`  ==number of 2nd language speakres??==  roughly how many people speak standard chinese as a 2nd language? I want to exclude those for whom it's their native language.   ==Chinese language grammer section too dry / Chinese language slated for extinction IMO== I had my example of ``aspect rather than tense`` for Chinese grammer removed by User talk:LDHan. I used the example of how ``boiled water`` is equivalent to ``boiling water`` since there is no tense in Chinese.  But instead of this concrete example, the grammer section is as follows:  ``Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction, pronoun dropping (and the related subject dropping), and the use of aspect rather than tense.``  Too dry.  On top of that, my observation that Chinese, when translated into English, seems verbatim was also removed.  I guess this is another example of the well-known tendency to save face when faced with embarrassing facts—a sure sign of weakness and an inferiority complex.  A language without tense is like a civilization without the wheel.  The Incas come to mind, and we see where that led them (extinction).  In another 100 years, with globalization, Chinese may well enter the panoply of extinct languages IMO.    :Can you give an example in Chinese of what you mean when you say that ``saying 'boiled water' is equivalent to saying 'boiling water' or 'water to be boiled'``?—   :If Chinese is to become extinct, it would have done so 2,000 years ago. Nice try, nevertheless.  '''''' `