Well, the writing is on the wall. China will most likely be the next world economic power. We can only thank communism for holding them back this far. Considering this, what dialect of Chinese language should we have our kids learning to be prepared to compete in the new world?
Mandarin is the official language for People Republic of China. Don't underestimate the Chinese Communist Party. They can easily hold back China for another one or two decades. Sixty years of communism has destroyed all humanity there. All that left are corruption, propaganda and power struggle.
A few days ago, I came to the conclusion that China in fact already is the new world economic power: guess who's financing the American deficit by stockpiling USG Bonds and above all, why? I think they are using the opportunity the asshole (AKA GWB) gives them, which is to tighten the grip on the US economy via massive stockpiling of Bonds. Once they own enough of them, just the threat of selling them simultaneously could influence the future US administration's decisions with regards to Taiwan or (perhaps more importantly) the unilateral expansion of China's maritime borders well into Vietnamese territory. Oh, and regarding your original question - have a look at a lingual map of China (though in German, I think it's self-explanatory) The "CIA World Fact Book 2004" states that standard chinese is Mandarin (AKA Putunghua, based on the Beijing dialect). At my former university, they introduced a course called "East asian business administration", and the majority of students are native Germans. I talked to the principal, and he told me that it's quite easy to learn 2000-3000 written signs within just a few months. What makes chinese a little complicated (as far as I understood) is the fact that intonation is crucial - a wrong intonation can result in a completely different meaning. In my opinion, it's very intelligent from you to raise your kids with chinese. I grew up with 2 languages too, and it helped me tremendously learn English and other languages at later stages. But what about a third language, e.g. Spanish? Cheers!
Anyone know of any good study aids or websites I can go to? I wouldn't mind picking up some Chinese myself.
Rosetta Stone Language learning - http://www.rosettastone.com/ I got several language Rosetta Stone courses myself, including chinese. Also Pimsleur - www.amazon.com/Pimsleur - http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=pimsleur+language (several discount offers)
Brilliant. How does the US combat this Chineese power play? Or doesn't it? Though I disagree about China now being the world power.
Mandarin is the national language. If you do a lot of business in Hong Kong, then Cantonese would be helpful. Most Chinese in SE Asia speak the Fookien dialect.