 or something the past decade and its population is expected to grow to 75 million by 2050. It is already increasing at around 300 000 due to a natural pop growth rather than immigration. french is going to sustain its importance through that over the coming years.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

Look said:


> LOL people don't immigrate to US because its world biggest economy, but because it's rich. China mayy become bigger economy than US thanks to its far bigger population, but it they still will be much poorer than USA.


Exactly


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## Kenwen (May 1, 2005)

alex537 said:


> Exactly


But once the nation became the biggest economy, it will attract people from all over the world 2 find opportunity there, thats what have been happen in the past 2 usa


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## OtAkAw (Aug 5, 2004)

I don't think China's economic growth will make Chinese at par with English. I think the reason global languages came to be is because their countries of origin colonized so many regions around the world therefore forcing the inhabitants to learn the language. In my country, the Philippines for example, we Filipinos wouldn't have learned English if it were not for the American Occupation in the early 20th century, having said so, The American Occupation is also the reason why Spanish, another global language was killed off as the dominant foreign language in the Philippines. It's like teaching kids, if you won't force them, they won't learn it. 

If England haven't conquered vast lands like America, India and Australia in the past or in the same way Spain haven't conquered huge regions in present-day Latin America, then I believe both languages would just be the same importance as to let's say Italian or Japanese, important but nevertheless not that global. 

These are the reasons why I refuse to believe that CHinese will equal or overtake English because I see no reason for them to colonize regions just like what Western Powers did in the past. Economic improvements alone will not spread a certain language, FORCE is ultimately needed.


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## null (Dec 11, 2002)

we dont need to spread that language anymore,1.4b is enough!


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## Marek.kvackaj (Jun 24, 2006)

If Im speaking for Europe here everibody MUST speak Englisch when You looking for a job even here IN Slovakia everybody request speak Englisch (that start maybe 4 years ago...) So for Europe Englisch, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia...
And also when You are Wordwide its most learning language...


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## crisp444 (Oct 23, 2005)

English (speak it fluently), Spanish (speak it fluently), French (conversant but learning more), and Mandarin/Cantonese (have yet to study it).


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

crisp444 said:


> English (speak it fluently), Spanish (speak it fluently), French (conversant but learning more), and Mandarin/Cantonese (have yet to study it).


That's it.. u don't need to learn another language..


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## UrbanSophist (Aug 4, 2005)

edit.


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## UrbanSophist (Aug 4, 2005)

I think we should abandon the letter system of language and adopt a universal one, such as music or mathematics. I know, personally, I've experienced a greater meaningfulness from those two than I have of this one that I am right now using... But maybe I just need to become fluent in a romance language...


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

That's how the ideograms in China work. Eventhough there are many chinese dialects of non mutual understanding (people can't understand each other) when they write in symbols in each other's hand they understand each other perfectly because the symbols retain the same meaning in each dialect eventhough they may be pronounced completely differently. 

So is might be a good idea if all the world switched to something similar! 

I speak Cypriot, Greek and English fluently. I have a high profficiency in German and Spanish. Conversant in French and I am learning Portuguese and Chinese now at uni!


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## feverwin (Feb 25, 2006)

The reason Mandarin has a better position than Hindi is because more than 90 percents of Chinese are ethnic Han, half of others are han-like, using han zi (Chinese characters). Since they are one ethnic group, it's really no problem that adopt one tongue. I can only speak Mandarin now, I guess my grandpa can speak some unique accent or dialect, but I have never heard he once talked to me in it. All we are talking is in Mandarin. 

According to Contonese or Shanghainese(Wu), I have never saw a Contonese or Shanghainese who can not speak Mandarin. Only a hker who talked to me in badly Mandarin but still I can understand him... There's also no problem for me to understand Contonese. Since the grammer and characters are the same, even though I can't figure out some certain pronounciation, I can still guess it in a sentence... I guess I saw too many HK TV shows...

For India, there's no certain ethnic group dominate the whole country. Each one has a language, each one has a writing and speaking system. They are totally different languages to others. I guess it's wise to use some other language like English unify the whole country or there will be many conflicts.

