Talk:Chinese as a foreign language

Page title
I wonder if the scope of this should perhaps be broadened, since Westerners aren't the only non-Chinese people who study/have studied Chinese. Perhaps Chinese language learning and teaching, along the lines of the English language learning and teaching article? Or Chinese as an additional language? -- Visviva 04:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I thought of that indeed, but I supposed then the scope would be too big... considering the Japanese and the Korean and the Vietnamese...--K.C. Tang 05:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * moreover, the diffculties, say, a French faces, is different from those, say, a Japanese face, in learning Chinese.--K.C. Tang 07:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * "Chinese as a foreign or second language" sounds really cumbersome and awkward. Certainly no one will search for that exact page title. Chinese language learning and teaching is better. Heroeswithmetaphors (talk) 09:48, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not the same as learning a language natively and the title is the same as for English.--PaulMSanders (talk) 14:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * An English UK term is TEFL or TEF2L - Teaching English as a Foreign (or Second) Language. The US term is Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages TESOL. The fact is that there are many bilingual people in the Americas who have both Spanish and English and on the Indian subcontinent and in most of Africa (and most of the world) being bilingual or trilingual is the norm rather than the exception. So why a SECOND language? It is quite typical for people to start learning Chinese as a third or fourth language. RPSM (talk) 13:38, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * "Second language" is a generic term covering a non-native language that is learned starting [usually] in adulthood or adolescence. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 17:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As per the below comment that "Chinese" does not only refer to "Mandarin Chinese", how about Mandarin Chinese language education? Obviously the article would still mainly discuss non-native learners, but we could even include a small section on how the language is taught to native speakers in China. Heroeswithmetaphors (talk) 17:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

No, i think the current page title is appropriate. Not including the word "Mandarin" is a good idea; it makes it inclusiv of other forms of Chinese, mostly Cantonese.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 02:52, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Chinese language learning on internet
Hi K.C. This message is to continue the discussion on creation of an entry about "Chinese language learning on internet". As a linguist you are more experienced than anybody else. Some other people also aired dissatisfacion with the current insufficient state of the links related to the learning of Chinese. I posted my suggestions on another page, but this is more appropriate place to innitiate a proper discussion on the subject:


 * I must've expressed myself clumsily (as I always do), and I think Seraphimblade has pointed out the crux of the problem more clearly: of course it's wonderful to have a directory of online recourses (as an armchair linguist, I'm always looking for those directories desperately), but Wikipedia is just not meant to be the place to contain such a directory. In fact, there're other sites which are meant to serve that very purpose (e.g. this one). I hope you understand that our reverts were only made to conform to the current Wikipedia policy, just as your edits were meant to help the readers. Regards.--K.C. Tang 01:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Certainly. Allowing wikipedia to expand into a myriad of endless links denies it its original purpose. As a user who just thought to have a tea-break in Chinese, I certainly am not in position to create anything like an authoritative list. Neither from the perspective of a professional linguist nor from that of a computer scientist. But I assume most learners start this way. I think I showed where the demand is and how it should be filled. I do not agree with Seraphimblade that all the current links in Chinese Language website are sufficient and the most useful ones. But I appreciate your directory. It is well built and quite useful.


 * The real purpose of my entry was to induce somebody as professional as you, to create a page introducing the ways of Learning Chinese on Internet and Comparison of Commercial and Free Utilities for e-Learning Chinese. I believe such a website requires a lot background information on history and intentions of individual e-learning website makers. However it first of all requires INTERACTIVE evaluation, re-ranking and discussions by users, not by individual linguists or developers alone.


 * So my original purpose was to create something like List_of_PDF_software, PDFCreator, File_manager, or Comparison_of_file_managers. These all are in the category that one might call "D.I.R.E.C.T.O.R.Y." Thus they would probably figure as INAPPROPRIATE items for an encyclopedia like Wiki. Somehow they made it into Wikipedia, despite its "current policy". Obviously some people felt an urgent need to make some kind of order in mushrooming numbers of directories. Order that they themselves may make some contribution to, and not rely on the tastes of the provider. Proper ordering and explanation might be more valuable than gold. This does not mean I am against using commercial utilities. I just need to know they will be useful to me once I buy them!


