Talk:Chinese as a foreign language

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I wonder if the scope of this should perhaps be broadened, since Westerners aren't the only non-Chinese people who study/have studied Chinese. Perhaps Chinese language learning and teaching, along the lines of the ELLT article? Or Chinese as an additional language? -- Visviva 04:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought of that indeed, but I supposed then the scope would be too big... considering the Japananse and the Korean and the Vietnamese...--K.C. Tang 05:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
moreover, the diffculties, say, a French faces, is different from those, say, a Japanese face, in learning Chinese.--K.C. Tang 07:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Chinese language learning on internet

Hi K.C. This message is to continue the discussion on creation of an entry about "Chinese language learning on internet". As a linguist you are more experienced than anybody else. Some other people also aired dissatisfacion with the current insufficient state of the links related to the learning of Chinese. I posted my suggestions on another page, but this is more appropriate place to innitiate a proper discussion on the subject:

I must've expressed myself clumsily (as I always do), and I think Seraphimblade has pointed out the crux of the problem more clearly: of course it's wonderful to have a directory of online recourses (as an armchair linguist, I'm always looking for those directories desperately), but Wikipedia is just not meant to be the place to contain such a directory. In fact, there're other sites which are meant to serve that very purpose (e.g. this one). I hope you understand that our reverts were only made to conform to the current Wikipedia policy, just as your edits were meant to help the readers. Regards.--K.C. Tang 01:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Certainly. Allowing wikipedia to expand into a myriad of endless links denies it its original purpose. As a user who just thought to have a tea-break in Chinese, I certainly am not in position to create anything like an authoritative list. Neither from the perspective of a professional linguist nor from that of a computer scientist. But I assume most learners start this way. I think I showed where the demand is and how it should be filled. I do not agree with Seraphimblade that all the current links in Chinese Language website are sufficient and the most useful ones. But I appreciate your directory. It is well built and quite useful.
The real purpose of my entry was to induce somebody as professional as you, to create a page introducing the ways of Learning Chinese on Internet and Comparison of Commercial and Free Utilities for e-Learning Chinese. I believe such a website requires a lot background information on history and intentions of individual e-learning website makers. However it first of all requires INTERACTIVE evaluation, re-ranking and discussions by users, not by individual linguists or developers alone.
So my original purpose was to create something like List_of_PDF_software, PDFCreator, File_manager, or Comparison_of_file_managers. These all are in the category that one might call "D.I.R.E.C.T.O.R.Y." Thus they would probably figure as INAPPROPRIATE items for an encyclopedia like Wiki. Somehow they made it into Wikipedia, despite its "current policy". Obviously some people felt an urgent need to make some kind of order in mushrooming numbers of directories. Order that they themselves may make some contribution to, and not rely on the tastes of the provider. Proper ordering and explanation might be more valuable than gold. This does not mean I am against using commercial utilities. I just need to know they will be useful to me once I buy them!
Finally, as the Chinese language website corroborates, since the number of Chinese language learners is growing almost exponentially, I believe establishment of a portal such as Portal:Free_software might also be quite useful. What do you think? --02:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Replied at User talk:125.54.210.236.--K.C. Tang 03:34, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-native speakers of Chinese

I fail to see why only "Western" speakers should be included on this list. There is no reason why Japanese, Vietnamese, Indians etc who learn the language should be excluded. Excluding them is pointless and petty. If you are concerned that the list will get too long, remember that I am only including notable speakers. Will provide citations in due course, although in most cases their fluency is listed on their linked Wikipedia biographical articles. Kransky (talk) 02:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

This article is about the Western study of the Chinese language. So you see the delimitation... Cheers.--K.C. Tang (talk) 01:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
hmmmm...then is there any reason why this article couldn't be expanded to represent a worldwide view?

Kransky (talk) 09:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I tried to explain this at the first post of this discussion page. The scope is so big. Perhaps a more competent editor can try to encompass the whole thing. Cheers.--K.C. Tang (talk) 14:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
My response would be (a) including a world wide view wouldn't really take up too much space, (b) it is rather facile and unsophisticated to divide the world into 'Western' and 'non-Western' and expect there to be differences between the groups, or similarities within each group (the Japanese, Korean and Chinese share similar vocab, but grammatical structures and writing is different). Kransky (talk) 14:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Instead of renaming and reorganizing the current article, one can start Chinese as a foreign language (or something like that) and then link to the current article as a branch article ({{main|Western study of the Chinese language}}). It'd be simpler. I mean as long as one has the relevant information, not just creating the page for its own sake. I think anything goes on Wikiepdia, as long as one has done their research and has some useful information to share. Cheers.--K.C. Tang (talk) 02:06, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
By the way, the non-native speakers list should be put in the article suggested above, since non-Western people are included therein. Regards.--K.C. Tang (talk) 02:57, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Chinese as a foreign language sounds like a good idea, like Swedish as a foreign language and English language learning and teaching. However it would be more logical to have the content of Western study of the Chinese language incorporated in Chinese as a foreign language, than exist as a separate article. Frankly I do not see why the "Western" and "non-Western" learning of Chinese should be treated differently - nor do other people for other articles that might invite ideas that differences exist.Kransky (talk) 06:12, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
The reason is that there're articles particularly devoted to the topic of the Western study of Chinese (as cited in the current article, see Notes). So I guess the Western study of Chinese is a legitimate topic of a Wikipedia article, and it's reasonable to have it exist as a separate article. In any case, the non-native speakers list should not exist in an article entitled "Western ...", as title and content should match each other. So one should either rewrite and rename the article, or put the list in a new article as suggested above. As I said above, anything goes, as long as research is done and useful information is provided. I'd only be glad to see editors more competent than myself improve the article. :)--K.C. Tang (talk) 09:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Then I suggest the article gets renamed to Chinese as a foreign language; in time contributors will add discussion about the teaching of Chinese to "non-Westerners". Kransky (talk) 11:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Foreign language quotes

Could someone please translate or have translated the non-English quotes on this page? This is the English Wikipedia and if anyone wanted to find out more about Chinese as a foreign language but doesn't speak French or German, those quotes are completely useless. --Joowwww (talk) 23:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Hear hear —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.162.209.213 (talk) 15:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it's ridiculous to have untranslated quotations, especially commentary, here. If you can translate them, please do! Meteorswarm (talk) 21:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] See also.... Japanese?

I'm curious why the "See also" section includes Japanese. Apart from the fact that they're major Oriental languages and both use Chinese characters, it's hard to see why Japanese should automatically be listed in an article about Chinese (unlike, say, "Arabic as a foreign language", etc.)

Bathrobe (talk) 01:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)