This is of course personal assumption... They can also do like Canadians who voted their language...


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## Escoto_Dubai2008 (Mar 14, 2006)

*Top 10*

1. English.
2. Chinese.
3. Spanish
4. French.
5. Russian.
6. German.
7. Portuguese.
8. Arabian.
9. Italian.
10. Japanese.


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## Marek.kvackaj (Jun 24, 2006)

Escoto_Dubai2008 said:


> 1. English.
> 2. Chinese.
> 3. Spanish
> 4. French.
> ...


 Thats right


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## FallenGuard (Nov 2, 2006)

Because Luxembourg is such a small Country, the Influences from our Neighbours are very obvious. We have many People that come from France or Germany every day to work here. So they bring their Language with them. 

Its much easier to speak their respective Languages than requiring them to speak ours - and a lot of French dont Speak german and vice versa. By speaking both Languages we make any Language Barriers disappear not only in our country, but we also have no difficulty navigating in our Neighbours.

English is a mandatory language too, for the reasons stated in this thread before. But it is no Problem, because of English Culture Influence (English Music, Internet etc.)

Speaking 4 or 5 Languages is deffinately an asset!

Personally I always wanted to learn Russian or some asiatic Language, but they are much more difficult to learn because of the different Writing (Kyrillic, Symbols and so on)


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## Nikom (Sep 24, 2005)

Escoto_Dubai2008 said:


> 1. English.
> 2. Chinese.
> 3. Spanish
> 4. French.
> ...


I agree with that


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## panamaboy9016 (Mar 29, 2006)

*My opinion,*

My opinion,
1) English
2) Chinese
3) Spanish
4) French
5) Portuguese
6) Italian
7) German
8) Arabic
9) Japanese
10) Russian


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

In Europe, Russian is the mostly spoken language.

I speak English, German and a little French. If you know these languages, you can speak with people in most European countries.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

panamaboy9016 said:


> My opinion,
> 1) English
> 2) Chinese
> 3) Spanish
> ...


Chinese ahead of Spanish?? nah...


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

FallenGuard said:


> Because Luxembourg is such a small Country, the Influences from our Neighbours are very obvious. We have many People that come from France or Germany every day to work here. So they bring their Language with them.
> 
> Its much easier to speak their respective Languages than requiring them to speak ours - and a lot of French dont Speak german and vice versa. By speaking both Languages we make any Language Barriers disappear not only in our country, but we also have no difficulty navigating in our Neighbours.
> 
> ...


I envy you Luxemburgians. You grow up being ableing fluent in so many languages due to your multicultural enviroment. Luxemburgisch, German, French and English. I speak German and French but surely not fluently. I gotta work on those two languages a lot.


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## Askal82 (Dec 9, 2005)

WhiteMagick said:


> That's how the ideograms in China work. Eventhough there are many chinese dialects of non mutual understanding (people can't understand each other) when they write in symbols in each other's hand they understand each other perfectly because the symbols retain the same meaning in each dialect eventhough they may be pronounced completely differently.
> 
> So is might be a good idea if all the world switched to something similar!
> 
> I speak Cypriot, Greek and English fluently. I have a high profficiency in German and Spanish. Conversant in French and I am learning Portuguese and Chinese now at uni!


The world will probably become a better place if let's say English, Spanish, French or other languages adopt Chinese characters or similar systems instead of the alphabet we know. I think we'll be able to break the communication barriers among the nations if we can speak the language of pictures. So a saying that a picture is 'worth a thousand words' seems fitting.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Here's my opinion,

1) English
2) Spanish
3) Mandarin
4) French
5) Portuguese
6) Arabic
7) German
8) Dutch


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## miamicanes (Oct 31, 2002)

Interestingly, English-speakers who learn to read Chinese apparently read it "differently" than native Chinese-speakers do. English-speakers look at characters and instinctively try breaking them down into radicals to try and guess what they might mean. Kind of like Chinese "Hooked on Phonics." They're usually wrong, but it just seems like a natural thing to try first. So... when an English-speaker sees "媽媽" ("Mama" -- literally, the familiar title of one's mother), the first thing he's likely to think of is "female-horse" (女+马 squished together, side by side). Someone who grew up in China just sees "Mama" (though I've wondered whether the interplay between words like "Mama" vs the "Female+Horse" radicals could be the Chinese equivalent of a pun).

