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<blockquote data-quote="Banshee16" data-source="post: 3023217" data-attributes="member: 7883">Hey, I'm not predicting it will happen quickly.&nbsp; I think it will happen though.&nbsp; Look at some other analogies.&nbsp; We've gone (in Canada at least) from an economy in which someone could go into a job right out of High School and progress up the chain through on-the-job training etc., back in the 50's, to a highly specialized economy requiring advanced post-secondary education for even some entry positions.....and in many cases, a bachelor's is no longer enough, and you in fact need Masters and PhD's.&nbsp; That's a significant change in a span of less time than the average person lives.I don't think anyone's going to come to your door and say &quot;learn Chinese now&quot;....but I do think we're seeing the beginning of the process, when excellent positions and opportunities are becoming available to those people who can communicate in that language.&nbsp; Imagine it starts becoming more and more a skill the employers want out of their employees, and more and more people start taking lessons in Chinese, until eventually, though it's not &quot;required&quot;, it's something a major portion of the population is doing.I'm thinking &quot;long-term&quot;, like 2064....not 2008.It's unlikely I'd be around to see it, though my grandchildren might look back and wonder how we ever got along without knowing how to speak Chinese, just as I'm sure 15-20 year olds wonder how those older than them got along without the Internet <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Banshee</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Banshee16, post: 3023217, member: 7883"] Hey, I'm not predicting it will happen quickly. I think it will happen though. Look at some other analogies. We've gone (in Canada at least) from an economy in which someone could go into a job right out of High School and progress up the chain through on-the-job training etc., back in the 50's, to a highly specialized economy requiring advanced post-secondary education for even some entry positions.....and in many cases, a bachelor's is no longer enough, and you in fact need Masters and PhD's. That's a significant change in a span of less time than the average person lives. I don't think anyone's going to come to your door and say "learn Chinese now"....but I do think we're seeing the beginning of the process, when excellent positions and opportunities are becoming available to those people who can communicate in that language. Imagine it starts becoming more and more a skill the employers want out of their employees, and more and more people start taking lessons in Chinese, until eventually, though it's not "required", it's something a major portion of the population is doing. I'm thinking "long-term", like 2064....not 2008. It's unlikely I'd be around to see it, though my grandchildren might look back and wonder how we ever got along without knowing how to speak Chinese, just as I'm sure 15-20 year olds wonder how those older than them got along without the Internet :) Banshee [/QUOTE]

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