Comments on: Huntsman, Missions, and Language Skills

By: Ray

Ray — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:22:59 +0000

There is very little difference between the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan and that of the mainland. When Chiang Kai Shek fled to Taiwan in 1949 he brought with him people from all the provinces of China. The majority of the Taiwanese spoke Taiwanese with 5% or so speaking another dialect, Hakka.
Most provinces in China also have their own dialects e.g. Cantonese, Hunanese, SiChuanese,etc.
However, the Taiwan government is run in Mandarin, schools are taught in Mandarin, and mandarin is heard everywhere. The main difference is in the way it is written. Mainland China simplified the characters to make it easier to learn and also came up with “pinyin” a way of romanizing the language. All this way done to facilitate making the masses literate. Taiwan still uses the traditional characters.
I assure you Huntsman’s mandarin is quite good. Plus, his American accent is not as difficult to understand as a Chinese from one of the remote provinces speaking Mandarin. He will be easily understood and should be quite effective.

By: Kent Larsen

Kent Larsen — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:47:58 +0000

For me, learning another language on my mission was quite transforming. I worked hard at it on my mission, worked hard on it after my mission (earning a BA), and despite the fact that I went 15 years without a reason to speak the language, I didn’t do too badly when I needed to pick it up again 6 years ago.

Now I speak in Portuguese most days, read and write Portuguese daily, and try to travel to Portuguese-speaking countries once a year or so. All because my business requires Portuguese.

I can say that if you speak one of the most commonly spoken foreign languages in the US (Spanish 10.710%, Chinese (all spoken varieties incl.) 0.78%, French (incl. Patois, Cajun) 0.627%, German 0.527%, Tagalog 0.467%, Vietnamese 0.385%, Italian 0.384%, Korean 0.341%, Russian 0.269%, Polish 0.254%, Arabic 0.234%, Portuguese or Portuguese Creole 0.215%, Japanese 0.182%, French Creole 0.173%), it should be possible to find immigrant communities or other speakers of that language in most metropolitan areas of the U.S.

I’ve become a bit of an expert on this for Portuguese. I get weekly and monthly periodicals published here in the U.S. in Portuguese (there are dozens!), can get TV and movies in Portuguese (not counting on the Internet from overseas), and have a network of Portuguese-speaking friends who I can meet with or call up regularly to speak with.

And then there is the Internet. I don’t care what language you speak, you should be able to keep your language and at least read a little in it on the Internet each day. (Personally, I’ve been fooling around a little with Kristang lately, which has about 5,000 speakers around the world and almost nothing formally published, and I can find material to read and study!)

There is no question in my mind that my Portuguese is better than it has ever been, far better than it was on my mission. There is also no question in my mind that anyone who is willing to spend 15 minutes a day on the Internet reading or listening to their mission language should be able to maintain a decent ability, if not improve.

Given how much effort it takes to learn the basics of a language in the first place, I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to put a minimal amount of effort into keeping it up. If nothing else, join an email list or facebook group in your mission language!

By: Steve M

Steve M — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:53:02 +0000

@ JJohnsen (#42),

I can kinda relate. When I received my mission call, I was excited to read that I was going to Hong Kong and would be learning Mandarin. Of course, at the time I had no idea what people in Hong Kong spoke.

Then I learned that most Hong Kong residents speak Cantonese. I had people telling me all kinds of things–that my call might be a mistake, that Cantonese might be “too hard” to teach in the MTC, etc.

Turns out my call wasn’t a mistake. But that didn’t change the fact that Mandarin wasn’t extremely helpful when it came to talking to people on the streets of HK.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:29:53 +0000

#44 & 47: In downtown LA, a lot of times being a bilingual worker or boss means you speak Spanish and Korean! (But not English).

By: Kami

Kami — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:45:04 +0000

Well, I envy anyone that knows even a little bit of a foreign language–fluent or not. My husband’s native language is Spanish and he uses it constantly. Okay, so we live in the suburbian-ghetto of Chicago and 79% of my daughter’s school is Hispanic. Whatever. The closest store to us is Polish. There’s a Bulgarian restaurant down the street. And our next door neighbor is from somewhere in Africa. In a large metro area, you never know what language might come in handy.

By: Bookslinger

Bookslinger — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:34:52 +0000

#17 dmt : Carry around a Lithuanian copy and an English copy of the Book of Mormon in your car, and you’ll eventually run into Lithuanians.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:15:13 +0000

Which mission did he go to in Taiwan? This is great. The new President of Taiwan is trying to improve relationships with the mainland rather than historical attempts to sever its ties by previous presidents. Now Taiwan is improving its relations, America’s ambassador will also come from a very heavily Taiwan influenced background. This is a great opportunity. Jia you!

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:43:51 +0000

A year ago I found myself bargaining over the price of a camel-leather bag with a shopkeeper in the medina of Fez, Morocco in…GERMAN. Turned out it was the only language we had in common (apparently most of their tourists come from Europe). Who’da thunkit?

My mission language also came in handy when I was working in Kuwait after the first Gulf War, and had my family relocated to Vienna, Austria for about a year. You just never know….

By: Peter LLC

Peter LLC — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:50:34 +0000

33:I think he may be tired of the partisan politics in Utah right now, and want a change.

In that case, the non-partisan politics of US-China relations will be right up his alley.

By: jjohnsen

jjohnsen — Mon, 18 May 2009 04:55:00 +0000

I was pretty excited to read my calling and see I’d be learning Cantonese in the MTC. Then I saw I was going to Australia. It was about as useful as you’d expect it to be, especially since most of the Asian people we ran into spoke Vietnamese or Mandarin.