×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

(OP)
What would be the most useful Chinese dialect for a Quality Engineer to learn?  The reason is to make myself more marketable.  I have 13 years in Quality Engineering and a total of 26 years of Engineering in metal fabrication and welding.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

I am not really an expert in this area, but my son has been over there for about two years.  I believe that Mandarin is the official language except in two major provinces where Cantonese is the official language.  There are many local dialects and if you are asking which local dialect would be best I am sorry I don't have a clue.  But I would think Mandarin would be your best choice unless you will spend most of your time in the provinces that use Cantonese.

I am sure others with more experiences in China can give better information than I can.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

I used to live in Singapore and have travelled to China many times.  Learning one dialect will not be guaranteed to work for you in every situation, but Mandarin is probably your best bet.

Good luck,
Latexman

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

The most useful dialect is "Engrish".

I did take the equivalent of two semesters of Mandarin, plus travel to Shanghai and Suzhou.  Work-wise, I don't think it helped much.  It did help in making friends and getting around town.

For me, the biggest shock in travelling to China is becoming functionally illiterate.  It's spooky to not be able to read and decipher signs.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

There are way too many dialects to adequately cover China, as a whole.

Mandarin is supposed to be the official language, as debodine indicates, but, in any given region, local dialects are often spoken between native speakers in that region, and in many cases, the dialects are so divergent that they might as well be a different foreign language, particularly in the case of local idioms.

That said, again, as debodine indicates, Cantonese is a good second choice for both Guanzhou and Hong Kong.  Cantonese is quite divergent from Mandarin.  When I was little (~9), my mother worked in a Chinese bank, and everyone there spoke at least Mandarin and Cantonese, plus, perhaps, one other dialect.  Some woman born in the rural part of Guanzhou came in, and, oddly, I was the only one in the bank that day that could understand her, and that was only because my sitter spoke that exact dialect, and I picked up a few words.

Shanghai has its own dialect, which is quite unintelligible to a Mandarin or Cantonese speaker, but is closest to Mandarin, and if you listen long and hard enough, you can make out a few words.

Beijing has a regional dialect, but it's reasonably understandable to the average Mandarin speaker.

Naturally, they all use the same written language, so one can always resort to that.

So, end result, you need to determine where you might be doing business, and the choice will boil down to Mandarin, Cantonese, or Shanghai.  You can get by with Mandarin, but you might get poor service in some restaurants, but that would be either because you speak Mandarin, or because you're noy Chinese winky smile

As debodine indicated, Hong Kong and its mainland surrounds, Guanzhou, will be well served with Cantonese, but you still might need Mandarin, as there has been lots of transmigrations.

From a strict feasibility perspective, Mandarin and Cantonese are pretty much the only two dialects that you can readily get language lessons for, though...
 

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

(OP)
Thank you all very much.  Mandarin came up a lot in my research as to what dialect is used in the industrialized regions.  I am off to Mandarin Chinese lessons.
  Hmm?  Chinese with a Boston accent.  

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

No worries...  My high school had a Mandarin teacher who was French, and that's the only time I've ever heard Mandarin with a French accent.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Mandarin will also get you by in Taiwan.

IRStuff is not quite right about written Chinese though.

The mainland uses a simplified Kanji character set, while Taiwan and Hong Kong (before the English left) use the traditional character set.  I'm not sure what's in use in Hong Kong now.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

btw, Kanji is the Japanese name for written Chinese.

But, in any case, my wife can read most of traditional Chinese, even though she was raised in the mainland.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Tick,

I have many fond memories of "Singrish".  One of the idiosyncrasies they had was the "lah".  I doubt I ever fully mastered it.  It was more of a spoken accent mark than it was a word with meaning.  For example, a friend is telling a friend, who has a car, they do not know how they will get to a certain location.  The friend tells them, "Get in the car, lah."

Another shock for me was being a minority.  Very eye opening!

Good luck,
Latexman

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Yeah, I get all confused about that.

I can "read" maybe 100 or so Chinese/Kanji words.  Some I know the pronunciation in both Japanese and Chinese, and some in only one of the two.

My wife is from Taiwan, she can't read any of the simplified Chinese character set.  

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

"Lah" is used by ALL Chinese, as far as I can tell.  

Not unlike the "eh?" used in abundance in "Fargo."

Another punctuation phrase in Cantonese, is "Ai Yah!"  I remember the first time reading "Joy Luck Club" and one of the plentiful aunties used that phrase, and I could suddenly hear it in Cantonese; spooky!

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Just because you can speak Chinese doesn't mean you can think like one.  Entirely different animal here...

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

"lah" at the end of a sentence makes it past tense.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

A bit of a change from previous posts, but does really the ability to speak Chinese increase your marketability? It seems to me that a translator there should be fairly economic and most companies probably have somebody who speaks a bit of English.


