Interesting that you would assume that languages continuously improve. Do you think that the Vietnamese spoken today is better than the Vietnamese spoken 2000 years ago? I doubt that this is the case.
As to Asian society always having respect and responsibility to family and society, do you think that is that the reality, or just the ideal. If it is the reality, how do you account for crime and corruption in Asian societies. (the same as in all societies) ?
I would say that, at least, the Asian-American culture strongly advocates family ties and education. Look at incarceration rates for Asian-Americans and educational attainment. Much higher than every other ethnic group.
In China or Japan, I cannot say, but I would imagine that their culture is very similar in these aspects. Education is VERY important for us.
"Look at incarceration rates for Asian-Americans and educational attainment. Much higher than every other ethnic group. " Every other ethnic goup? Are you sure? Is Asian-American and ethnic group? Which ethnic groups are included in Asian-American?
Every culture values honesty, loyalty, truthfulness and other universal values, including family ties and education. In every country there is corruption and crime. Lofty ideals of a culture are nice, but reality is more complex, since we are all humans. Immigrants to Canada from China, for example, are prone to parking their wives and children in North America and going back to the homeland to work and keep a mistress or two. Great family life!
Dongguan for example where, according to this article in the Telegraph, Inside Dongguan, China's Sin City
“A staggering 300,000 sex workers – known locally as “technicians” – are thought to ply their trade in thousands of side-street massage parlours, exclusive hotels, spas and neon-lit karaoke bars.”
Asian America: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, I just checked the census and I think the US government includes Indians. (their culture REALLY pushes certain white-collar jobs, in case you didn’t know)
I’m surprised you aren’t more aware of what Asian culture tends to emphasize; aren’t you married to a Chinese woman? You know a lot of Asian rap stars in the US? Look at white-collar jobs and occupations involving math and science, see a lot of asians disproportionately represented there?
You can point out exceptions, but in GENERAL, Asians (especially Asian-Americans, I think) put much more of a focus on academics than a lot of other ethnic groups. Jewish people also are kind of “Asian” in the sense that they are extremely high achievers in the US.
% with bachelors degree or more among ages 25+, 2010: Asians:49, Whites, 31, Blacks 18, Hispanics 13.
Median household income, 2010: Asians 66,000, Whites, 54,000, Hispanics 40,000, Blacks 33,300.
I don’t divide the world into “Asian” “White” “Hispanic” “Black” etc. I deal with individuals.When I hear someone from a particular group (however defined) tooting that collective horn, I am uncomfortable.
Um, it is called being rational, objective, and looking at probability and statistics. It is not controversial to say that the Asian-American community has a higher rate of educational attainment than most other races. Look at the stats. I’m not saying that there are not exceptions, there obviously are. But in sum, certain ethnic groups accomplish more academically and professionally than others. And others are better in other categories.
This is not a controversial statement.
I’m not saying that Asian-Americans are superior, smarter, or better than others. In fact, I think that the focus on education in the Asian-American community is too strong and that a balanced approach is better. (school+sports/activities)
I get uncomfortable when I hold dialogue with illogical people that say that every culture values the same things equally.
I wonder if you would find these statements controversial.
In general, the average Swiss citizen knows more languages than an average non-immigrant American, although there are exceptions.
The average ivy-league student had a higher HS GPA and SAT score than non ivy-league college matriculants, with exceptions.
I also deal with individuals, do not make outlandish statements, and am very objective and logical.
@steve.Interesting that you would assume that languages continuously improve. Do you think that the Vietnamese spoken today is better than the Vietnamese spoken 2000 years ago? I doubt that this is the case.
do you see the differences between an ordinary phone and a smart phone like samsung s3? do you see all the dictionaries become bigger and bigger? do you think that spoken languages 2000 years ago can handle our high tech societies? we all want our languages to communicate as much information as possible that reason why we enrich more new words by borrowing or creating.
fifty years ago vietnam was still an agriculture country considered one of the poorest countries in the world so spoken languages at that time served for some specific areas, recently vietnam has changed into a semi-agriculture with heavy industry, mining industry, trading including export and import all kinds of products, tourism, services. in each area we use specific words and phrases besides that vietnamese study foreign languges such as russian, french, chinese, english…for their jobs.
As to Asian society always having respect and responsibility to family and society, do you think that is that the reality, or just the ideal. If it is the reality, how do you account for crime and corruption in Asian societies. (the same as in all societies) ?
each person growing up thanks to the education from family ( morality ) and society ( knowledge )
educating children in asian families is paid more attention than that of western and america, which reduce the divorcing rate, family crimes, nursing home,… however, frankly those children with this kind of education always tend to be dependent on other people and lack of confidence in their lives. they find it hard to stand up themseves after each time they get trouble. in my view this is also a inevitable trend of the society when we think of supporting large families with many generations in order.
to be honest, education in societies specially at schools in asia, students have more theories, little or no reality, lack of life skills especially the knowledge of legal system and misconceptions of societies, which are main reasons for crime and corruption in our societies.
our societies would be better if we can combine family education in asia and schooling education in america .
It’s closer to the opposite. Look at the variations of words, number of words and verb and adjective conjugations compared to a language like German, there are many more hours of studying required to speak German effectively, that’s just one example. Russian is in nearly every sense a more difficult language than English, there is probably no strong argument against this (but surely there’s one out there).
I think that languages were just as complicated, or advanced, whatever that means, 2,000 years ago. They have evolved, changed, added words, lost words etc. I don’t think Latin or Ancient Greek was less developed than modern Italian or Greek. I don’t think ancient Vietnamese or Chinese or even the languages that preceded them were less sophisticated.
My point about Asian society is that there is a difference between the ideal and practice. There are problems in all societies and it is hard to generalize. I do agree that the family is very important to stable societies. I don’t think that Asian families are closer than families in other societies.
@steve
language is a tool in communication, it codes the information so it is never easy for other races. I don’t doubt about the complicacy of the spoken language 2000 years ago. however, I make sure that our language is developing to handle the huge amount of information we interact in our daily work. 2000 years ago we didnt have computer and we didn’t have specific words and phrases for the objects, like in my brain I keep the old words and continue to add more and more words so my spoken is developing every day and become more complicated.
we feel really happy whenever our children say goodbye, huge, kiss parents before going to school and at school they intensively listen to their teacher in order. they dont say dirty words, swear, behave badly. we feel unhappy whenever our children cry. I think it is not ideal because we have done well with our children in our families in asia. you can see that the old here are taken care at their own houses not the nursing home like in other regions where the old ( grandparents, parents) are often sent to orphanages and their children rarely or never come back to see them.
this makes me get shocked with the modern education. it is completely different in education between aisa and others
- YouTube
Well, I believe that it’s not the fact that English is “hard” but most of the time people assume that, as it’s “the” world wide spoken language, you must speak it accurately. And that way of thinking sometimes makes people to leave the English learning in a low level because they think they won’t make it right. So they say “English is really difficult, I’ll drop it”. I’ve seen it too many times…
A lot of people seem to say that either their native language, or the foreign language they´re learning is the hardest one…
I also think that we won´t be able to have a productive discussion if we don´t define the word “hard”.
You could say that “german is harder than English because it´s using cases”, but you shouldn´t forget that cases provide clarity, which makes German less ambiguous. So, what´s harder?
Ambiguity or cases?
Is Polish harder than english because it has seven cases? Or is it easier because there are only 3 tenses (5 if you count aspects as tenses) and no articles?
I think that, in the end, it all comes down to motivation. If you think that Dutch is not a language, but a speaking disorder…well, then you´ll probably never be able to speak it fluenty…^^