"_Sorry_ f ür die lange Wartezeit!" v. "_遗憾_ =?utf-8?Q?_f=C3=BCr_?=die lange Wartezeit!" [NT]
Benjamin Barrett
gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM
Mon Dec 3 01:48:00 UTC 2012
On Dec 2, 2012, at 5:33 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 6:35 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> What's in 50 years?
>
> The supposed replacement of English as the word's second language by
> Chinese. I don't believe that that could possibly happen. I'm very
> chauvinistic about what we used to call "The Magic Language" back in
> the '60's, when I was serving in the now-defunct USAR[my]EUR[rope]
> "Yoosa-roar." So, my point was, why would any sensible person who
> already knows English sufficiently well to be able to code-awitch into
> and out of of it on his Website bother with learning everything that
> you need to know about the Chinese language even to be able to choose
> the proper word of the many that can be translated as _Entschuldigen_.
>
Hmmm. I don't understand how anyone could believe that.
As to why someone who knows English really well would *bother* learning a lot of Chinese, I suppose that's a matter of whether someone is greatly interested in Mandarin.
Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA
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