Knowing a second language other than English has become more and more vital in our shrinking world and learning Mandarin is at the top of the list.
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In our book review of Jim Rogers book “A Gift To My Children” we mentioned that Jim stressed the importance of learning Mandarin and to a lesser extent Spanish. China and South America will be major players in the new world especially following the recent recession.
We live in Hong Kong and Maggie and our children speak Mandarin and Cantonese already in addition to English – unfortunately my second language skills have a long way to go. Recently I make a commitment to do the impossible task of learning 3 languages at once (Spanish, Mandarin & Cantonese), at the same time I am hoping to challenge my family to include Spanish as their 4th language.
Why Learn A Second Language
1. Financial Benefit
We already mentioned the shift in the economy to China and South America, so there is the obvious financial benefit. But this may be somewhat overstressed as people in China and South America are also learning English.
2. Problem Solving
After living with a bilingual family it’s obvious that different languages make you think differently and indeed look differently at Life. Cantonese is a very verbal language – action oriented, as a result I have noticed that Cantonese people love to get things done – they especially love to do it well. English on the other hand is very abstract and conceptual. It has lots of nouns. English speakers tend to think abstractly and talk about stuff rather than just getting in and doing it. These are just my own observations from living in Hong Kong for a number of years . Clearly there is benefit in learning a second language in being able to view problems and find solutions from another perspective.
3. Keep Fit Mentally Later In Life
Recent studies published in the July 9, 2009 online issue of Neurology(c) have shown that people with superior language skills early in life are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease later in life.
Learn A Conversation A Day
Sounds obvious but other research has shown that conversing helps language development more than reading alone. So as a first step I am going to find some “conversational” type language learning tapes. Fortunately I have the ability to converse with my family for two of the languages – Cantonese & Mandarin. For Spanish, I will have to use my imagination a bit with the conversational tapes. All in all this should be pretty exciting but the trick of course will be to make it into a daily habit.
About Danny Sheehan
Danny lives in Hong Kong but is originally from Australia. He is Married to Maggie and together they have two children with whom they enjoy sharing and enjoying an exciting life with daily. Danny's passions are freedom, adventure and discovery, mainly in nature and science but also spiritually. He is a great believer in living in the NOW.
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