“knee how ma?”

All strong points Bernard. More importantly Mandarin will increasing displace English as the language of business just as English did to Dutch over 200 years ago. More importing there will be more websites in non-English then English soon. If you want to keep an information advantage over your competitors you will have to be able to read blogs not in your native tongue.

When I was in college 25 odd years ago, it was Japanese we were all meant to be learning.
What changed?

A very warm and fuzzy, hug a Chinese piece Bernard!

But it does make me laugh a bit :-).

I grew up in the States in the 60s and of course the same "our children must learn Japanese" opinion was being promoted in political and educational circles there at the time. Had a friend who went and got a tertiary degree in the language - he's since retrained as an accountant.

Had a brother-in-law who took Japanese as an elective as part of his engineering degree - he even travelled to Japan with US Steel once he started working... the Japanese engineers all spoke English.

I've worked in UN forums - had alot to do with Chinese delegates - they all spoke English.

Frankly - look at the jobs ads in NZ - the second language to speak here from a career prospective is Maori. It's easy and free for kids to learn as all children regardless of ethnicity are welcome at Kohanga - we sent our kids way back in the 80s and the benefit to them has been tremendous, not just from a language but from a cultural perspective as well.

I'm not saying mandarin is a waste of time, but one would have to want to live in China in order to maximise the benefit.

The three things allowing English supremacy in the world currently and they are: the fact that English is the language of science (it used to be Latin), English is the de facto language of aviation, and currently the US has naming rights over the internet. There is no historical precedent to assume English will always stay the default language of science, aviation, internet communication, or business. There is a better argument to be made that English will lose its supremacy.

Don't over rate the China factor. It's a huge ,diverse empire ready to blow apart at the seams. If that happens it wont be pretty for anyone ,least of all the long suffering Chinese people.
Learn Mandarin ,bollocks,they're learning English.Just like over reliance on the Chinese market,learn Mandarin and you're a one trick horse.
Worse still learn Maori! I thought this was a finance blog not a touchy feely multi culti one.Learn Maori for a NZ govt job,maybe.
Mandarin wont get you very far in Guangdong (Canton) where they speak their own lingo and consider Mandarin speaking northerners as foreigners. Like I said China is big and diverse and held together by the strong arm of the Party.
It's closer ties we need with our American friends who don't view us as a farm good only for milking.The American Republic will be around alot longer than the single party celestial kingdom!

It's more difficult for us to learn Mandarin than for the Chinese to learn English. Learning to speak is not too bad but learning to read the Mandarin characters is tough.  I'm happy for my children to learn Mandarin as I expect they would have more Chinese colleagues and customers in NZ and it could be an advantage if the company they work for set up branches in China.

No, no it is up to the Chinese to learn English, they are clever and intelligent. Us, here in New Zealand we go fishing and hunting and have a good life. In 5 years time there are enough Chinese (Millions) and others, who want to immigrate to New Zealand and capable and keen to run a business, even the country and the Prime Minister for us, while us Kiwi’s go boating, golfing, skiing, beering, rugbiing having a good time.
 
Good as gold –mate. See you in the Takaka caves boyracing and mix together  – tomorrow and afterwards !
 
WK
 

Bernard already speaks Mandarin most of the time. So whats the issue?

One of the problems is that state run education systems (in NZ ) are very slow beasts to change, and we seem to jump on one of the "we must learn their language" bandwagons every 20 years or so,  in the 60s it was the language of diplomacy with French, in the 80s it was the language of the coming Asian superpower Japan, and now in the 2010s it is Chinese.
When you look at the languages that year 9+ students take, French continues to be the most popular, probably because there is a whole  pile of BBoomer teachers who trained in 60s to teach French that have no inclination or desire to learn another language from scratch.
By the time we have enough Chinese language teachers we will probably urging our kids to learn Urdu for the upcoming dominance  of India...
 
 

The martial arts in the vid is Brazilian Capoeira, no?

 Pansy Wong must be one of the worst MP's in Parliament.  Try and find  a native born NZ'er who she has assisted.  She is totally pro-Chinese.  It was recently reported in the NZ Herald that she had written a letter of support for a Chinese immigrant who was now being deported for criminal activities.  When questioed about this she claimed that she hardly knew him.   It seems to be fashionable to condemn Winston Peters and his immigration policies but I would remind native born NZ'ers that Enoch Powell was similarly ridiculed about his stance on immigration into the UK in the 1970's.  How many Poms are now leaving the UK permanently because they feel like a second class citizen in their own country. 

