English is language of trade and industry

WITH regard to letter-writer Romanius Zulu and his assertion that children should learn Mandarin, here’s a hypothetical scenario for you:

Having educated your child in Mandarin, and I mine in English, they are sent out into the world to engage in business and trade.

In the Americas, North and South, English would get the job done, not Mandarin.

In Europe, the British isles, you would get by with English, not Mandarin.

Ditto Australia and New Zealand and (shudder!) China itself, you could engage in trade in English.

The English-speaking child thrives, the Mandarin speaker not so much, and ends up settling in China and getting a respiratory disease on account of the air pollution there!

With regards to the figures you quote as to whom and how many speak what, it does not matter – English remains the language of trade and industry for whatever historical reason or reasons. That’s just the way it is. G RAILTON Doonside