I would say in the context of the previous posts.

-Communicate effectively =

adequate listen comprehension skills & basic spoken language skill in the shared language, being used.
....

But if you want to bring it to an even wider scale there are communication models that also add non verbal communication, noise, channels, etc.

In a class some time back I used the communication model with some Chinese students using just their local dialects in the noise section. The students had a great time.

Effective communication doesn't need a language mastery level to work.

@culture I don't know if you are aware that 10 languages die every year in the world, that makes 200 languages in 20 years (were you alive 20 years ago?)

in few years time even languages that nowadays are considered to be strong are going to dissapeare.

I fight my live to keep alive the oldest language in Europe, and believe it is not an easy job.

I consider myself a militant of this language... only to see your words... how selfish all your speech is printed with... You come to a land, and you should take what is it given. If you are lucky, accept and give thanks for being talked in puntonhua, and if not... you may be asking them to talk to you in english as it is the International language.

I am so sorry but this topic hurts me a lot.

And yeah... i don't know if you know but not so long ago, in all the regions of France they had they own languages.

They can speak perfect french but they have no CLUE about minority languages... not even how to say hello in the languages spoken in the state of FRANCE.

No idea about the history in what they call their land... i guess it is only lack of knowledge.

Please @culture, stop being so self centered.

Just want to point out that yesterday when i was in the plain to get to china, a chinese couple was talking in english to their kid. I couldnt believe my eyes when i could hear the couple talking in chinese between them and english to their kid.

I guess @culture that you will not have problems communicating with this kid.

Sometimes i wish i never really learned English.

There is not much danger of putonhua dying out. other chinese languages yes, but mandarin. Noooooooooo chance baby.

lol puntonhua is not gonna die easily XD I was not saying that.

I agree putonghua isn't going to die. But 400 million, 30%, Chinese can't speak it either.

www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2013-09/06/content_16948200.htm

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-23975037

Most interestingly, in 2007, 53% of Chinese were not literate in putonghua. This is an impressive increase.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6426005.stm

For us students of Chinese. I like this article

How to Learn Chinese in 2,200 Not-So-Easy Lessons

www.washingtonpost.com/[...]

@ inthelivinfor
The decay of languages is not symmetric, You can't just use the 10 language and multiply them by years, if you do so, it would mean that in 680 to 700 years we will only speak and recognize just one langauge, since there are 6800 (give or take) languages used.

It's a statistic, (and I'm not even sure if it's an accurate one, or if it takes the development of new dialects and languages under consideration), and as with all statistics we shouldn't take them for granted.

I remember that in Middle school (in the mid 80's) I was told that in Brazil every 3 month rainforest, the size of Holland is burned. It would mean that there wouldn't be anymore rainforest, by today, -if the statistic was right.

Not just in France, but every country has a whole variety of languages and dialects. In the country I call home, I can understand and speak a dialect that no one understands 200miles away and vice versa.

In my opinion the reason why so many people in China are illiterate or close to it, has to do that the written language has very little gravity in China. Contracts and other documents have very litte weight generally, vs. the spoken word.

For example you can write an official document, and nobody would give a damn if you don't put some real value by using your guanxi (spoken agreement). And so was it done in Chinese history, only selected groups where apt in writing hanzi.
Plus poor education and long hauls to school in some rural areas do the rest.

Plus I think to demand at least a certain amount of international communication skill from a country that tries so hard to be internationally recognized in education, tourism and international trade, is not too much to ask.

Dudeson, the written language is difficult, but I really don't think the reason for the unreliability of contracts & other documents is the nature of the language. I do, however, think it has to do with the fact of widespread illiteracy in the past and the sophisticated, albeit self-serving, use which those who dominated society through a preachy-moralistic bureaucracy for thousands of years made of it - to the point where written documents became impossible aids to practical life, did not represent real events or conditions, and so were formally respected and then ignored, by people who had real lives to live and had developed the practical sense of how to do it. The preachy-moralism has survived and been incorporated into modern bureaucratic rule, as has the the commonsense that allows people to say yes sir yes sir three bags full and then go do what will allow them to get by as individuals or interest groups divorced from written hypocrisy. And of course this survival strategy produces, and/or reinforces, a hypocrisy of its own. So the contract becomes, like: "Well this is what we will say so that everybody can look good but of course we're not fools who would believe that pretend statements will protect us or advance our interests."

In short, if real honest communication is impossible, then what is really going on has to be intuited, guessed at, approximated, gambled on, etc., so that the great gift of human language becomes just another tool or weapon and can be self-serving but not the medium of cooperation. Cf. the entire advertising industry, PR, and political discourse everywhere within the globally-competitive self destruction that we engage in, where the greatest ability to manipulate lies not in what is said (such as by lying), but in the bottom-level dishonesty of attempting, by whatever means, to get other people to believe something that the speaker does not believe himself.
There is a certain equality, however, in the mutual understanding that what is formally written is bullshit - but after that mutual understanding is established, what are we left with? I suggest that it is words-as-weapons.
Hmmm - perhaps I've gotten off the subject.