In reality, "媽媽" is literally the sound "ma" twice in a row ("mama", get it?). The "马" on the right side suggests that the character is pronounced "ma" ("ma" = "horse"). The "女" on the left side implies that whatever it is that sounds like "ma" is female. The "IsLike/PronouncedLike" pattern isn't universal, but it's fairly common. The problem, of course, is that the "PronouncedLike" half is often meaningless or misleading to Cantonese OR Mandarin speakers... sometimes both. Apparently, one of the biggest groups of characters that were simplified had "soundsLike" radicals stripped away because they were wrong or misleading to Mandarin speakers (one sub-goal of simplification was to promote Mandarin above all other dialects).

Giving a better example, Americans see "猫" ("cat") and immediately break it down into "豸" ("clawed beast") + "苗" ("seedling" -- itself, literally "(plant-plant) + field"). After scratching their heads for a while and trying to guess what the hell a clawed beast and seedling have in common, it might occur to them that "苗" is pronounced "miao". Hmmm... a clawed beast that sounds like "miao". A cat, perhaps?  

Once you start to learn the mechanics behind Chinese writing and begin to understand "how it works", it doesn't seem nearly as exotic or hard.


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

Askal82 said:


> The world will probably become a better place if let's say English, Spanish, French or other languages adopt Chinese characters or similar systems instead of the alphabet we know. I think we'll be able to break the communication barriers among the nations if we can speak the language of pictures. So a saying that a picture is 'worth a thousand words' seems fitting.


I totally agree. It will indeed have the same effect as in china where language barriers are put down since everybody uses the same scripture. It is in fact the most strong argument against the drop of chinese ideograms against those who want chinese to be romanized. 

My list:
1) English
2)Mandarin
3)Spanish
4)French
5)Portuguese
6)German
7)Russian
8)Arabic
9)Japanese
10)Hindi


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## FallenGuard (Nov 2, 2006)

Askal82 said:


> The world will probably become a better place if let's say English, Spanish, French or other languages adopt Chinese characters or similar systems instead of the alphabet we know. I think we'll be able to break the communication barriers among the nations if we can speak the language of pictures. So a saying that a picture is 'worth a thousand words' seems fitting.


I don't agree with you - if that were the case, the roman or kyrillic alphabet would not be so popular right now, I guess. Look at aegyptian hieroglyphs, they are not used anymore. It seems these Picture Languages are impractical (say writing speed), or why have people abandoned using them?


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## LDN_EUROPE (Dec 1, 2002)

I'm an English speaker and can survive here in China (just) with no Mandarin. As I live in a Cantonese area I can also vouch for the fact that you can survive here with only Mandarin too. I know people born here who only speak Mandarin and no Cantonese. I think when China allows free movement of people within its own borders (maybe 10-20 years time?) Mandarin will become more and more common. Schools only teach in Mandarin and not the local dialect/language. Kids still usually talk to their friends in the local tongue.

Even when China becomes the world super power (30-50 years?) I still think English will be the global language.

road signs / announcements on the metro system / telephone announcements ALL have an English version here!!!! (in the major cities anyway).

Thank you China!!


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## Kenwen (May 1, 2005)

FallenGuard said:


> I don't agree with you - if that were the case, the roman or kyrillic alphabet would not be so popular right now, I guess. Look at aegyptian hieroglyphs, they are not used anymore. It seems these Picture Languages are impractical (say writing speed), or why have people abandoned using them?


