【英语语言学习】汉语会替代英语成为全球通用的语言吗

Facebook founder¹ Mark Zuckerberg recently surprised Chinese students when he spoke² to them in Chinese. In a talk at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Zuckerberg spoke Chinese for about 30 minutes. Although his Mandarin³ was far from perfect, students and faculty⁴ cheered his effort.

Clayton Dube is the head of the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California. He praises Zuckerberg’s effort and thinks more American CEOs should learn foreign languages.

“To speak Chinese means you begin to think as Chinese people do. You begin to understand how Chinese speakers have the world organized, how they perceive things. And that is a vital step if you’re going to be culturally competent.”

Zuckerberg’s talk raises a larger question: is Chinese the language of the future? Could it replace English as the world’s international language? Mandarin Chinese already has the most native speakers of any language. And, China may soon pass the United States as the world’s largest economy.

The study of the Chinese language is increasing in the United States and around the world. In 2009, about 60,000 American college students were studying Chinese. That is three times as many as in 1990.

A small but growing number of American parents are even sending their children to bilingual Chinese immersion⁵ schools. Leianne Clements has no cultural connection to China, but her children are learning Chinese at the Yu Ying Public Charter School in Washington D.C. Every other day, classes at this school are 100 percent in Chinese. Ms. Clements thinks knowing Chinese could give her children a competitive advantage.

“So far, English has kind of been the universal language, but more and more, with Chinese businesses and just the amount of industry that they have there it seems that that would be, you know, logical thing that could be happening or it seems like it would make you a valuable employee if you also spoke Chinese.”

Clayton Dube thinks Chinese will grow in importance, especially for people who want to work and do business in China. But he does not think Chinese will overtake English any time soon.

“As China rises you can anticipate that more people will adopt the language. But is China going to replace English? I don’t think so--certainly not in my lifetime, probably not in the next two, three, four generations.”

English rose to prominence⁶ through the British Empire in the nineteenth century. American dominance in the twentieth century spread the language even further. Dube says American pop culture is one reason for English’s popularity as a foreign language.

American elementary school student practicing Chinese

American elementary school student practicing Chinese

“American movies, music, television, video games have wide audiences…So far China’s success in this realm has been very limited. Chinese films, Chinese television shows, Chinese music doesn’t have a huge following outside of China.”

Andres Martinez is the editorial director at Zocalo Public Square and a professor of journalism⁷ at Arizona State University. He says that he respects Chinese culture and expects the language to grow. But he says English, with its association with freedom, will remain the global language.

“You don’t have anybody on the Internet stifling⁸ speech in English, censoring⁹ speech in English. And most of the dominant¹⁰ English-language countries internally also have a tradition of freedom of speech.”

Martinez says that English is seen as a more neutral language than Chinese. Unlike Chinese, it is not associated with one country. He says even the ideas of equality are built into English grammar.

“If you study German, if you study Spanish, if you study Russian, there are many languages where the “you” form and how you conjugate¹¹ verbs is very different depending on whether you’re talking to a grandparent or a boss versus¹² one of your children or an employee or a close friend…If I’m talking to President Obama or if I’m talking to my closest friend or my son, its ‘you.’”

Chinese is also a more difficult language to learn. The U.S. Foreign Service Institute estimates it would take a native English speaker 2,200 hours to reach professional fluency¹³ in Chinese. That is four times longer than it would take to reach the same level in Dutch, French, or Spanish. While Chinese grammar is much simpler, Chinese has a tone and writing system that is more difficult for adult learners to master.

A recent survey by Gallup showed that only one in four Americans is multilingual, or able to speak more than one language. And most multilingual Americans are immigrants or the children of immigrants. For most Americans, Brits, and Australians, learning a foreign language is a choice, not a necessity. China Daily estimates that 400 million Chinese are studying English. That means China has more English learners than the U.S. has English speakers.

Last month, China hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in the capital city of Beijing. But the meeting was not in Chinese – or any Asian language. The official language of APEC is English.

I’m Adam Brock.

1 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

4 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

5 immersion   

n.沉浸；专心

参考例句：

• The dirt on the bottom of the bath didn't encourage total immersion.浴缸底有污垢，不宜全身浸泡于其中。
• The wood had become swollen from prolonged immersion.因长时间浸泡，木头发胀了。

6 prominence   

n.突出；显著；杰出；重要

参考例句：

• He came to prominence during the World Cup in Italy.他在意大利的世界杯赛中声名鹊起。
• This young fashion designer is rising to prominence.这位年轻的时装设计师的声望越来越高。

7 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

8 stifling   

a.令人窒息的

参考例句：

• The weather is stifling. It looks like rain. 今天太闷热，光景是要下雨。
• We were stifling in that hot room with all the windows closed. 我们在那间关着窗户的热屋子里，简直透不过气来。

9 censoring   

删剪（书籍、电影等中被认为犯忌、违反道德或政治上危险的内容）( censor的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Therefore, exhibitors shall not make use of these materials before censoring. 展商在审查前不可使用这些资料。
• The company then said it would end self-censoring search results, putting it at odds with Beijing. 随后该公司表示，将停止自我审查搜索结果，从而与中国政府发生对抗。

10 dominant   

adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因

参考例句：

• The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
• She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。

11 conjugate   

vt.使成对，使结合；adj.共轭的，成对的

参考例句：

• A partition that is its own conjugate is ealled self-conjugate.一个分析如与其自身共轭称为自共轭。
• It is important to learn to conjugate irregular verbs.学会不规则动词的变化是相当重要的。

12 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

13 fluency   

n.流畅，雄辩，善辩

参考例句：

• More practice will make you speak with greater fluency.多练习就可以使你的口语更流利。
• Some young children achieve great fluency in their reading.一些孩子小小年纪阅读已经非常流畅。