
Ask HN: Any professional value in learning Chinese? - alistproducer2
I&#x27;m at a point in my career where all the easy stuff is behind me. I&#x27;ve flirted with learning ML, OS dev, and crypto. I haven&#x27;t decided to take the plunge with any of those subjects because I know attaining expert-level ability is a multi-year commitment.<p>I&#x27;m wondering if that time may be better spent learning a second language like Chinese? Anyone have any thoughts on this?
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SixSigma
I have passed the 101 Mandarin course. Learning a linguistic language rather
than a technical one is an interesting challenge.

Professionally I think it has had a slight effect as a thing on my resume but
I work in international logistics - I don't use it directly for my job but it
shows something I guess.

It makes waiters in Chinese restaurants smile when you say thanks.

Have you watched any videos?

[http://self-study-mandarin.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/learn-mand...](http://self-
study-mandarin.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/learn-mandarin-from-youtube.html)

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auganov
I learned Mandarin. I don't regret it but not sure if I'd do it again. I've
been tempted by the notion that it being the world's most spoken language
makes it somehow useful. There's little interesting Chinese content online
(unless of course you're interested in something inherently Chinese which is
true of every country). You won't want to read tech stuff in Chinese. You
won't want to read news in Chinese. You won't wanna use a Chinese search
engine. Heck, even if you live in China, the people you'll want to talk to
you'll want to talk to in English.

It's always cool to know a language especially if it's distant from the ones
you already know. Sure I'll occasionally watch something in Chinese on
youtube, someone might ask me to look at documentation for some machinery
that's only in Chinese etc. But truth be told it's just a nuisance.

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ChuckMcM
Depends on what you want to do, but learning another spoken language is always
helpful. Chinese is good for tech since a lot of companies work with Chinese
manufacturers and there is more documentation available in Chinese.

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shiny
I'm a dev as well, and thus 'left brain' dominant, so I sometimes fantasize
about buying a ticket to some foreign country and focusing on 'right brain'
things like learning a language, writing, traveling, making videos, etc.

I've actually started to learn to Chinese in the past (through Pimsleur) and
travelled to Taiwan where I could put it into practice. It was great fun, I
miss it a lot, but ultimately I decided it's not as great an investment as
learning programming stuff.

I think if you are going to learn a new language, it really helps to live in a
country where you will need to use it. Do you have much desire to travel to
and/or live in Taiwan or China? Also, the best language learning hack is to
find a partner that's fluent in the language you are attempting to learn, and
ideally doesn't speak your language so well, so you are constantly forced to
converse in the other language. Not sure of your relationship status, but it's
another thing to take into account.

I'm glad I started to learn another language. Even today, years after I've
stopped actively learning Chinese, I still lookup Chinese phrases and can pick
up small things when I hear people speaking it. Hell, not too long ago a
waitress at a Chinese restaurant asked me 不要饭吗 (don't want rice?). I felt
quite proud that I could answer back 要 (want).

One major drawback of learning Chinese is the massive number of characters
(both simplified and traditional) you'd have to learn to read it, though if
you are just speaking it that issue will be alleviated, but it always helps to
know the characters.

That's another aspect of spoken languages - they are far more memorization
heavy. As programmers, we need to focus more on learning concepts and
principles, then quickly looking up specifics when needed.

When speaking a language you don't have time to look up words or phrases, so
you're heavily reliant on memory, and in general there's just a lot of stuff
to memorize.

Bit scattered and rambly, but hopefully this all helps in your decision.

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boyter
Professionally? No. I studied Mandarin for ~2 years although not very
seriously. I ended up with supermarket level of speaking (although I
understand a lot more). It has never been useful professionally even when I
worked in China. I cannot see it being useful unless you plan on working in
China for a long period of time and even then your greatest value is that you
speak English natively.

That said learning a language is always a worthwhile thing to do in which case
you might want to pick something more directly applicable to your situation or
one that you would like to learn.

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jfaucett
There's two massive (i.e. large GDP und PPP) largely homogeneous markets in
the world: the USA and China. If you want to hit the Chinese market with your
products knowing Mandarin and the culture is essential, just as knowing US
culture and English is essential for bringing products into the US Market. All
projections have the Chinese market greatly surpassing the US over the next 30
years and cementing its role as the primary consumer market in the world.

So having said this Mandarin is extremely difficult and its only going to be
useful if you plan on actively using the language - to build products, to get
clients, to hit chinese markets, or to enjoy the culture -
literature,films,music, etc.

To this point, the films, music, and cultural wealth of China is already quite
rich and only getting better by the day as more and more money poors into
Chinese households and the standards of living increase. I certainly expect
China to eventually take a center stage in media production just like
Hollywood of the US, actually surpassing Hollywood. You can already see this
happening as China is poised to overtake the North American film market this
year. ([http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-china-a-
fad-...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-china-a-fad-
future-887134))

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SimplyQA
If you are planning on working in Asian countries, which if you follow
international geo-politics, it will be more likely that you will, then yes.

There's a LOT of professional value in learning Chinese and any other widely
spoken language besides just English.