Thats because Rome conquered all the european countries while those nations has no writings, if egyptian conquer europe like Rome did, than europe will use egyptian hieroglyphs, but egypt was conquered by Rome at the end, so they were force 2 adopt latin stuff.......get it, is not because it is impractical, is all about powers, the whole east asia was using chinese, because China was the dominant power at that time


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## oliver999 (Aug 4, 2006)

alex537 said:


> Chinese ahead of Spanish?? nah...


if refer to the population    
13 billion+overseas chinese+part of singapore\ malasia\philliopine\


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## oliver999 (Aug 4, 2006)

chinese characture is intesting:
"一" means "one", "二" means "two","三"means "three"
"人" means" humanbeings"
"田" means "fields"
"火" means "fire"


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2006)

1-English

2-Spanish (not mandarin, we are talking of GLOBAL languages and mandarin is only in china)
In Brazil, they teach at schools Spanish as a first foreign language instead of English (brazil is about 170milion)

3-Arabic*** (lots of differents dialects, can be the last one)

4-French

5-Portugueses ( Brazil, angola, mozambique, portugal)

6-Mandarin (There isnt a Chinese, because there are just different dialects. The most expanded is Mandarin)

7-Russian (not only Russia, but Belarus, Ukrain, and all exsoviet republics)

8-German

9-Italian

10-Turkish/Japanese/Dutch


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## UrbanSophist (Aug 4, 2005)

oliver999 said:


> if refer to the population
> 13 billion+overseas chinese+part of singapore\ malasia\philliopine\


Wow, you mean the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Australia, and all those former-colonies don't even have as much people as in China (plus those few other places you mentioned)?


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## IQS-Man (Oct 29, 2006)

Let me be immodest:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – that is, the Internet names and domains authority - approved on Sept 16th, 2005 the creation of the “.cat” domain. This is the domain for the Catalan cultural and linguistic community (around 10 million people).

“.cat” is the first Internet domain that globally represents a scientific, academic, linguistic and cultural community. No other language has its own domain in Internet.

Well, quite a few criteria have been used in this thread to define a language “importance”. This may be one…


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

frozen said:


> 1-English
> 
> 2-Spanish (not mandarin, we are talking of GLOBAL languages and mandarin is only in china)
> In Brazil, they teach at schools Spanish as a first foreign language instead of English (brazil is about 170milion)
> ...


IMHO:

Mandarin is surely not spoken solely in China alone. It is official in more than three countries and there are millions of overseas chinese all over Asia, Europe and the US. 

Do you think English is the most widely spoken language because it is global? Not really. Its mainly because the countries, whose citizens are native english speakers, are highly developed and have large economies affecting global economic growth and trade. 

Dutch is spoken by less than 22 million people. 
Turkish is spoken by roughly 65 million people 
Japanese is spoken by more than 130 million people. And even if Japans population decreases to 100 in the next 45 years it will still have more speakers than Dutch and Turkish and will still be an economy much larger than either Turkey or the Netherlands. 

Japanese is undoubtly a more important language than both. 

Wow, you mean the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Australia, and all those former-colonies don't even have as much people as in China (plus those few other places you mentioned)? -UrbanSophist

It doesnt mean that in the former colonies of the U.K. everybody speaks english. Examples are Cyprus, India, Pakistan Some of the colonies may have english as an official language but some dont and generally not all of their population speaks English but a significant part of the population. Many people in those colonies dont even speak English as a native language. 

China has by far more native speakers *but* English has far more second language speakers, Ill give you that.


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

schmidt said:


> ^^ That's nothing more than the truth. And Greek *is* important. Its one of the languages with the greatest histories, so that's already a reason for itself.
> 
> But the fact that Spanish is so widespread and so alike to Portuguese puts the Portuguese language as a language nobody really bothers to study.


I am learning portuguese because I love it as a language. But I still believe it is an important language. More than 220 million people speak portuguese. And that number is estimated to rise to 300 million by 2050.

But I am also learning portuguese because I believe it will be a language that will be demanded a lot in the near future. For example counties such as Angola or Mocambique are experiencing immense growth and are quickly becoming regional powers in southern africa. 

And if Brazil keeps on growing faster than main European Countries such as Italy or France it will surpass their economies within a decade. Italy is experiencing almost zero economic growth while France is growing at half the rate as Brazil. Anyhow I also believe that Brazil will shortly experience an economic boom if not just faster growth than 3% that will help it grow to an even more important economy.


