Chinese to be the most spoken language in the years to come?

[reverserewind]

Well, there's a likelihood of that happening. However, I highly doubt that Chinese will become the universal language. Maybe it will be like this in Asia but learning Chinese feels like a nightmare to most Europeans, myself included.

[宇崎ちゃん]

Chinese is already the most spoken language by far.
It's not surprising with so many Chinese people worldwide.

It's nonetheless no universal language, since the language is mostly limited to ethnically Chinese people unlike English, which almost everyone at least tries to learn.

[Language-Student]

Perhaps it's just the complexity of the characters which makes learning Chinese appear very difficult to Westerners. The grammar, however, is very easy to pick up & often makes much more sense than the English Language arrangements. In fact, westerners are at an advantage over even younger Chinese-born students as far as grammar goes, or so I was taught! The pictorial-based characters make much more sense, when you think about it than many of the words in English, which more & more seems to me like a hotch-potch of borrowed words & expressions, often misspelt & mis-used from a history of conquered cultures. The problem with the Chinese characters now is that they don't really resemble anything like they used to, thanks to a series of actions over time by the central government. The "logic" of the ordering of the English grammar often makes little sense compared to the simplistic ordering of Chinese sentences. I feel that more should be done in the West to further the appreciation of the Chinese Language ahead of learning it. 

The event that will singularly hasten the uptake in learning the Chinese Language in the West is World War Three, which the Chinese & the Russians will win decisively & in short order. This won't be forced upon the West, but Westerners in masses will flock to tertiary institutions when the outcome of the war becomes apparent & the Chinese & Russian agenda of peaceful collaborative infrastructure building becomes widely supported ahead of a historically apparent Anglo-American agenda of constant war whilst killing their own people. What drives people to learning a particular language over another in droves is economic interest. Currently, more people learn English because it's in their economic interests to do so. In future, the tables will turn because the Money Power will support China way ahead of the English-speaking world and those who only know "English System" Euro-languages will be at a decided economic disadvantage over those who have even a basic understanding of Mandarin &/or Cantonese.  

[lingvo]

It is one of the more spoken language, but I don't see how chinese would be relevant in businesses, since chinese companies already employ english language to convey communication among the interested parts. Is not a bad idea to learn chinese though, you will be able to speak with  hundred of millions of asian people except with maybe those that lives in rural areas that use a completely different dialect. To learn chinese you must devote yourself in learning hanzi, after overcoming that barrier, everything will be, in theory, easier afterwards. 

[Baburra]

I agree with what most are saying here. If it is going to happen then maybe it will take a very long time because as of now English and American media just dominates the global consciousness so much that it's what everyone knows to speak. I think for Chinese to become the universal language the Chinese would have to be able to accomplish what Americans have been able to do but I don't think it's what they are aiming for anyway since they both have very different roles in the world. 

[VinayaSpeaks]

There is no single Chinese language. There are various versions of Chinese languages. If we group all these languages as Chinese language, probably Chinese will be the most spoken language. China is the home to more than 1.7 billion people, which means 1.7 billion people speak Chinese. Millions of Chinese have spread to many countries, making Chinese most spoken language in the world.

[宇崎ちゃん]

@VinayaSpeaks, when we usually say "the Chinese language", we're most likely referring to Mandarin.

[John Snort]

I think for Chinese to become the universal language the Chinese would have to be able to accomplish what Americans have been able to do.

English is spoken widely because of British colonization. The only way for Chinese to take English's place as the most spoken language in the world would be because China has a become an economic superpower . People who want to sell anything in China may need to learn Chinese.

[rz3300]

On 12/2/2015 at 8:16 AM, agentzero said:

I think it's possible for Chinese to overtake English (in fact, I'm pretty sure that based on people who speak it, Chinese already is the most spoken language), but I think it's unlikely that everyone will all of a sudden drop English and move onto Chinese. I think that for that to happen, English speaking countries need to be wiped out, or just economically destroyed with China remaining where they are now and I just don't see that happening. Even then it would take years and years and years for people to shift to Chinese. I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime.

Yeah, being the most spoken is different than being the language that is the default universal translator.  I am not sure if that is the right way to say it, but I think that you know what I mean here.  It is the language that everyone turns to to "meet in the middle" and communicate with others with the most.  They are different, but not completely unrelated, and with time who knows what will happen.  It is very interesting, though, and I am curious to see where it goes and where we are in a couple of years, or decades.

[reverserewind]

I highly doubt that it will be widely spoken in Europe and North America by non-native speakers. However, it may become like English for all the Asian countries.

[宇崎ちゃん]

@reverserewind

Only the east I think.
The north is Russia and the rest of Asia is more likely to use Arabic as their lingua franca instead (because of Islam).