Comments on: My struggle with Chinese

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By: Gerald Giam

Gerald Giam — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:21:50 +0000

Dr Huang – I’m inspired by your achievement! I must get one of them Besta digital dictionaries. Yes I agree that politicians and missionaries must learn the language of the people. If I could I would learn Malay too (actually I tried, but didn’t work out too well either).

Chih-Yang – I agree that it’s possible to learn >1 language well. It just requires the right environment and encouragement.

By: Lim Chih-Yang

Lim Chih-Yang — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:25:10 +0000

Hi Gerald,

As an anecdotal story, I was at a clinic this morning to see my doctor for the knee injury (yes the same injury). A man was at my side commenting on The Sunday Times front page news about using english as a aid to teach chinese. Well, that man’s reaction was typical of the masses, he snorted and said, isn’t that diluting the chinese language and making it less chinese.

I disagree with MM Lee saying that a person can only master one language well and not two. He has always placed a limit on what the human mind can achieve based on what one is born with. He was wrong then on chinese, is he right now on it? I doubt so.

Regards
Chih-Yang

By: Dr Huang

Dr Huang — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:55:26 +0000

Hi Gerald,
As you know I was also from ACS.
Only after I started working did I know how important Chinese was.
My patients from Indonesia/Malaysia/China/Taiwan/Mandarin-speaking S’poreans connect better to Chinese speaking doctors.
Some even tell me, the other Dr X is good but cannot speak Chinese and hence cannot communicate well ( and that’s why they come see me for future specialist care)!
I learnt Mandarin from other Chinese speaking doctors and even Besta digital dictionaries ( I don’t own Besta shares) until I was able to be interviewed in Chinese on Primetime Mandarin program and able to give public talks in Chinese!
Granted it is not as smooth as I want it to be but at least correct meanings and terms are conveyed!
For politicians like yourself, Chinese is indispensble and unavoidable if you want to make impacts!

By: Gerald Giam

Gerald Giam — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:21:55 +0000

I agree. But I can just hear the howls of protest from the purists who don’t want to see any dilution of their language, even if it is for pragmatic reasons.

By: Akikonomu

Akikonomu — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:04:47 +0000

The interesting thing is that the Chinese don’t expect the rest of the world to lose a few generations of young minds on the very troublesome and difficult task of Mandarin literacy.

I find it a very significant concession and tacit admission, that the Chinese prefer to learn English. Presumably the Chinese find picking up English to a reasonable level of literacy takes a far shorter time than the rest of the world (or even the Chinese themselves) picking up Mandarin.

Personally, I’d like to see the Chinese language complete the reformation that began with pinyin and simplified characters. Lu Xun and even Chairman Mao and Premier Chou realised that the reforms they made was just a halfway house to a fully-realised new Chinese writing system.

The Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese and even Mongols (in other words, all the former satellites of the ancient Chinese cultural/hegemonic system) have abandoned Chinese characters for easier systems that don’t require decades of painful rote learning to work towards functional literacy.

I predict the soft power of China and the globalisation of Mandarin learning will only come about after a second reform of its writing system.

By: Gerald Giam

Gerald Giam — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:22:24 +0000

hnming – Thanks for sharing. I agree that soft power is much more powerful than hard power in winning hearts and minds. But I would hesitate to actively import PRC (excl Taiwan and HK) culture the way we’ve imported American pop culture. We’ve already seen the negative effects of American pop culture in not just Singapore but America itself. We should not make the same mistake. That said, it is not for the govt to decide what culture gets let in and what doesn’t. We Singaporeans must be proud enough about our local culture, and determined enough to strengthen it.

While I think it is critically important that Singaporeans (including non-Chinese) learn to communicate in languages other than English, we should not assume that the US and Europe are going to disappear tomorrow, and China is going to be the next superpower. In all likelihood, we will never see China taking over the West in our lifetime. Hence, English should still be the primary language for us. In fact, many PRC Chinese are working hard at learning English, to the point where some analysts have speculated that China will one day be the largest English speaking country in the world.