 * Finally, as the Chinese language website corroborates, since the number of Chinese language learners is growing almost exponentially, I believe establishment of a portal such as Portal:Free_software might also be quite useful. What do you think? --02:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Replied at User talk:125.54.210.236.--K.C. Tang 03:34, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Would like to see more discussion on this matter. I'd be glad to see, and glad to help with, a either a page or portal for online (or otherwise) Chinese language learning resources. I understand the potential dangers and policy conflicts with regards to creating a long list of links, and perhaps this type of page would be better written on a different site. However, I think it's a discussion worth having, as it could be a valuable resource for Chinese learners. Anyone else? Simplylala (talk) 12:06, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Duolingo
Btw, in November or December 2017, Duolingo started offering Mandarin Chinese. I suggest that be mentioned in this article. (I started studying Chinese on Duolingo almost immediately after it was first offered.)--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 05:39, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think a section on app-based and web-based learning would be appropriate, but it shouldn’t focus on Duolingo. Many other apps have been offering Chinese for years, including Mango Languages, Memrise and Skritter to name just three. Phlar (talk) 11:07, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Good point. A section on language apps could mention Duolingo, but other apps should of course be mentioned as well.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 02:50, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Non-native speakers of Chinese
I fail to see why only "Western" speakers should be included on this list. There is no reason why Japanese, Vietnamese, Indians etc who learn the language should be excluded. Excluding them is pointless and petty. If you are concerned that the list will get too long, remember that I am only including notable speakers. Will provide citations in due course, although in most cases their fluency is listed on their linked Wikipedia biographical articles. Kransky (talk) 02:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)


 * This article is about the Western study of the Chinese language. So you see the delimitation... Cheers.--K.C. Tang (talk) 01:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * hmmmm...then is there any reason why this article couldn't be expanded to represent a worldwide view?

Kransky (talk) 09:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I tried to explain this at the first post of this discussion page. The scope is so big. Perhaps a more competent editor can try to encompass the whole thing. Cheers.--K.C. Tang (talk) 14:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * My response would be (a) including a world wide view wouldn't really take up too much space, (b) it is rather facile and unsophisticated to divide the world into 'Western' and 'non-Western' and expect there to be differences between the groups, or similarities within each group (the Japanese, Korean and Chinese share similar vocab, but grammatical structures and writing is different). Kransky (talk) 14:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Instead of renaming and reorganizing the current article, one can start Chinese as a foreign language (or something like that) and then link to the current article as a branch article . It'd be simpler. I mean as long as one has the relevant information, not just creating the page for its own sake. I think anything goes on Wikiepdia, as long as one has done their research and has some useful information to share. Cheers.--K.C. Tang (talk) 02:06, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * By the way, the non-native speakers list should be put in the article suggested above, since non-Western people are included therein. Regards.--K.C. Tang (talk) 02:57, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Chinese as a foreign language sounds like a good idea, like Swedish as a foreign language and English language learning and teaching. However it would be more logical to have the content of Western study of the Chinese language incorporated in Chinese as a foreign language, than exist as a separate article.  Frankly I do not see why the "Western" and "non-Western" learning of Chinese should be treated differently - nor do other people for other articles that might invite ideas that differences exist.Kransky (talk) 06:12, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The reason is that there're articles particularly devoted to the topic of the Western study of Chinese (as cited in the current article, see Notes). So I guess the Western study of Chinese is a legitimate topic of a Wikipedia article, and it's reasonable to have it exist as a separate article. In any case, the non-native speakers list should not exist in an article entitled "Western ...", as title and content should match each other. So one should either rewrite and rename the article, or put the list in a new article as suggested above. As I said above, anything goes, as long as research is done and useful information is provided. I'd only be glad to see editors more competent than myself improve the article. :)--K.C. Tang (talk) 09:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Then I suggest the article gets renamed to Chinese as a foreign language; in time contributors will add discussion about the teaching of Chinese to "non-Westerners". Kransky (talk) 11:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

This section is bizarre and should be eliminated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.178.116.253 (talk) 03:34, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Foreign language quotes
Could someone please translate or have translated the non-English quotes on this page? This is the English Wikipedia and if anyone wanted to find out more about Chinese as a foreign language but doesn't speak French or German, those quotes are completely useless. --Joowwww (talk) 23:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Hear hear —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.162.209.213 (talk) 15:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it's ridiculous to have untranslated quotations, especially commentary, here. If you can translate them, please do! Meteorswarm (talk) 21:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

See also.... Japanese?
I'm curious why the "See also" section includes Japanese. Apart from the fact that they're major Oriental languages and both use Chinese characters, it's hard to see why Japanese should automatically be listed in an article about Chinese (unlike, say, "Arabic as a foreign language", etc.)

