Why do people get offended when I say that it is a good idea to learn Chinese?

Question

It should me noted that China contains 1/3 of the world's population, and there are millions of Chinese communities in countries all around the world. China's economy is growing and is on track to rival that of the U.S. When I tell people given the statistics it is a good idea for an individual to learn the Chinese language. These people get mad and start to act ignorant saying "I don't want to learn that", then they start making fun of the Chinese language. I mean why are they so offended because I want them to learn another language that will be needed I mean useful to them in the future

Answer 1

you're right....they have the money these days, they are growing faster than anything...

it'll be smarter for us to start investing over there, because thats where the money will be and Smart companies like Wal-Mart are already setting up their brand over there.

so its a good idea to start learning chinese. As people in the next 25 years will go there for economic reasons.

Answer 2

I don't have anything against learning chinese. I think a major factor into considering this issue, is to whether the profit outweighs the time and energy needed to learn chinese.

Answer 3

h***s yea i strongly believe that. It's just so hard and i should now b/c my dads learning it and i checked it out. Turns out that theirs over 5000 alphabets. Maybe we should elect that as the new foreign language for our kids because that's the best time to grasp that language.

Answer 4

i'm a singaporean and i speak chinese.

i learn chinese since primary school and i really love chinese

and all the asian cultures

these people are ignorant

Answer 5

well in america is bad enough that they are MAKING us take a foreign language class. its bad enough i have to learn how to speak spanish when i have NO intentions of speaking spanish. i understand it would make life helpful but still i have no desire at all to speak another language. in my opinion its such a hassle, spanish is the most dramatic language i have EVER studied and i almost went literally crazy in high school. now here i am again in college taking 3 more courses of it.

i don't see why people get offended, but i can understand their reasons for not wanting to learn it. just because the chinese population is growing doesn't mean its our mission to learn their language

Answer 6

I'm not sure why some americans are very closed minded, they shouldn't get offended they should just say they don't want to.  

Answer 7

Actually more or less 1/5 of the world. And its a very stragetic idea to learn Mandarin Chinese (the official language of China). I took it up 2 school years and it was okay as long as you have time to memorize and preferably a teacher who can also speak fluent english.

So to the point.

Well some people do get insecure when they are suggested to learn Chinese because of either one or a combination of social, economic, military and patriotic insecurities because of China's rise as a superpower which causes these insecurities because knowing that the western world's economic influence is slowly being transfered to the east isn't that pleasnt in their point of view and heck I even get sort of insecure of the western world's future due to China's emerging influence and importance to the world.

But there is no reason to act uncivilized and make fun of a language that has endured for centuries.