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## schmidt (Dec 5, 2002)

^^ We need to grow by 5% a year to *REACH* our latin american fellows. And that is not going to happen heh, not under Lula. But this thread's not about politics...


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## djm19 (Jan 3, 2005)

Yay! I just got my first semester of German out of the way. Now I got about a month off, and Ill do some intensive study. Then another semester and I think I should be well enough to study some in Germany.


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## schmidt (Dec 5, 2002)

^^ I've already finished my 2nd semester and I was gonna do some intensive in this summer vacation, but then I decided to travel and it's right during the intensive course... But with 2 semesters I feel able to communicate (not speak) in German. I sometimes even try to speak with our fellow German forumers.


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## JoseRodolfo (Jul 9, 2003)

WhiteMagick said:


> *But I am shocked that a Brazilian would say that his native language is useless. *.


For sure, that was a stupid statement. As a Brazilian I would never agree with him.

Just think about the brazilian music and how great that is, just to give an example. I love to learn languages, I´ve studed english, spanish and german, and would never depreciate my own language.
And, just to remind, that´s about the 7th in number of speakers, and 8th in numbers of Wikipedia articles (if that can be considered important).


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## Marquês de Caravelas (Mar 8, 2006)

Everybody knows that common Brazilians can't understand Spanish (Castillian). If you visit any Brazilian International Border you will see that Portuguese is the business language and it's the Brazilian Portuguese that's spoken there.

Portuguese rules in South America !


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## Marquês de Caravelas (Mar 8, 2006)

And we obliged some foreigners in Blumenau to speak in Portuguese during the Second World War


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## erbse (Nov 8, 2006)

Very interesting thread  Actually I'm learning English and Latin - the extinct language +.+

And as a German I state that my language spreads out itself more and more... It makes me happy to see this development


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Marquês de Caravelas said:


> And we obliged some foreigners in Blumenau to speak in Portuguese during the Second World War


Not only there - also in Recife and other cities German schools have been closed down - that's why only very very old people with German roots speak still a proper German. Only if they learn now again in a Goethe institute, Swiss school or the like...


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## Príncipe (Nov 11, 2006)

Marquês de Caravelas said:


> Portuguese rules in South America !


Sorry, but this is so not true ! You're talking like in Brazil Spanish is totally ignored, but students nowadays are learning Spanish in some period of their 
elementary education , they usually don't like studying Spanish, but it's being teached in schools and this is enough to show that our leaders know the importance of this language ! And if you look any product that you buy in Brazil right now, they show instructions and information of this product both in Portuguese and Spanish .Brazil is the leading member of Mercosur and if we had ignored Spanish in the international affairs with countries like Argentina and Uruguay , that would be stupid. 

If Spanish its being teached in Brazil public schools, I can't tell the same thing about the other countries . If Portuguese it's being teached in public schools of other LA countries, please someone tell me...because I think it's not . 




WhiteMagick said:


> And if Brazil keeps on growing faster than main European Countries such as Italy or France it will surpass their economies within a decade. Italy is experiencing almost zero economic growth while France is growing at half the rate as Brazil. Anyhow I also believe that Brazil will shortly experience an economic boom if not just faster growth than 3% that will help it grow to an even more important economy.


Sorry, but this is kind of funny . The only country in LA that it's growing less than Brazil is Haiti !!! Europe is already a developed continent and they only need to grow 2% a year to keep their standards and in that way not increase their unemployment rates. Brazil, in the other hand, its emerging and need to grow at least 5% a year and keep in this path for a looooong time to reach Europe's life quality and developing for example. 

I think like Schmidt, I'm Brazilian and I think Portuguese is useless, that's why I'm studying English and Spanish in these days. But if you like Portuguese, good luck and I hope you learn fast and when you come here grab some 'cariocas' for you. :banana:


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## schmidt (Dec 5, 2002)

^^ Actually Argentinians seem to have to take Portuguese for a year or two. But they don't take it seriously at all, of course. They know when they come here WE are the ones who make the effort to understand them, not the other way.


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## VIRUS (Dec 29, 2004)

English is the only global language...... The proof are these forums.

