April 28, 2006

What’s the World’s Most Popular Language?

Did you guess English? If so you’re wrong. 500 million more people claim Mandarin Chinese as their first language. That blew me away. Actually, the entire article entitled “The Mandarin Offensive” that I read tonight blew me away. I really don’t we fully realize the impact that China is going to have on the rest of the world. It’s going to be truly mind-boggling.

And it’s a wake-up call I guess to go out there and learn at least a bit of Mandarin. I tried to do this a couple of years ago and I’ll admit that it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. It’s definitely a lot more difficult (coming from an English background) than trying to learn French or Spanish.

Now I might be a bit biased but I think one of the best ways to learn a foreign language (or to supplement your learning) is through audio. I know that both my Spanish and French (Disclaimer: I’m not anywhere near fluid in either language.) have been helped a lot over the years by listening to tapes and CDs. And when I made my attempt at learning Chinese a couple of years ago, listening the Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese course did help a lot.

If you’re in the process of learning a language I would definitely recommend adding audio material to your plan of attack. We’ve got a ton of language learning material listed on our site so you should be able to find something that suits your needs. The best part about audio is that it’s easy to repetitively drill the stuff into your head. Plus, it usually costs a fraction of what you would pay for classes or a private tutor.