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| 07 Jul 2011 03:52 PM |
Sweden could become the first country in Europe to offer Chinese lessons to all schoolchildren under plans floated by the Swedish education minister. Jan Björklund said giving future generations access to Chinese language tuition was crucial to national competitiveness.
“Chinese will be much more important, from an economic perspective, than French or Spanish,” he told the Dagens Industri newspaper. Other western countries have also started introducing Chinese to school curriculums in recognition of China’s growing global role, but Mr Björklund’s plan aims to put Sweden ahead of the pack.
English would remain mandatory for schoolchildren but Chinese would be added to the choice of additional foreign languages available in all primary and secondary schools, along with French, Spanish and German.
Sweden has long been known for having among the highest level of English language skills outside the Anglo-Saxon world. Its proposed embrace of Chinese could be seen as a symbol of a shift in power towards Asia. “Not everyone in the business world speaks English,” said Mr Björklund. “Very qualified businesses are leaving Europe to move to China.”
Education ministry officials stressed that Mr Björklund did not want to undermine Sweden’s traditional strength in English, but said the choice of additional foreign languages now was “too eurocentric”.
Officials described it as a personal proposal by Mr Björklund, who is leader of the Liberal party. He said he would seek support from the rest of Sweden’s ruling coalition to make it part of government policy. They said it could take 10 to 15 ye.ars to train enough teachers to make Chinese universally available.
“It boils down to teacher-training colleges expanding programmes,” said Mr Björklund. “If we decide to do this, it’s definitely possible.” Sweden has growing economic ties with China through big Swedish companies such as Ericsson and Hennes & Mauritz, which are investing heavily in the country.
The Scandinavian nation has also been open to investment from China, including the takeover of Gothenburg-based Volvo Cars by Geely last ye.ar. Chinese companies are also at the heart of efforts to save Saab Automobile, another Swedish carmaker, from collapse. “If we look towards the next generation, it’s almost unavoidable to think anything else than that China will be a very important global actor,” said Mr Björklund.
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| 07 Jul 2011 03:55 PM |
The only reason the US isnt doing it is because we are too stubborn to recognize China nearly surpassing us. (Unfortunetly.)
But I guess this WONT ever bite us in the butts, right?
> Is all for the preservation of American society and the movement to resist extreme amounts of Chinese influence. |
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Thorae
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| Joined: 17 Oct 2008 |
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| 07 Jul 2011 03:58 PM |
Nope.
Chinese is going to be useless in 20 years. |
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:00 PM |
Chinese is going to be useless in 20 years. __ Thats what young republicans like u think |
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:03 PM |
"Thats what young republicans like u think" ____
> Implying China will recover enough from its inevitable economy collapse to reinforce its world wide influence in only 20 years.
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:04 PM |
> Implying China will recover enough from its inevitable economy collapse to reinforce its world wide influence in only 20 years. __ >Implying that you know anything about China |
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:07 PM |
Implying that you know anything about China __________
Implying that you know anything about China |
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Thorae
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:08 PM |
We've discussed this before.
- China's housing bubble is inevitably going to pop, and it will hemorrhage their economy, much like the housing bubble in the US (which was significantly smaller) caused the recession. - Much of their economic growth is being driven by exports, which are propped up by currency devaluation. - China still has a dismal human rights record. This, combined with their inevitable economic crash, will make conditions perfect for a revolution. |
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Thorae
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:13 PM |
| And this is not a "republican" thing. Belief that China is rising, and belief that China will collapse, is bipartisan. I know for a fact that Glenn Beck has been worried about the rise of China, and he is Republican. I am not worried about the rise of China and I am Republican. |
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:13 PM |
We've discussed this before.
- China's housing bubble is inevitably going to pop, and it will hemorrhage their economy, much like the housing bubble in the US (which was significantly smaller) caused the recession. - Much of their economic growth is being driven by exports, which are propped up by currency devaluation. - China still has a dismal human rights record. This, combined with their inevitable economic crash, will make conditions perfect for a revolution. __________
Correct. |
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:20 PM |
The languages to know to be successful for when we go into the work force Portugese Spanish German |
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:25 PM |
The languages to know to be successful for when we go into the work force Portugese Spanish German _______
The languages to know to be succesful for when I go into the military/government work force.
Spanish (Check) Korean Arabic
1/3. Rage.
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Thorae
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:27 PM |
No.
I would put my money on Portugese, Spanish, and Hindustani. |
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Thorae
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| 07 Jul 2011 04:30 PM |
| When China collapses, Germany will be the worlds numero uno exporter. Its only gonna get bigger. |
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Boeing717
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| 07 Jul 2011 05:54 PM |
I either am learning or plan to learn these.
French Latin Greek |
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Thorae
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| 07 Jul 2011 05:55 PM |
| Don't learn any dead languages. |
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Thorae
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| 07 Jul 2011 05:58 PM |
Twigs, Germany has only slightly more exports than USA does.
USA has a far bigger workforce than Germany does, so USA is likely going to absorb much of the Chinese export vacuum. |
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Boeing717
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| 07 Jul 2011 05:59 PM |
| @Thorae: Why not dead languages? I want those two to read classical texts in the original language. |
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| 07 Jul 2011 06:04 PM |
| Chinese & Spanish are the most useful languages because of immigration. |
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Thorae
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| 07 Jul 2011 06:05 PM |
The only thing Latin and Greek are useful for is recognizing prefixes (comm-, chron-)
You're not going to get much from reading books in their original language. |
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Thorae
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| 07 Jul 2011 06:06 PM |
| Tax, the children of the Hispanic/Chinese immigrants will be fluent in English. |
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Boeing717
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| 07 Jul 2011 06:08 PM |
| @Thorae: I'll bet every book has something that gets lost in translation, no matter what language. If not, I've still got two languages that are mostly useless, but helped me use up spare time instead of being bored. |
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Boeing717
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| 07 Jul 2011 06:08 PM |
| Alternatively, there are probably some important books that never got translated out of their original languages. |
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