I agree with Bernard.
Even if Chinese growth slows it is still likely to be a major player over the coming years.
Remember too that Mandarin is also widely spoken in other parts of Aisa, such as Singapore, not to mention our own back yard Auckland, and cities like Vancouver, Sydney etc. 
Certainly seems a lot more relevant to me that our children learn Mandarin than French or German (nice languages for sure, but surely of rather quaint irrelevance, although I did use my dusty old schoolboy French to some use in Noumea recently)  
 

Read George Friedman's 'The Next 100 years'  (of Stratfor.com) as an antidote to your thinking Bernard. Of course China is a large country and growing but it will not become the superpower everyone expects. As always people predict the future based on the immediate past and extrapolate the same trends to continue on and on  - this thinking is what causes bubbles. It rarely acknowledges turning points and yet these are what define history. As mentioned by earlier posters look what happened to the supposed Japanese hegemony of the late 80's.
English will always be the language of business that is why we have so many ESL schools here.

 The learning of languages has been underemphasized for years in NZ. Comments like "everyone uses English these days" are naive and ignorant. Just go to Europe where it is quite normal to speak 3 languages. Which language to learn? It doesn't matter, I say. Different languages present different opportunities - we don't all want to have the same toolbox, otherwise innovation will never occur. I say learn English, Maori, and at least one additional language, starting in primary school. 10 years compulsory study of each language ought to do it.

I agree with Pythagoras, use English for global easy communication, Maori for NZ/regional feel and then something else for specialised travel/trade. I was always envious when in the Europe most could speak x number of languages, especially those Scandanavians, their English is far better than others!

I worked in HK for the best part of a decade and just before the Handover my company provided a free Putonghua course (that's Mandarin to you). It's a bloody hard language to learn, but about 1/2 as hard as Guangdonghua (that's Cantonese to you). Both languages are monosyllabic (for you Kiwis, that means every word is only one syllable), so intonation is used to differentiate similar sounding words. In Putonghua, there are 3 intonations, in Cantonese there are (depending on who you speak to) either 7 or 9. To us Gweilos (white ghosts), there's damn all difference. The only way to learn is total submersion. Having said that, it would make far more sense to teach Putonghua at school rather than French or German. There aren't many colonies of either in the neighbourhood.
Anyhow, I thought Jonkey talked surprising sense on the interview shown yesterday, but not as much as David Mahon. Can't you get an article from him Bernard. He hit the nail right on the head.
http://envirohk.wordpress.com/

This is a joke right? For starter there are hundreds of languages in china, not just manderin. I suggest China first learn about  democracy, freedom of speech and THEN go tell John Key! haaa!

We should be trying to hide from the Chinese and go under the radar, not trying to buddy up with them. They do not really want to be our friends and do not want to help us. They want to take what we have for themselves, end of story.
We are a very special and lucky country with lots of natural gifts and not too many people. This is a unique gift in the modern world and we should be trying to protect that. If we flood our country with immigrants or let our politicians continue to sell off our land and assets to the highest bidder we will sorely regret it over the years to come as the world population continues to explode while at the same time the world also runs out of everything.
We seem to in this country currently have a warped sense of what real wealth is, like some how life would be better if we could just import more consumerist cr@p from overseas. I would contest that measured correctly we are already one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we just don't realise it....yet.
From the childrens book the Lorax ... "The Truffula trees are what everyone needs" not mindless plastic junk made in some stupid polluting factory in China.

The Chinese Century if it ever comes to light will still have English as its core language. English being the most “international” language is much more than a means of communication. It is the cornerstone of the Law & Justice systems, the Technical language of Science & Engineering and for Arts & Entertainment. The bulk and accelerating rise of the library of information & knowledge today is in English.       
Therefore to thrive in the future and in any century for that matter, master the English language. English is the language that binds the world together the most. Learning Mandarin or the language of any other potential future Superpower is but a “just a nice to have”.

In the current climate talking the same language is for all of us far more crucial then learning Mandarin.
 
WK

 Shouldn't we be learning Esperanto?

first learn to eat wth chop sticks!

 An article about a Chinese migrant in the NZ Herald   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10658402

the people who say that mandarin is next to useless in China are being disingenous. Mandarin is China's lingua franca - the national language that binds all linguistic groups. That means that in most parts of China, people will speak a regional dialect - Sichuanese, Shanghainese, Cantonese, Hunanese etc but they will also speak Mandarin. So Mandarin is the most useful Chinese language to learn because it will be understood by much of China - and also the increasing Chinese diaspora around the world. 
This fear of an Asian planet stuff amuses me. Of course speaking Chinese will be useful now and in the future. But importantly, future generations of New Zealanders will be competing in a global labour market, applying for jobs at multinationals and their competition will be bilingual and multilingual Asians, many of them Chinese who can speak several languages as well as English. Now if I were an employer at a multinational company, given I was judging two candidates of equal qualifications, enthusiasm and experience, I would certainly pick the one with more language skills. It makes sense, doesn't it? Bit like putting your head in the sand to say but they'll all learn English. 
Nice piece, Bernard. Well done.  
 

