On Saturday 03 May 2008 10:27:28 am Udhay Shankar N wrote: > OK. Per the below quoted message, you made a claim that there is a trend > of Chinese learning Hindi, and a further claim that there is no such > trend in the opposite direction (i.e, Indians learning Hakka or Mandarin > or whatever). You gave an example of "Someone wrote about it in the > press recently - a Chinese immigration officer welcoming a tourist in > Hindi" in order to support the first claim. > > I was attempting to point out that a single hearsay example doesn't > constitute evidence of a trend. Looks like the means I chose to do so > (i.e, "Look! I can give single examples as well. So?") didn't travel > very well. And like a joke that has to be explained, looks rather flat now. >
No trends. There seems (to me) to have been official Chinese policy to ensure that certain categories of people - including communicators in border areas and, it appears, even immigration officials actively speak in Hindi. I believe that the Chinese understand fully well the strategic importance of understanding and speaking foreign languages. The article that started this thread seems to indicate that the Chinese are similarly taking English very seriously. I suspect without proof that they are treating other languages fairly seriously. I was stating an impression that Indians (government, education policy makers, strategic thinkers/planners) do not take the Chinese language, or for that matter any other foreign languages as seriously as the Chinese do foreign languages. I realise that you were questioning my impressions with counter-impressions, but the pointless part is in the fact that nothing that has been said on this thread so far suggests to me that the Indian approach to Chinese is anything more than ad hoc. Everyone who has written anything on the issue is adding to my impression that the Indian approach really is ad hoc, requiring at best a "few connections" for "a really good instructor" (in a typically Indian patronage based approach), as opposed to easily approachable University classes for anyone to enrol. This is as ad hoc as it can get. That much I already know. If you were to tell me that the Chinese approach too is ad hoc, it would be different from what I think. To me the Chinese approach seems deliberate and planned, the Indian approach ad hoc. But is the Chinese approach ad hoc, or planned and deliberate as I believe it to be? Can anyone throw some light on that? shiv
