On and off, I've toyed with the notion of learning to read Chinese. Not to speak, understand or even write it--those might come later. I'm just thinking of learning to read.

Why? China is well on its way to becoming an economic powerhouse and the manufacturing center of the world. They do an increasing amount of electronic design, and (I've read) they increasingly rely on their own standards. There have already been occasions where it would have been convenient if I had been able to read Chinese data sheets instead of searching for English translations. I fear there may come a day when English translations are not available.

I've already bought a few books and flash cards. And for a while I carried the cards with me when I walked to try to memorize the English word or phrase that had been assigned to each character. And I briefly looked at the books to try to grasp the grammar.

Though I must confess, I haven't really given it a serious effort. It seems like an awful lot of memorization, though slightly less daunting than I originally imagined.

What do you think? Should we all learn to read Chinese?