Bathrobe (talk) 01:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Completely agreed. I made the same comment on the discussion for Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi. I'm in favor of having this link removed. Simplylala (talk) 13:27, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Another difficulty
In brief, another serious difficulty from the commonly mentioned hanzi and tones, I find understanding spoken Chinese. I am pretty comfortable with initials/finals and tones but find extremely difficult to understand unknown texts/dialogues. Words are too short and there's a lot of similarity between similar syllables. You need to understand the context very well. --Atitarev (talk) 09:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Spoken Chinese is much clearer than any other languages since it's generally slower. Because one character corresponds to one syllable and that syllable often has the meaning of a whole word. A study has found out that no matter how fast a language is spoken, the amount of information conveyed is nearly the same. So Spanish is much faster and than English, but Spanish doesn't contain more meaning. Chinese is slower, but contains more content. What you find difficult is irrelevant to the article. If you learned another foreign language, your listening skills would probably be even worse. --2.245.213.216 (talk) 22:52, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Homophones
The examples given in the Massive amount of homophones are inane. Words like "míng/ mǐng" are not homophones, they have different tones. Chinese does have plenty of true homophony (for example, the pronunciation shì corresponds to at least 30 different words), and having anglocentric examples like this is embarrassing. Is anyone watching this page and interested in cleaning up this section? If not, I'll add it to my to-do list. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 14:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I had the same first reaction to "míng/ mǐng", but I then clicked on one of them. When I clicked on míng, for example, I got a list of characters all pronounced as míng, implying that these are homophones.  This fails to make the point in a different way, though.  Many of the characters are bounded forms, meaning that they can't be used on their own as a word.  For example, míng (茗) means tea, but you can't ask for some míng.  Instead the character or syllable is used in longer words and indicates tea within them.  This is similar to the English syllable "ped", which can refer to both children and feet but does not stand alone as a word.  It's not a homophone because the whole words that happen to include "ped" are distinct.  I agree that homophones make things difficult for Chinese learners, but this needs to be better quantified.  --Beirne (talk) 14:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep, this is one of the many Chinese-related articles here that clearly was written by someone not very familiar with Chinese. I'm going to add it to my to-do list. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 14:49, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Weblinks
It seems that there is a lot of advertisments within the links? Is this acceptable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.6.215.35 (talk) 20:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No, they almost all need to be removed (and I have since done so). Thanks for pointing this out. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 20:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Tim Geithner
Does he really speak Chinese? Colipon+ (Talk) 13:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I was also skeptical when it was added, but checking his WP article yields this which said he minored in Chinese; I assume he's at least taken a year of it, although who knows if he's any good. In any case, though, I think this list has gotten out of hand and is mostly unnecessary; it needs to be either totally removed, or trimmed down to only the most notable ones (like Needham) and given clear inclusion criteria so we can keep people from adding everyone they can think of. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 14:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit unsure about whether or not to have that list there at all. There is always the alternative of creating a new page or just making a new category. Yet it somehow is interesting to see who has Chinese skills, so I'm a bit reserved about hitting the delete button. Colipon+ (Talk) 16:41, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Mandarin ≠ Chinese
A lot of the text in the article talks about "The Chinese language" or "Chinese" when it means Mandarin. The very title of the article invites people to assume there is a language called "Chinese". This is confusing and inaccurate. A lot of readers will be fuzzy on the distinctions, and this article will only make them fuzzier. (See ). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.31.112.212 (talk) 08:52, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Your heading is already wrong. It implies that Mandarin is not Chinese at all. People insisting on differentiating between these two are only found in the English-speaking world because the first immigrants were Cantonese. Therefore people thought Cantonese was the default Chinese language. In other languages, you will rarely find the term "Mandarin", only when you wanted to make a distinction between different variations of Chinese. The definition of a language is not stable. Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrin are now considered different languages due to political reasons although they are more similar than Chinese dialects, even if you count the dialect groups as languages, the dialects within the group are not always mutual intelligible. --2.245.213.216 (talk) 23:17, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Inclusion of Leehom Wang and other foreign-born people of Chinese descent
Editor User:Zhxy 519 wants to remove people like this from the list of "notable non-native speakers of Chinese", presumably on the grounds of their ethnicity. I have restored these people to the list on the basis that ethnicity is irrelevant to native language status, but this editor has reverted me without explanation, nor has the user responded to my requests for discussion ( and ). Can someone else please offer an outside opinion so that a consensus can be reached? Thank you, r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 10:51, 12 October 2014 (UTC)