Spanish, chinese, french are international languages.... Very useful as a second language.. 

Japanese, German, Italian, Arabian, Portuguese to some extend are in other category for economic or cultural purposus.

Is easier to a Portuguese to understand spanish than to a spanish speaker to understand portuguese.... i am not saying this, linguistics say so...

However i like portuguese language...as a spanish speaker sounds easy to learn and brazilians girls sounds very hot and beautiful speaking that language .....lol.


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## Poryaa (Sep 26, 2004)

VIRUS said:


> English is the only global language...... The proof are these forums.
> 
> Spanish, chinese, french are international languages.... Very useful as a second language..
> 
> ...


Chinese is never an international language. It's not used among many races but used among the Chinese who have 1.5 billion population in China and Chinatowns around the world. English is the only answer to this thread. We all can type 26 letters of the English alphabet on our PCs.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

VIRUS said:


> English is the only global language...... The proof are these forums.
> 
> .


Yes, and there are more threads in Spanish than any other languages in these forums(ëxcept English)


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## FreddyH (Jan 7, 2006)

Can't come up with any other language but English as global. That doesn't mean that it is going to be that way forever but whatever language follows it is far behind... yet.


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## Príncipe (Nov 11, 2006)

schmidt said:


> ^^ Actually Argentinians seem to have to take Portuguese for a year or two. But they don't take it seriously at all, of course. They know when they come here WE are the ones who make the effort to understand them, not the other way.


Yeah, I think Argentina and Uruguay are the south american countries where Portuguese is more 'popular' . Brazil is very popular for Argentinians tourists and so they have more contact wity our mother tongue , but as I told you, we can't blame argentinians for don't take Portuguese classes seriously , Brazilians usually don't like studying Spanish and many only learn few basic thinks like "Muchas Gracias" or "Buenos Días" after their lessons.:lol:


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## Mekky II (Oct 29, 2003)

Argentinians feel europeans and don't feel inferior to brazilians, it's the opposite I think (An example : Bueno Aires passed over Rio to become the most popular latin america destination for travelers, it makes them proud) , and so don't care of Brazil at all ! They know their roots, and by watching Europe (Spain and Italy), and when they compare those two countries to Portugal, they know what to learn. And an argentinian will not care either of Angola, they have enough sun ! :lol:


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

Príncipe_Luiz said:


> Sorry, but this is so not true ! You're talking like in Brazil Spanish is totally ignored, but students nowadays are learning Spanish in some period of their
> elementary education , they usually don't like studying Spanish, but it's being teached in schools and this is enough to show that our leaders know the importance of this language ! And if you look any product that you buy in Brazil right now, they show instructions and information of this product both in Portuguese and Spanish .Brazil is the leading member of Mercosur and if we had ignored Spanish in the international affairs with countries like Argentina and Uruguay , that would be stupid.
> 
> If Spanish its being teached in Brazil public schools, I can't tell the same thing about the other countries . If Portuguese it's being teached in public schools of other LA countries, please someone tell me...because I think it's not .
> ...


Man did I mention anything about LA countries? No
Did I mention anything about living standards? No

I was talking solely about the comparative growth and economy sizes between brazil and some european countries...Read posts before you reply to them...


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## Kenwen (May 1, 2005)

Poryaa said:


> Chinese is never an international language. It's not used among many races but used among the Chinese who have 1.5 billion population in China and Chinatowns around the world. English is the only answer to this thread. We all can type 26 letters of the English alphabet on our PCs.


Time will tell everyone that chinese will be an international language, just wait for 10 more yrs, and say the same thing again


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## Príncipe (Nov 11, 2006)

WhiteMagick said:


> Man did I mention anything about LA countries? No
> Did I mention anything about living standards? No
> 
> I was talking solely about the comparative growth and economy sizes between brazil and some european countries...Read posts before you reply to them...


I read your post and truly sounded a little bit unrealistic about Brazil , unfortunately we're not the latin version of China (and you didn't say that, don'g get me wrong) and we have to do a lot of things to become the latin China, like doing some major reforms that are well known here but I don't see much effort to aprove them right now , so I really don't see Brazil's growth reach the point that will become Portuguese a powerful language in the world , at least untill 2011 when another president will take the government. 

