|
An American friend, who has ever taught in Taipei for 5 years, told me when he backed to his hometown, a western city in USA, people always admire his familiarity with Chinese language, saying " Wow, you could speak Chinese." From the words, I can figure out how the speaker looks.
In my opinion, it shows such facts : one is that Chinese language is not so popular as people know it, another is that mandarin Chinese language is really difficult for alphabetic writing communities.
With the fast growth of China`s economy in the world these years, China is changing the world with a greater say in international affairs and its influence.. As we know, China has better manifested its significant power over the happening economic crisis and is thus steering itself and the whole world out of the mire. The very year of 2009 witnesses an array of great events happened to the Oriental Giant Dragon, which attracted the eyes of the world. With his own way, he is stepping on the road of his rejuvenation and brilliance.
study chinese
Accordingly, the economic development inevitably requires cultures to play as great a role as itself among which nothing can receive more attention than the language. Indeed, the Chinese language will be the window through which people outside China are able to learn more about and approach China itself.
Yet, the Chinese language is not so widely spread besides in China. Compared with English, it greatly lags behind. According to the statistics, till now, outside China only about 40 million of people are studying the Chinese language, while, in China there are around 400 million of Chinese people English language. study chinese is easy.
Although it is from time to time reported that a growing number of non-Chinese speaking powers had Confucius Institutes built and Chinese courses opened in schools, colleges and universities, it is not enough. Sinologists, I think, should undertake greater responsibility to cultivate more simplified Chinese learning courses and methods well suited to people from different language systems. Meanwhile we must reinforce the training of Chinese teachers, especially the foreign Chinese teachers.
On the other hand, China`s educational institutes should put more emphasis on his mother tongue education. Once some people argued that English language would be the substitute of Chinese language in China some day. Undoubtedly it is ridiculous .But they can find their grounds : Imagine you are in a campus, university students are cramming for English examination but don`t know what they are driving for at all; whereas they are always making mistakes in the spelling of some basic Chinese characters and always writing illogical and ungrammatical Chinese paragraphs.
What`s the hell wrong, English or Chinese? Perhaps neither, but something is.
|
|
