Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Russian or Mandarin Chinese?

Hi. I'm thinking of taking up a new language from September, with the possibility of then taking it on to degree level, however I'm at a dilemna about whether to choose Russian or Chinese.

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Reply 1

UserXYZ

What country do you prefer?

I personally think Chinese is the better option.
It has a bigger population and better cuisine :P
Also Russia seems kind of depressing and is super expensive in many places too.

Reply 2

bambipoppins

Chinese. .

Only because Russian has two different alphabets, one for handwritten and one for printed. .

Reply 3

UserXYZ

We don't need to read your CV everytime you post.
Geez we get it, you're smart, there's no need to shove it in everyone's faces.

Reply 4

username153949

Of course Mandarin! Simply because way more people speak it, and china is a rising power - it'll become extremely useful in 5 to 10 years time, not to say it isn't already useful now!

Reply 5

Erradhadh

bambipoppins

Chinese. .

Only because Russian has two different alphabets, one for handwritten and one for printed. .

No, it doesn't.

Unless you mean print versus cursive, which doesn't qualify as 'two different alphabets' I believe.

SOURCE: Living and studying in Russia most of my life.

Reply 6

MancStudent098

Marisa_Grace

Hi. I'm thinking of taking up a new language from September, with the possibility of then taking it on to degree level, however I'm at a dilemna about whether to choose Russian or Chinese.

Russian is sooo cold war darling, it's all about Chinese now.

bambipoppins

Only because Russian has two different alphabets, one for handwritten and one for printed.

Um, but so does Chinese and English for that matter. No language prints its alphabet the same as it's written. When have you ever seen an 'a' handdrawn like that.

Reply 7

Saff123

You should consider which culture your more attracted to, learning a language involves immersing yourself in a culture.

Chinese (Madarin) is a great choice because of the the emergence of China as a world power, but there are many dialects in China, in Shanghai they speak Wu, most emergent Chinese are from the south and speak Cantonese, these dialects are so different you wouldn't be able to speak to different people you would need to write down what you want to say; and thats the challenge because the Chinese writing system is based on ideographs and is not phonetic based as in English or Russian, so it will be tough, but worthwhile learning those 1000s of characters, one by one are you disciplined enough for that?

Russia is emerging again as a world power not quite the same as the USSR but it will still be very useful to know, also consider
Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Hindi, and Arabic which are also languages in great demand today and more so in future.

Chinese (Mandarin).

Saff123

Chinese (Madarin) is a great choice because of the the emergence of China as a world power, but there are many dialects in China, in Shanghai they speak Wu, most emergent Chinese are from the south and speak Cantonese, these dialects are so different you wouldn't be able to speak to different people you would need to write down what you want to say; and thats the challenge because the Chinese writing system is based on ideographs and is not phonetic based as in English or Russian, so it will be tough, but worthwhile learning those 1000s of characters, one by one are you disciplined enough for that?

Dialects aren't really that much of a barrier. Maybe in regions like Tibet and some southern provinces, although most young people in those regions are educated in Mandarin. Shanghai dialect is only really used in informal situations. Mandarin is spoken in schools and the workplace as it is the official language of China.

Reply 10

Anatheme

Russian alllll the way. You'll probably get a better level in Russian as you would after having studied Chinese the same amount of time. The literature is absolutely unbeatable, and at least, you stand out of the crowd with Russian, unlike Chinese. Thinking more people speak Mandarin is stupid 'cause you're not gonna talk to all the countrymen of China, lol...

It'd also make Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian and Serbian easier to learn, and it'll deffo be a more useful language in the EU (and the international organisations, I believe). Also, Russia has oil, gas and plenty of other natural resources that European countries need and it means that they have to trade, and Russian isn't that spoken, worldwide.

UserXYZ

Also Russia seems kind of depressing and is super expensive in many places too.

Yeah, when you're Russian. Accomodation can be expensive, the rest is reaaally cheap. And depressing, well China probably is too, but Russia has the advantage to be so wide than you can see many climates and landscapes. And it doesn't look as poor as China.

Reply 11

Marisa_Grace

Thanks for the replies everyone; I've still yet to decide but your responses have definitely helped me. :smile:

Reply 12

Byllie

everyone in china is learning english anyway, do something useful, russian

Reply 13

Anatheme

Byllie

everyone in china is learning english anyway, do something useful, russian

Exactly

Reply 14

Spinal

Byllie

everyone in china is learning english anyway, do something useful, russian

You'd be surprised at the amount of people in China that can't speak English at all/very well. The government have realised the importance of learning Mandarin and have taken initiatives to even deliver it at primary school level. But I really don't think the 'usefulness' of a language should be the main deciding factor anyway...

I think the OP should simply have a taste of both languages and decide for themselves. It's a big commitment, purely down to personal taste in my opinion. Each to their own I guess. :smile:

Reply 15

UserXYZ

Byllie

everyone in china is learning english anyway, do something useful, russian

Despite it being a compulsory course at University, most university students (and the rest too of course) can't actually speak English very well at all.

Reply 16

Anatheme

UserXYZ

Despite it being a compulsory course at University, most university students (and the rest too of course) can't actually speak English very well at all.

There's even fewer Russian people speaking English. Simple test: try to see if you know more Chinese or Russian students. Chinese people will learn English more quickly than English people will learn Chinese, Russian is more accessible and in higher demand (ok, maybe it's just the UN requiring more people speaking Russian, but I take it as a good indicator)

Reply 17

Piers-

Anatheme

I'm not sure that sort of test shows anything except that more Chinese students choose to study abroad in England.

My experience is the same as Spinal's. In the developed areas of China young people often speak a basic level of English, but seldom anything more. In the less developed areas English speakers are pretty rare.

In reply to one of Anatheme's earlier posts: there does seem to be a lot of people studying Chinese now. On the down side it makes it less "special", but on the plus side it means there's more and more good learning materials. Though, in this respect it's definitely still not as developed as European languages or Japanese (seemingly). On the flip side, because it's so hard very few people actually get to a stage where their Chinese is "good"...so I think being near-fluent/fluent is still considered a pretty big achievement (well I think so, anyway:P). Of course, the same goes for Russian and any other language.

To whoever said characters are ideographs earlier: they aren't! There are a few ideographic and pictographic characters, but a large proportion of them do actually carry a phonetic element. It doesn't give an exact pronunciation (but then, neither does English), though it does make it easier to connect to the characters to the words they represent. That said, characters are definitely the most challenging aspect of learning Chinese.

Reply 18

VanillaCat

Russian all the way <3

Reply 19

薇薇公主

oh my god, chinese again! there are so many westerners living in beijing that i even encountered such a case where my seat at Starbuck was taken by a white guy and when i tried to explain the situation to him, to my surprise, he refused to leave! what the logic it was! also, in the apartment next to mine there are two friendly english-speaking people residing. it seems chinese-learning is becoming a bit over-prevalent nowadays so my point is if you intend to get a job where good chinese language skill is needed, your salary won't be very optimistic especially after you will have spent at least four years in acquiring it at school. in addition, the salaries of the foreigners working in beijing now are not pretty competitive in comparison to the average income of ordinary chinese.

as to russian, forget it. it's bloody difficult to learn, especially when it comes to the phonetics. my dad can speak it and he told me about that. asided from that, the living condition in russia is even poorer than that in china.