 * To Rjanag:
 * Basically I oppose to add any of people with Chinese descendant. No matter you got sources or not, compared to those people totally irrelevant with Chinese ethnicity, these Chinese descendants will just harm the credit of this article. It is not hard to imagine they were fed at an atmosphere more or less affected by Chinese language etc.
 * Or do you want to add most of the modern Chinese Singaporeans here? It is not exaggerate to say many of their native language is changing to English from Chinese including dialects. Like Lee Kuan Yew. I don't think you will consider this seriously. So please abandon Leehom Wang too.--Zhxy 519 (talk) 11:00, 12 October 2014 (UTC)


 * "Will harm the credit of the article" is not an argument with any logical basis, as there simply is no such concept as "harming the credit of an article" on Wikipedia. The list is a list of people who are notable non-native speakers of Chinese, and the people I pointed out are non-native speakers. Ethnicity is not relevant, because ethnicity and genetic factors have nothing whatsoever to do with native language. If a person grew up speaking English, then his or her native language is English, regardless of ethnicity.
 * Your point about adding all Chinese Singaporeans is an irrelevant straw man argument; this list is only a list of notable people, and therefore there is no situation in which all modern Chinese Singaporeans would be added. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 11:04, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Of course ethnicity works. It will be a confusing factor to make a decision. Another example is Gary Locke, his native language is English and now he can still use the dialect of his ancestors just not Mandarin. What will you do with this? No matter how many source you got, these factors will just make confusions. We should prevent this from the first moment.
 * I didn't mean all. But even just several of them is much enough to make the list too huge. So I ask you to reconsider.--Zhxy 519 (talk) 11:21, 12 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't understand what you are trying to say. What does "ethnicity works" and "it will be a confusing factor to make a decision" mean? The point of a list like this is not for us to make judgments about how easy or difficult the person's learning may have been. The fact that someone can be ethnically Chinese but have learned Chinese as a second language is indisputable.
 * Gary Locke is, according to the Wikipedia article, a heritage speaker of Chinese, which is not the same thing as a non-native learner, and thus would not belong on this list. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 01:54, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
 * As the article's chapter Difficulty shows, such a list should be related to how easy or difficult the person's learning may have been, otherwise it will be useless. This is necessary for keeping the connection of the article. Even yourself is making judgement de facto by judging ethnicity is irrelevant. Also I don't think "heritage speaker" or "native speaker" will be a persuadable point. It is confusing.
 * "The fact that someone can be ethnically Chinese but have learned Chinese as a second language is indisputable" If you do so, then only Chinese Singaporeans are enough to make this list explode. --Zhxy 519 (talk) 10:45, 13 October 2014 (UTC)


 * You are missing the point here. First of all, nothing in the article says the list "should be related to how easy or difficult the person's learning may have been". Secondly, even if that were the case, the section you point out (Chinese as a foreign language) says Mandarin may be difficult to learn for people whose native language is English; it does not say it may be difficult to learn "for people whose ethnicity is not Chinese". Again, ethnicity is not the same as language; you need to understand this.
 * Your points about the list getting too long are different. There are three potential solutions to this:
 * Not worry about the length of the list, just include anyone who is relevant
 * Keep the length down by changing the list's meaning to something arbitrary and meaningless ("Notable non-native speakers of Chinese who don't look like Chinese people")
 * Remove the list entirely.
 * <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 05:28, 17 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Of course I don't have time to keep my eyes always on this page. But Rjanag is really making me despaired. Your standard is really confusing. And to AmritasyaPutra, The list of course should exclude people whose ancestors were chinese.--Zhxy 519 (talk) 02:46, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * You have already expressed your opinion, and two other editors have expressed theirs. You can't just say you're right (repeating "the list should exclude people whose ancestors were chinese") without providing any additional arguments. We know you think the list shouldn't include these people; two other editors disagree with you and have expressed their reasons why. <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 05:40, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I never said you are wrong. But since it is far from consensus, you can't make a "consensus" to only support your opinion. And every time when you make your replies, I'm explaining them without simple repeats. You are the one just say you're right.--Zhxy 519 (talk) 09:56, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

