Any language will rival English as the world lingua franca within the next 50 years

[Marylin]

Originally Posted by RonBee

I am trying to learn Spanish, but the progress is slow. (There are a great many immigrants from Latin America living in the Charlotte area, especially from Mexico and Honduras.)

At the same token, here in Canada we have our entire banking, online government pages, government voice mail, etc all done in both English and French. Everything you buy - from a toothbrush to a barbeque- has a bilingual labelling. We have plenty of French Immersion schools where French is taught from kintergarten on. It's an excellent idea - by the time kids graduate, they are perfectly fluent in French.

Everything aside though, I think Chinese is a very difficult language. Being a tone language, one would have to play with different pitch patterns to be understood by others. I don't think I could ever do that...

[twostep]

Originally Posted by RonBee

I am trying to learn Spanish, but the progress is slow. (There are a great many immigrants from Latin America living in the Charlotte area, especially from Mexico and Honduras.)

Hello stranger! In some Atlanta, Ga school districts Spanish is a requirement for school teachers.

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by twostep

Hello stranger! In some Atlanta, Ga school districts Spanish is a requirement for school teachers.

At the rate I am going I will be conversationally fluent by the time I am 100.

[twostep]

Originally Posted by RonBee

At the rate I am going I will be conversationally fluent by the time I am 100.

How old do some Americans have to be to be fluent in their version of English?

[Tdol]

In some cases about 363, not suggesting any presidential figures.

[twostep]

Originally Posted by tdol

In some cases about 363, not suggesting any presidential figures.

It is in the job description.

[dr_linguista]

Originally Posted by tdol

I don't see Japanese emerging as a world language depsite Japan's economic power. It has been a major economic power for a long time now and even when Toyota emerges as the number one car manufacturer, I don't think much will change. Spanish is a major international langauge and growing in popularity, but there has been far to much invested in education for people to suddenly change horses and change to Spanish. In the EU, for instance, there's no chance of Spanish becoming the first choice language. Spanish is merging in the States, but that is only through immigration.

If we take the assumption (50/100 years) into consideration...it could be! who knows?

[Tdol]

The original time period was 50- to make that change, there would be some evidence now. Is there any? Anything can happen in hundreds of years.

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by twostep

How old do some Americans have to be to be fluent in their version of English?

I am doing just fine with English, thank you. As for Spanish, it may be a good thing that I don't know that many phrases. The more I know the more I can get mixed up with each other.

[twostep]

You are burning midnight oil.


It sounds like the British-American confilct!