Histogram, aren't there other skills that would be easier to learn and that would improve more your marketability?

English is not my mother tongue, and I fould that to reach a level of skill good enough for a business/professional setting was not easy at all.  

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Not always.  Or maybe that's a regional thing,

"Lah" at least with the people I know, is more of an emphatic, like, "Eat faster, lah," particularly from parents, or, "Have you gotten married, lah?" from anyone who's even a bit nosy.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

The Chinese official language is Mandarin and the preferred accent is Beijing.
There is a quite a bit of state regulation of the dialects spoken on TV and radio designed to perpetuate the Beijing accent.
That may not answer your question as to what is most useful to learn but my friend learned Mandarin with the Beijing accent for the several years he tried to manage an electronics manufacturing company based out of Beijing.

Interestingly, he is Welsh, he then went to the US to manage another company there and his young daughter joined the local Chinese club attended mainly by Chinese Americans, where she won the prize for the best spoken Chinese.

Was Mandarin useful to him? undoubtedly.

But, was he allowed to do his job? Not really.  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

(OP)
Clarification on increasing my marketability.  I am a quality engineer/manager well versed in statistics, lean manufacturing, and six sigma tempered with 20 years experience in the metals fabrication industry with a proven list of accomplishment applying these skill sets.  With the current economic situation I cannot get a call back when I send out a résumé.  Five years ago I would have the pick of any job I wanted.  I don't know if I am grasping at straws with the belief another language would help.  I am currently employed but this employer has cut our pay and layoffs are probably in the future.  This is the reason for my interest in another language.  Also, I do not have the money to get a masters degree which employers seem to want for QA engineers and janitors.  
 Thanks again for all your responses,
 

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Mandarin, hands down.  Having any degree of fluency will not give you any degree of competitive advantage when negotiating, however.  You will still be Ang Mo.  As you originally stated, it may make you more marketable to employers, provided that you are seeking extended travel and perhaps short term living in Asia.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

The only Mandarin you really need to know is "bu hao".

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Hun Hao Tick!
Gang bei.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

I think it's closer to "gan bei" pronounced like "gahn bey"  

But, if you're really into THAT, then you should also master "mao tai" which is a measly 110 proof, amd kaoliang which is 116.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

IRStuff, you are right, of course,... just checked my W Simon beginners dictionary, Gan bei it is. Xie Xie.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Dang, that shows how old I am, I got up from the computer and went and got that book out of the bookcase instead of Googling.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

gung hay fat choy

well that is the extent of my Cantonese...

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."  

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

I seem to recall a 'fad' of learning Japanese about 20 years ago based on the idea of Japanese industry etc. dominating world trade.  Then the Japanese economy struggled through the 90's and on into the current mess.

So, is Chinese a better bet now than Japanese was then?  Or is English already the de-facto international business language and there are other skills better to learn?

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Yi bei pi jiu, xie xie ni.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Sure, the difference was that we were going to learn Japanese because we thought they would pretty much buy up all the US companies and we'd wind up working for the Japanese.  And there really wasn't much in the way of outsourcing to Japan; even then, outsourcing, at least for electronics, was to Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, etc.

Currently, China isn't doing much in the way of buying US companies, perhaps a wise move on their part.  But, we'd be learning Chinese so that we can buy stuff from they, or pay them to make stuff for us.  A slight, but significant, difference.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

A "Quality Engineer" in China?  Somehow, it just doesn't sound right.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

I studied mandarin for 4 years as a combined degree with my engineering, but have been put off by the number of engineers in china already. I've only visited for a holiday. I'd be keen to work there for a while, but not sure how to go about it.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Maybe you could beat the western world to the punch and jump directly to Hindi.   

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

How can you tell the Germans from the Americans in Suzhou?

The Germans are the ones who speak perfect English.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

(OP)
谢谢忠告。
or
Thank you very much for the advice.
I am a quick study!!

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Mandarin is the official language,if you can say Mandarin,wherever you can go in china.I come from china and know it.Wish you success.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Learn Chinese Mandarin, It's very widely spoken.

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

I second the "Yi bei pi jiu, xie xie ni. " or maybe we should ask for 2 right off the bat. smile

peace
Fe

RE: Learning Chinese to increase ones marketability

Probably a pitcher would be more like it.  Unless we want to try something a bit more challenging, like Gao Liang?

Did I ever mention that my Gung Fu instructor drank a pint of Gao Liang, or Mao Tai, EVERY day?  On his birthdays, there would be stacks of cases of the stuff given by his students.  Fathered a kid at 75, lived to 85; worked for him...

I don't think my liver would be up to that...

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources