Chinese is the New World’s Language

Now could be a good time to learn Chinese in preparation for the on-going shift of the world’s language.

Photo from Philip Jägenstedt’s flickr

The ability to speak, read and understand English is vital to communicate to a diversified range of people. It is the language of the world’s scientific academe and political reference. It is even predicted during the 19^th century that English will be the world’s language.

But English is declining. Chinese is rising. And the world’s tongue is adjusting.

Chinese is now the most widely spoken language in the world. This is mainly due to the multitude of Chinese population. In China alone, there are more than 1.3 billion Chinese and those who are scattered around the world speak their own language as well.

In the business world, Chinese is sitting comfortably along English as the most useful language. Transacting business matters using a common language is essential for rapport building but also for the “speed and effectiveness of your negotiations”, says Leigh Hafrey, a senior lecturer in communications and ethics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

The Chinese people better use their voice because it takes years to fully master the language. Learners should find the best memorization technique that works since Zhongwen Da Cidian (Great Dictionary of the Chinese Language) lists 50,000 Chinese characters, whereas English only has 26 alphabets. Being a tonal language, different tones of the same word have different meanings. And there are variations in form of dialects – Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Min, and more.  Each has internal diversity.

Despite the barrier of difficulty, westerners demand to learn it. Michael Roemer, an attorney who lives in California, brought his family to live in China. His purpose was to teach his two children the Chinese language because according to his own words, “speaking Mandarin is important”.

While Europe and USA remain the key players in the world’s economy, they recognize the gaining power of Asia, especially of the Chinese economy. Companies worldwide manufacture in China. The Chinese people are the biggest consumers of goods. Learning the world’s newest language would maintain the west’s competitiveness.

Language is power. Those who don’t speak it will be secluded. But China seemed to pass on this opportunity. It showed no interest to influence the world to make their language native. China casted English classes throughout the colossal country so the population could speak English when they hosted the 2008 Olympics.

Even without the slightest of effort from China, Chinese is still emerging. Right now, 9% of the population spoke English at birth. By 2050, it’ll be down to 5%. This gives room of expansion for the next major language.

Are you ready to learn the Chinese language?

Sources:
English in Decline as a First Language, Study Says; National Geographic
Mandarin Chinese Most Useful Business Language After English; Bloomberg
Can Chinese Replace English as the Global Language?; Chilli breeze
Chinese learn English for Olympics; Chine Daily
Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard; pinyin.info

The Psychology of 9.99, 10 and 1200

People think an item is way cheaper when priced at $9.99 rather than $10.

Photo from Photoxpress

Price tags ending with .99 rule the stores. They are prevalent wherever you shift your view. Ever wonder why retailers do that? And you can expect certain category of products and services with price ending in 0, like $10 or $400. Even the emission of the comma in 1200 is a result of pricing studies.

9.99s

9 has a pricing power. Any item that ends with .99 speaks out “great value”, “sale” and “discount”. Buyers think that it’s the lowest price it could ever have.

People round $9.99 as $9 instead of $10. Researchers call this the left-digit effect. Everybody that has a brain is susceptible to think that way because that’s just how human minds work. And we are more led to round prices on the left digit because we see .99 innumerable times.

William Poundstone on his book Priceless analyzed eight different studies on .99 prices and found that sales increase by 24% on .99 prices compared to the 10s. Kenneth J. Wisniewski from the University of Chicago conducted another study at a local grocery chain:  sales of margarine increased by 65% when price was dropped from 89 cents to 71 cents; but it increased by 222% when dropped to 69 cents!

People buy more when the price ends with 9. That’s why we see a lot of .99s.

10s

A tipped polo from Neiman Marcus is priced at $150, while a Dolce & Gabbana leopard print bag is priced at 3,425.00. Both prices are ending with 0, and both products are high end. An item whose price ends with 0 communicates premium quality.

People get satisfaction on owning an expensive product. People are convinced that prices ending with 0s are upscaled; and prestige brands love it that way. Companies wanted to keep the reputation on their products so not all can buy it and those who can buy it will love buying it.

1200s

How they write it affects how you buy it. The longer the price appears, the more expensive we perceive. This is the reason why restaurants minimize the price on their menu with 29 rather than $29.99.

Commas and cents make the price longer; hence, increasing the magnitude of the price (at least according to our brain). 1200 seemed to appear cheaper than 1,200.00. There are less words in “twelve hundred” than in “one thousand two hundred”, so we think of 1200 as less.

Did .99s lured you?

Sources:
The Psychology Behind The Sweet Spots Of Pricing; Fast Company
Pricing Psychology: 7 Sneaky Retail Tricks; CBSNews
5 Psychological Studies on Pricing That You Absolutely MUST Read; Kiss Metrics
Party Like It’s 19.99: The Psychology of Pricing; Wise Bread
An Easy Way to Make Your Prices Seem Lower; Neuromarketing

10% Brain Usage: is it True?

Humans only use 10% of their brain, so they say.

Photo from David Goehring’s flickr

The 10% brain usage is definitely a myth for the scientific community. Every region of the brain is performing, whether it is from the back’s occipital lobe that controls our vision or the frontal lobe that’s responsible for our cognitive functioning. Every region of the brain is almost working constantly to accommodate our activities; even those that we don’t have to think of doing, like breathing, are under the brain’s supervision.

100% of our brain is working hard; that’s why it demands so much energy to operate. Our brain “represents three percent of the body’s weight and uses 20 percent of the body’s energy”, said Johns Hopkins’ neurologist Barry Gordon.

Where the myth came from?

It may have started from William James’ words in The Energies of Men (1908), “we are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources”. Later on, Karl Lashley studied the brains of rats where he removed portions of cerebral cortex and the rats can perform specific tasks like nothing happened. So people would be thinking, we won’t need most of it.

The more interesting claim is human’s potential psychic abilities. It is indulging to believe that there’s even more we could do, perhaps have a super memory or heroic capabilities.

The more appropriate claim is we only know 10% of our brain. That 10% are neurons, and the rest of the brain is supporting glial cells. There is still a broad spread of exploration to know what glial cells are for.

But the science community is not backing off to know more. In a way, you could buy Einstein’s brain via an iPad app. $9.99 gives anyone access to images of the genius’ brain cut into 350 slides, hoping to spark another knowledge to his brain apart from knowing that his parietal lobe (processing of mathematics, language, and spatial understanding) is wider than normal.

Is this too much to take from the man who already contributed so much to our comprehension? The man who wished for his body to be cremated?

As long as the person is dead, it seems, his voice will not matter. Jacopo Annese of the University of California “predicts that there will be another Einstein, and when that individual dies, we’ll be prepared (we’re hanging on for that 3D-mapped interactive specimen)” (Wired UK).

Do you believe that nothing should hamper the search for knowledge?

Sources:
Do People Only Use 10 Percent Of Their Brains?; Scientific American
Do We Use Only 10% of Our Brains?; Washington.edu
Einstein’s Brain Goes Digital With iPad App; Wired UK

Digital Education

Can digital education replace the traditional campus?

Photo from photoXpress

Have you received a call, email or seen an ad of a school promoting their online programs? About four universities reached me and informed me about their MBA program that fits my schedule. Education has now boarded on the web.

Let’s say, you can get free courses in Harvard; which you could (Harvard Open Courses) but what about the traditional campus studentship? Is it okay for these professors to record one lecture and just play it to students? You may say that it’s good because now they can focus more on research.  However, the internet is a lonely place.

I earned my undergraduate degree on campus. Benefits of college on campus are social and academic. Digital education took away the social part, where students don’t get the pressure of the presence of co-students. In campus, they get face-to-face experiences with people and situations that are relevant in life after school, isn’t it?

Online college saves time and can coalesce with your present life. Work in the morning, class before sleep. You can save money too. Apart from the fraction of tuition fee, all you need is an internet connection. No gas nor commute allowance. No canteen food. No need for looking good means less gel expenses for guys and makeup budget for girls.

Are your pro-digital or pro-campus?

Weight-Loss And Science: What You Should Know That Helps

Diet? Exercise? Recent scientific findings reveal more ways to drop the pounds.

Photo from photoXpress

We know the convention – diet and exercise will keep slashing your unwanted pounds. And now, we appreciate science more for they gave us findings that made it easier to be slimmer. Read these 5 recent scientific findings that combats the clingy fats in our body. Science is on our side, so we better win the weight-loss battle.

Writing loses weight.

It doesn’t take much calories to write, but actualizing our thoughts would help. A new psychological study led by Dr. Logel in University of Waterloo found that writing down the things we value most will lead to weight loss. In their study, those who wrote their most valued principles in religion, politics, or even their beloved choice of music, lost an average of 3.41 lbs; while those who wrote the values of other people, not their values, gained 2.76 lbs in average.

A pill replaces exercise.

A new drug has the same benefits of exercising – just minus the sweat and time. How does it work? The pill simply contains Irisin, a hormone triggered by exercising that promotes calorie burning and controls glucose level. Though I personally think this promotes unnecessary human laziness, it is mainly intended to people with obesity, diabetes and other diseases deemed them to be “weak patients”. Doctors from Harvard Medical School argues that it should not replace regular exercise. Real work out is good not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.

Garlic is a super food.

Hundreds of scientific publications are confirming that garlic has several medicinal benefits. More attractive to the weight-conscious, it reduces cholesterol by the action of its allicin component. To grasp the most benefits from it, slice or crush the garlic to stimulate an enzymatic process that makes it in its more active form. The outcome yields cardiovascular benefits, robust antibacterial properties and cancer prevention. However, you would like to leave it around 15 mins for the active compounds to form.

Eat fats during breakfast.

Science tells us to eat moderate amount of fats during breakfast. Timing is crucial – eat fat before sleep then you gain weight. But eating fat at the time of waking programs your body’s metabolism. As Dr. Young raises, having a fat-rich breakfast opens your metabolism to be efficient to fat burning for the rest of the day. So I won’t skip breakfast anymore.

Eat slowly.

It takes about 20 minutes before the brain receives satiety signal from your stomach. It means that only after 20 minutes your brain will decide that you are full and you should stop eating. So, the trick is you eat slowly and after 20 minutes, you’ll be full and you’ll stop eating. Eating fast, on the other hand, leads to overeating as our brain won’t receive any “you-are-full-stop-eating-already” signal.

What other weight-loss technique works for you?

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Sources:
Your Secret Weight-Loss Weapon; Men’s Health
New pill that ‘helps you to stay fit without exercise’; The Telegraph
Does Garlic Reduce Cholesterol?; Livestrong
Benefits of Chopped Garlic; Livestrong
Eating Fast May Make You Fat; LiveScience
Bacon or Bagels? Higher Fat at Breakfast May Be Healthier Than You Think; ScienceDaily