RfC: inclusion of ethnic Chinese non-native speakers
Should people like Leehom Wang, who are ethnically Chinese but who grew up speaking another language (in this case English) and only learned Chinese as adults, be included in the list of "notable non-native speakers of Chinese"? Previous discussion between two editors (and one 3O editor) is in the preceding section. From the discussion above, one view is that they should because they are indeed non-native speakers, and one view is that they should not because the list would get long. Discussion has become circular so I am requesting comment from outsiders to avoid an edit war happening. <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 03:14, 26 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Support inclusion for reasons expressed above: people like this are indeed non-native speakers, and ethnicity is irrelevant to this status. Making ethnicity a criterion for inclusion would be changing the meaning of this list (which is an option, but that's another discussion to have). If people are concerned with the list getting too long, there are three alternatives I listed above: 1) Not worry about the length of the list, just include anyone who is relevant; 2) Keep the length down by changing the list's meaning to something arbitrary and meaningless ("Notable non-native speakers of Chinese who don't look like Chinese people"); 3) Remove the list entirely. <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 03:14, 26 October 2014 (UTC)


 * support inclusion; yes, ethnicity is irrelevant. If someone is a native English (or other language) speaker then learns Chinese they learn it as a foreign language. Besides ethnicity can be hard to pin down - someone may call themselves "Chinese American" but be of only partial Chinese descent. If the list is or gets too long various things can be done. The descriptions can be pared back and the list put into columns. The list could be broken out into its own article. But length is generally not a reason to exclude information; there are no hard limits or article size or the information in them as there would be in a paper encyclopaedia.-- JohnBlackburne words<sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">deeds 04:57, 26 October 2014 (UTC)


 * In general, support inclusion—language is not the same as ethnicity. However, with respect to Leehom Wang in particular, is there any evidence that he doesn't speak Chinese natively? Rjanag, you say above that he only learned Chinese as an adult, but his parents are from Taiwan, so it seems quite possible that he may have grown up speaking Chinese at home (unless of course we have a reliable source that says otherwise). If he did grow up speaking Chinese with his parents and siblings, then I think he should not be included in a list of non-native speakers. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:51, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * To answer your question: yes, there are sources that Mandarin is his second language. A source is included in the version of the article that has him in the list (see e.g. ), indicating that English is his first language. I believe he didn't start studying Mandarin until 18, although I'm not sure if that's in this particular source or elsewhere. And as you acknowledge above, this issue is not just about Wang, but also about other people of similar backgrounds who have been removed from the list. <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 02:11, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks for that source. It quotes Wang as saying "I grew up speaking English.... My parents would speak Chinese to each other when they didn't want us to know what they were saying. But we'd pick up some of the words." That's good enough for me. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:52, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * From your quote I just got an oppose idea. His pick up proved that he was a some kind of Chinese user since his childhood. Not perfect doesn't mean not at all.--Zhxy 519 (talk) 11:18, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Careful. It is possible to be a native speaker in multiple languages.  The fact that English may be the most commonly spoken by an individual does not mean that they are not also a native Chinese speaker.  —sroc &#x1F4AC; 11:09, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Right, of course. But if his parents spoke Chinese with each other when they didn't want him to know what they were saying, then he must not have understood much Chinese at the time. (Still, I agree that a more unequivocal source would be preferable.) —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:38, 10 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Support inclusion. As long as there is a list, it should not be making racial distinctions about people who look like they should be native speakers. Being a native speaker of a language is condition predicated on whether the language was learned by simple exposure to the natural language as a young child, or whether you were taught to speak it at a later time. If there is a concern about the list getting too long, then the criteria for "notability" needs to be adjusted, not racial or ethnic qualifications artificially introduced. VanIsaacWS<sup style="margin-left:-3.0ex">cont 02:16, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose inclusion. All my reasons are already given upside but I can still add. Getting too long is only just one of my opinions. Rjanag plz don't miss my points. --Zhxy 519 (talk) 11:09, 27 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Support inclusion per rʨanaɢ's comment in this section and AmritasyaPutra's comments in the previous section. (I was randomly invited to this RFC by Legobot.) -sche (talk) 03:57, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * In general I don't think that a vast majority of categorisation which happens on WP is necessary or useful. But if you're going to have a list, and person X qualifies to be on that list (according to reliable sources of course) then why on earth would it be a good idea to remove them from it? <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">pablo 12:16, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Support inclusion This list is a big headache to begin with so I'd be in favor of scrapping it as impossible to administer. The list is fated to be too, too long -- maybe it should be a category, instead. There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of teachers of Chinese, to mention only one category, and the list does not seem to be limited to people who are alive, so there must be again hundreds, if not thousands, of missionaries, scholars, businessmen and women, diplomats et al. et al. over the last couple of centuries. There's no way of deciding who's "notable" and no way of administering an exam to see who can put together a grammatical sentence. Do they have to be able to read? To write? Why limit this to Mandarin? If I grew up speaking Cantonese, then am I a non-native speaker of Mandarin? Vice-versa? In any case, there's no logical grounds to make distinctions on the basis of DNA, so people who are descended from Chinese have to be included.ch (talk) 07:41, 11 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Support CWH in scrapping the list and creating a category instead. A giant list of Chinese speakers seems like trivia and hard to maintain. If it is to stand, however, speakers who learned the language as adults are indeed non-native speakers of Chinese and should be included. kara ❈ talk  22:49, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * In principle I agree with your suggestion, CWH. I just wanted to point out that there is in fact a way of deciding who's notable: if they have an article. Lists like these generally don't include redlinks (if there is a legitimate gap in the encyclopedia---someone who's really notable and would fit the list, but no one has bothered to create the article yet---then someone can create the stub when adding the person to the list). Notwithstanding that, though, I do agree the list is difficult to manage. Although categories also come with their own problems (e.g., the fact that no one can 'watch' what's added to or removed from a category the way they can a list). <b class="IPA">r ʨ anaɢ</b> (talk) 18:23, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

