^Spanish and English tend to converge at the highest levels of writing/speech. That's why you need two years of college Spanish (max) and a semi-sober semester abroad reading Garcia Lorca and you're all set.
Languages that are totally unrelated to English (like Chinese or Arabic) never converge. That's why they take more time to learn.
One change between McF's generation and the present one is that his generation had no in-country access (or statistical data) so they got really good at reading, but never got decent accents. By contrast, the current crop usually lived in China for a few years and had good basic language training, so they are more fluent speaking, but probably would take a lot longer to get through a 1960s-era Chinese govt document than Rod would.
^Very true. I'm often mistaken for a Chinese person on the phone (I'm not Asian), but I can't read technical documents for ****. My adviser (Rod's generation) is exactly the opposite. His/her listening is also probably better than mine, even though he/she sounds like a four-year-old when speaking.
楼主问哈佛是不是要新招做中政的，唯一有点价值的回答是关于shih和tsai的。这楼之后就歪大了。炫耀中文比西班牙文难学神马的。
For those who posted off topic crap about learning Chinese, read the stuff above and see if you understand a thing.
^ If you were really a China specialist you'd know Shih and Tsai's Chinese surnames. But apparently you are also new to PSJR if you are surprised that a topic contained no useful insider gossip and went off track to more general issues about which people are happier to pontificate. Actually, by PSJR standards this wasn't far off-track--there was a discussion of how China specialists are evaluated and the reasons for this.
^Why should we know their surnames? Because their work is cited in the Chinese-language literature all of the time? It's not, for the most part. I've only seen Tsai's book cited a few times in the dozens of Chinese articles I've read on closely related topics. (Not as sure about Shih [pun intended].) American China scholars should know that Chinese political scientists think we're dilettantes at best.
That Chinese is easy. I had a professor who passed me this joke about Wang Lijun written in classical style:
丁亥年岁尾，平西王就封，召来俊臣掌刑部。臣至，兴大狱，杀旧吏，剿豪强，禁丝竹，恃学广而闻多，事王侯，人皆以为华，多褒贬，谤平西王。王忌其骄而祸己，欲弃之。臣怒，壬辰年初，臣夜遁，入蜀，投西番之门而不入。事泄，上震怒。急召校尉无数，循车辙围而擒之，天下震动，仕人围而哂之。
I had to look up a few words, but...
这是拉肚子
^^ i thought the joke was about Bo Xilai...
Where is the ad?