But Europe has some stars nowadays, Spain for example is growing for fifteen years now , England and Germany are doing quite good nowadays also. In LA Chile is booming for years, Argentina is recovering fast after the crash of 2001-2002, Peru and Venezuela are also doing well. I don't want to change your opinion about Portuguese or that you stop learning Portuguese, I even think that if Portuguese has some importante in the world nowadays its because of Brazil , I respect that you like my mother tongue . I just think your post is unfair with Italy and France that are such beautiful and nice countries and don't deserve be compared with Brazil . Even China ,that is the second largest economy and by 2020 it will be the first economy ,has a lot of poverty in the countryside is far away from Europeans's standard of living and for me this is what matters . I hope you understand me now.


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

^^ I do agree with you that the whole population of brazil may not be experiencing the high standards of quality that the citizens in major european countries do but nevertheless if brazil keeps on growing faster than both italy and france it will overtake the size of their economies within the next 5 years in PPP GDP.

And I do know that Brazil in not a Latin China but nevertheless is remains the largest economy in LA and thus is a regional power that has a vast potential to become a very important country in the world as well. I am hoping for just that!


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## bobdikl (Jul 20, 2004)

Poryaa said:


> Chinese is never an international language. It's not used among many races but used among the Chinese who have 1.5 billion population in China and Chinatowns around the world. English is the only answer to this thread. We all can type 26 letters of the English alphabet on our PCs.


Chinese is one of the official langueges of United Nations. Yes, apart from being the official language of Greater China and Singapore, it is widely used in chinatowns and chinese community around the world, and nearly 30 million people from 80 over countries are learning chinese now. Three-quaters of the world's 100 best selling dailies are now published in Asia. China has overtaken Japan as the country with the highest number of publications in the top 100. There are more chinese translation of French, Russian, Japanese and German classic and contemporary literatures than available in English.
However, most chinese students and professionals i met in UK think chinese language will not become an international language because it is so complicated and not average ppl are capable to learn it. Some even wish it will not to become a global language. Unlike european, many asians think it's their disadvantage (rather than privilege = colonial mindset) if their own respective language became a global mainstream language. some ultranationalism chinese netizens even feel threaten by recent chinese learning wave. Language is a temple and soul of one culture. The set of ideas, strategic, strengths, weaknesses, phrases, library, methodologies, philosophies, craftiness, crueltness, kindness etc..all can be exposured through mastering the language of one culture. You don't wish your potential 'enemies' to know you, but you want to know everything about them. That's explained why the Japanese never highly promoted their language in their economic heydays, and chinese government used to enforce the chinese students to learn Russian during the cold war with Soviet. And now English is one of the compulsory subjects for chinese university entrance exam. So these future Chinese troup are equipped to walk out China, to flood the world. There are millions of Chinese are learning Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Indonesian and Korean too.


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## Luckystreak (Feb 19, 2005)

Reading many of the posts here, I see that many of them are of the wrong notion that Hindi may get more prominence as India rises. Thats correct only to certain extent. Infact, the language that benefits the most with the rise of India is English.

India is a country with several languages(not just dialects) and as of now English is the only language that binds that entire country. Its also one of the two official languages of the country. Most of the educated lot are conversant in English(although with a thick accent). Because of the multilingual background, Indians keep their business language (English)different from the language in their personal life. 

With the rise of India (which is part of the Anglosphere), English is reasserting its position as the numero uno language of the world and I dont see any change in this trend in the foreseeable future.


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## WhiteMagick (May 28, 2006)

Those two above are some intelligent posts.Gj you guys


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## tigerboy (Jun 7, 2006)

There is only one truly global language. English.


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## OtAkAw (Aug 5, 2004)

^^I agree, the English are lucky that their language has been propagated to tens of nations around the world. Even tribesmen (as in the indigenous tribes, ethnic Filipinos) here in the Philippines use English as a medium for education, etc and in dealing with the outside world aside from Tagalog and major Filipino languages, imagine that.


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