FWIW, Mandarin is not the universal spoken language of China. It's just the lingua franca of China as the region. They actually have something like a dozen major groups of dialects with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility.
replyThe place read as Shang-hai in Mandarin is apparently read Zan-he in the local "dialect" spoken there. I think one could say Koln and Cologne sound closer together.
Did anyone say that Mandarin is the "universal spoken language" of China? IIRC, >90% of Chinese people speak Mandarin as either a 1st or 2nd language.
replyI don't think as many did 20 years ago, but China is consciously Mandarinizing, and English has lost its spot as the standard second language with the vastly increasing hostility from the West.
Yup, there is a lot of value in having universal language and English is the only one with a chance (in Western world anyway).
Imo EU should mandate English as 2nd official language for all business dealings and bureaucracy. Having many languages and obligatory translations is a huge disadvantage we have in comparison to USA (or China).
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