My name is David Cameron

[zeitghost]

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is David Cameron, PM of PMs:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away
shining with that gentle Uranic Glow

Prompted by the Good News that the Chinese will be building nuclear power stations for us.

Remind me again how you kow tow.

[eek]

Prompted by the Good News that the Chinese will be building nuclear power stations for us.

Remind me again how you kow tow.

Not quite. The Chinese are building nuclear power stations for the French (firm, EDF) who are building them for us.

Whether that makes things better or worse, meh...

[darmstadt]

And Boris says that English schoolchildren should start to learn Chinese...Watch out India, the Brits are going to outsource to China now...

[d000hg]

And Boris says that English schoolchildren should start to learn Chinese

Well it makes far more sense than learning French, or even German. The only useful language children learn routinely is Spanish. Learning French just because it's the nearest country is daft, most of us don't go to France on holiday anymore because it's as cheap to go elsewhere via EasyJet.

Teaching kids a totally different language like Mandarin/Cantonese/Japanese would probably be really interesting from a developmental point of view too.

[Mich the Tester]

Not quite. The Chinese are building nuclear power stations for the French (firm, EDF) who are building them for us.

Whether that makes things better or worse, meh...

So what's the procedure when there's a bug? Call the helpdesk, manned by a few temps, who raise an issue with level 2 support, who then hire a translator following the purchasing procedure, who then sends the message to the French, who may or may not be on strike, on a day off, at home because it's past 5 o'clock or a weekend, who then hire an interpreter who only works on Tuesday mornings because she doesn't actually need to work more, and then she sends a message to China, and then it ends up in the support queue because some clever managerman thought he could save money by buying a ' bronze support package' instead of a ' gold support package'.

[Mich the Tester]

Well it makes far more sense than learning French, or even German. The only useful language children learn routinely is Spanish. Learning French just because it's the nearest country is daft, most of us don't go to France on holiday anymore because it's crap and the only distinction it has is that it's on the way to some nice places.

ftfy

[d000hg]

Don't be silly, France is a beautiful country with great food and great wine. If the French would move out it would be just about perfect.

[darmstadt]

Well it makes far more sense than learning French, or even German. The only useful language children learn routinely is Spanish. Learning French just because it's the nearest country is daft, most of us don't go to France on holiday anymore because it's as cheap to go elsewhere via EasyJet.

Teaching kids a totally different language like Mandarin/Cantonese/Japanese would probably be really interesting from a developmental point of view too.

And what Chinese would you learn? There are many dialects and people from one area cannot understand those from another. Basically he's just another politician speaking out of his arse, political soundbites. Much better would be to make them learn English...

Chinese (汉语/漢語 Hànyǔ or 中文 Zhōngwén) is a group of related language varieties, several of which are not mutually intelligible, and is variously described as a language or language family. Originally the indigenous speech of the Han majority in China, Chinese forms one of the branches of the Sino-Tibetan language family. About one-fifth of the world's population, or over one billion people, speaks some form of Chinese as their native language.

Varieties of Chinese are usually perceived by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, rather than separate languages, although this identification is considered inappropriate by some linguists and sinologists. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, although all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese (depending on classification scheme), of which the most spoken, by far, is Mandarin (about 960 million), followed by Wu (80 million), Yue (60 million) and Min (50 million). Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and the Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms and some degree of intelligibility.

Standard Chinese (Putonghua / Guoyu / Huayu) is a standardized form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese. It is the official language of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, also known as Taiwan), as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese (the prestige variety of Yue) is influential in Guangdong province and Cantonese-speaking overseas communities, and remains one of the official languages of Hong Kong (together with English) and of Macau (together with Portuguese). Min Nan, part of the Min group, is widely spoken in southern Fujian, in neighbouring Taiwan (where it is known as Taiwanese or Hoklo) and in Southeast Asia (also known as Hokkien in the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia). There are also sizeable Hakka and Shanghainese diasporas, for example in Taiwan, where most Hakka communities are also conversant in Taiwanese and Standard Chinese.

[d000hg]

Did you even read what you quoted? 960 MILLION people speak Mandarin. i.e. nearly everyone in China can speak Mandarin. That is more than double the population of the UK, USA and Australasia put together.

Probably enough to be going on with.

[Mich the Tester]

In other news, Chinese restaurant owners rush to get new menus printed as kids are heard saying 'Daddy shall I tell you what that symbol really means?'