 Of course learning Mandarin would be useful but, realistically, the number of Kiwis needing to interact with Chinese speakers is always going to be small. Is'nt english language skills a requirement for immigration?
What is disconcerting with this Chinese obsession we are suffering is a failure to appreciate who/what we are dealing with.
This is one of the most repressive, totalitarian regimes on earth, an ally of the Norks no less, serial polluter and colonial bully and opressor in Africa and elsewhere.
China is buying up or taking over farmland, fisheries, forests, mines and oil reserves from any country dumb enough to let them.
 China doesn't want to buy anything from New Zealand, it wants to own us and all we've got.
 

I lived in China for over 6 years and studied Mandarin for most of that time. Mandarin is widely spoken in China and is the only language you need to learn. Regional dialects are also spoken but there would be little benefit for a foreigner to learn them unless they lived there permanently. Written Chinese is the same except China uses simplified characters (as does Singapore) where as Taiwan and Hong Kong still use the complicated (traditional characters).
Its true English is becoming more widely spoken in China and is seen as a way for getting a better job. But like any country, people respond better if you can speak their own language. If you visit China regularly, then its handy to be able to get around without needing an interpreter.
Learning more than one language at school is normal in most countries outside of English speaking countries like NZ. The problem with learning Chinese in NZ is that it would be hard to find people to practice with (just like learning Japanese, German, French or Spanish). But countries like Singapore (where everyone learns English and a second language - Mandarin for the Chinese, Malay for the Malays, Tamil for the Indians) have a huge competitive advantage in the international workplace.
If Asia is where our future lies in terms of trade, it makes sense for children in school to be given opportunities to learn a second language. We have a huge resource of Asian immigrants who could be trained as teachers giving children opportunities to learn Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Hindi etc.
My wife is from Singapore and taught Mandarin to children after school twice a week at a Chinese church near where we live. The Chinese understand the usefulness of Mandarin and many teach their children their children at home (including writing) although not all. If schools gave the option, I'm sure this would provide a good pool of future workers who were bi-lingual and able to do business comfortably in Asia to the benefit of everyone in NZ.

I'm with Andyh and Kate on this one - Bernard H and Middleman should get out more, there's a real world away from the computer screen.
China can't get to where we are, en masse, in terms of income or material wealth per head. Nor can India. But the two trying, spells the very immediate end of the surplus world we  have taken for granted.
a 100 pear-to-peak Hubbert curve for a finite URR, gives you 18 years for the 'second half'' to depletion. Not long. It doesn't happen like that of course - the very increase was only underwritten by the supply, so its a bumpy decay, with multiple -dumb - attempts to kick-start growth along the way.
Society probably falls apart en route. China will succumb to internal problems (environmental and logisitcal and angst-directional) before them. Historically she has always re-schism'd.
China has less than a decade left, Bernard. The question is whether she goes military when the penny drops - as the Greater co-prospherity Sphere experience suggests.

Interesting backdrop to some of the above reasoning is a comparison of GDP projections to 2015 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_future_GDP_%28nominal%... about 2015 China's GDP is forecast to be around half that of the USA and less than half that of the EU. Impressive and a massive opportunity but maybe a spread of trade interests is best with a corresponding marketing focus.

Bernards latest PR campaign, for China this time.

Not letting kiwi students learn Chinese won't stop the Chinese evading.
Building a Great Wall around New Zealand will.
Just do what China did 3000 years ago.

Well funny enough Wally, im a 19year old female at the University of Auckland specialising in Education so it IS going to matter to me whether or not schools are going to be teaching Mandarin. Do you not agree with me that Chinese people commuting into New Zealand should more importantly be learning english? Doesnt it make more sense? If they want to run businesses and investments here then should'nt they learn the predominant native tounge here not the other way around? Im open to discussion.

Im also very calm thank you, i've done no screaming whatsoever, im simply stating my opinion on the matter, what were your thoughts exactly?

This is bizarre Wally, look better. Who is really controlling this country and making most profit: Banking sector and oil companies, how many are owned by Chinese? From my window I see McDonalds, Subway, Pizza Hutt, Kmart down the road, all Chinese brands, right?  Not to mention  our Foreign Affair Minister is having weekly briefings with US ambassador.

 Not just you are racists but also  very close minded.

How about using those of us that already live in China, read and write Chinese to some degree, know the place, know how to operate here, instead of moaning about the non existent foreign language skills and unwillingness to learn in New Zealand, and trying to send out "greenhorns" who have no idea of how and what to do in China. A person speaking three languages are trilingual, a person speak two languages are bilingual, a person speaking one language is a Kiwi????

Hey I am a Malaysian Chinese who can speak English, Mandarin and Malay.

I read many things related to anti-Asian sentiment in New Zealand recently.

What do you guys think of Asians/Chinese in general? Feel threathened by their influx?

learning chinese can be good for connecting to chinese people as new settlers as well as making friends from china.

But busisness ties and political ties are currupting our nations stand on human rights as well as local jobs ,lets be senseable and stop our trade aggreements with them now,

they must improve human rights thier manners and honnest not curruptive trade.