Reply #9: Don't bet on it... [View All]

[AsahinaKimi]

China will never switch over to a "latinate" alphabet. People who do learn Mandarin may start out
using "pinyin" but eventually move to hanzi, just as in people who learn Japanese start with Romaji and switch over, first to Hiragana, Katakana and then later Kanji.

Believe me if they do play "World Overloard" people will be writing in the language whose country is dominate. Then again, with electronic translators becoming more and more accurate, people may have to use them or have someone who speaks the language fluently. (I have a friend, who speaks five languages fluently. She speaks; Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese and English. I still struggle with my second language from time to time, but I am getting better.)

Translators are not quite there yet. Its simple to see how far off they are. One can go to a bablefish translator, type in a sentence in English, then translate it to Spanish, then to French, then German, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and then back to English, and you will get something that has no meaning whatsoever.