China as Egyptian colony
How could Chinese be derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs? This statement seems ridiculous. Was Kircher really not kidding? Did he really believe that? Is his statement only included to show Western people's ignorance? Then I agree on keeping it, but otherwise it should be removed. --2.245.213.216 (talk) 23:23, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Add it to your list of unbelievable things that people really believed! See Phlogiston theory. And Kircher was not alone. Mungello and Saussy are among the many reliable sources as to this lunacy. ch (talk) 07:47, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091122225929/http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/pdf/361/36100507.pdf to http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/pdf/361/36100507.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061018095005/http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wbaxter/howhard.html to http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wbaxter/howhard.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051126084158/http://www.wycliffe.org/translation/process.htm to http://www.wycliffe.org/translation/process.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 05:48, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Page title, again
As of 23rd Feb 2018, the article predominantly discussed Chinese as a foreign language in the West only, while the title itself, "Chinese as a foreign language", appears to be discussing a much broader issue.

That implies, we have two options to improve:


 * Change the page title to "Chinese as a foreign language in the West" (or expressed otherwise).
 * Keep adding materials for the studies of Chinese languages in other socio-geographic sectors of humans.

I personally would prefer the first. Also, in addition to the renaming (moving), we can create a disambiguation page with the title "Chinese as a foreign language (disambiguation)", redirect "Chinese as a foreign language" to "Chinese as a foreign language in the West", and put a line of disambiguation notice on the top of the article "Chinese as a foreign language in the West".

Thank you.

Anemseus (talk) 06:53, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

To be fixed
In the lead section, it says "China has helped 60,000 teachers promote its language internationally, and an estimated 40 million people were studying Chinese as a second language around the world at the end of 2008." A significant factoid, but (a) I clicked on the link, and the page was no longer there (see Link rot); and (b) said figure ought to be updated; e.g. how many people were learning Chinese as a second/ foreign language as of c. 2017? Link rots, which i have understandably encountered before on Wikipedia, should of course be fixed.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 02:48, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I've added an archive URL. If you can find a more up-to-date reference, please add it and update the figures. Phlar (talk) 15:35, 3 July 2018 (UTC)