学点汉语，学好英语

学点汉语，学好英语

“多学点汉语吧！”英国首相卡梅伦访华回国后对小学生们说。但FT副主编斯卡平克却写道，按照以往的经验，当一个英国试图用一门外语与人交流时，说者与听者都会很快发现，还是讲英语节约时间。那么，英国孩子还该不该学汉语呢？

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

Mandarin 汉语普通话(音译自“满大人”官话)

level pegging 势均力敌

debunk 拆穿

stopgap 权宜之计

colloquial 白话的，口语的

idiosyncrasy 个性，特异品质

阅读即将开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用时间，并对照我们在文章最后给出的参考值来估算您的阅读速度。

Learn some Mandarin but master English too

By Michael Skapinker

Future Chinese executives will hear foreigners struggle with Mandarin and switch to English

* * *

Ditch your French and German textbooks and start learning Mandarin, David Cameron told the UK’s school pupils after his return from a visit to China last week.

The UK prime minister should be happy with any language skills his young compatriots manage to pick up. But it is true that it would be useful if more people spoke the main language of the world’s soon-to-be largest economy.

I asked China-based colleagues if they knew of any foreign business leaders who spoke Mandarin. The list was short and limited to executives working in China. Roland Decorvet, the Swiss head of Nestlé in China, speaks fluent Mandarin. Peter Humphrey, the British fraud investigator who did work for GlaxoSmithKline and who has been detained by the Chinese authorities, also speaks excellent Mandarin.

No doubt there are others, but there don’t appear to be many. A colleague who travelled with Mr Cameron and his large business delegation says he did not hear any of them make a speech in Mandarin.

If they are to make progress, children should start learning early. But Mandarin is very different from European languages and harder for an English speaker to learn than French or German. Also, in the race to learn other languages, the Chinese are way ahead in learning English. Although the English-language component of the Chinese university entrance exam has been reduced, there are 50,000 English-language teaching companies in the country. Internationally-minded companies regard English as important. Lenovo, the Chinese computer company, has made it its official language.

Throughout Europe, English is now essential for anyone wanting to reach a senior corporate position. It is a given, a background skill like knowing how to create a PowerPoint presentation or find your way to the office.

That will be the case in China too. Foreign Mandarin speakers may establish better contacts and win business. But if China follows the European pattern, its future young executives will listen as their anglophone counterparts struggle a while in their school-learnt Mandarin and they will then switch to English because it wastes less time.

The problem, when international business discussions take place in English, is that many English speakers are not much better at using it than they are at foreign languages. Many don’t know how to adjust their English for an international audience.

Here are a few phrases I heard a UK manager use in a speech to some Brazilians: “it’s level pegging”; “the second myth I’d like to debunk”; “we have a stopgap with that”. Some of the Brazilians had chosen to listen to a Portuguese translation through headphones; those who had thought their English was good enough to manage without looked as if they were regretting their choice.

For an English speaker, mastering foreign languages is excellent; being able to speak the international business tongue so that you can be understood is just as important.

When I suggested a while back that English speakers avoid figurative language and phrasal verbs such as “put out”, some readers took issue with me. “Most idioms are intuitive and you can guess . . . from the context, for example “pin hopes on” or “shrug off” are pretty easy . . . I actually enjoy learning a new colourful phrase from a Brit and being able to deduce its meaning,” one reader wrote. Indeed, at a conference in Brussels recently, I heard non-native English speakers nonchalantly using phrasal verbs and idioms such as “he touched upon that”, “we’ve laid down detailed rules” and “our ideas in a nutshell”.

These largely came from speakers of Germanic languages, which have their own phrasal verbs, but it also became clear that they were highly competent English speakers and I had to adjust my English accordingly. Patronising your audience is as bad as losing them through being too colloquial.

How can English speakers find the appropriate way to speak their language to non-native speakers? Learning a foreign language, any language, is useful in helping you understand what it is like to work in your non-native tongue. But so is understanding the structure and idiosyncrasies of your own language so you can adjust your use of it to the situation.

Yes, English-speaking children should learn Mandarin. But they need a more sophisticated command of English too.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1. Why should children start learning Mandarin early?

a. China is a soon-to-be largest economy in the world.

b. Chinese children are way ahead in learning English.

c. Few British business leaders can speak Mandarin fluently.

d. It's always better to learn a foreign language early.

2. "Foreign Mandarin speakers may establish better contacts and win business. But if China follows the European pattern..."

What is this pattern?

a. English people and their foreign counterparts end up speaking in English.

b. English people and their European counterparts talk in French or German slowly.

c. The advantages to mastering a foreign language gradually fade away.

d. Non-native speakers learn phrasal verbs quickly.

3. What point does it try to make by the story of a UK manager speaking to some Brazilians?

a. Brazilians' English is quite poor.

b. English is indeed a global language.

c. English spoken by native is different from English learnt by non-native.

d. There's always some people overestimating their language abilities.

4. What is the main reason that Cameron encouraged British pupils to learn more Chinese?

a. English is not going to be as dominant in the future as today.

b. The three European languages are too similar to each other.

c. Good paid jobs will mostly be based in China.

d. It is important to understand and communicate with Chinese(in English).

[1] 答案d. It's always better to learn a foreign language early.

解释：ABC都更像是“应该学”的理由，而不是“尽早学”的理由，其实作者并未给出解释，是默认应该如此的。

[2] 答案a. English people and their foreign counterparts end up speaking in English.

解释：（无）

[3] 答案c. English spoken by native is different from English learnt by non-native.

解释：英国演讲人用了很多非常本地化和口语化的词汇，这对外国人来说非常难懂。作者显然不是责备那些巴西人英语差，或者有些人明明听不太懂却还拒绝使用同传。结合上下文，他是责怪英国人不了解外国人的英语使用。

[4] 答案d. It is important to understand and communicate with Chinese(in English).

解释：如果你在第二段看到了“英国孩子应该学汉语”的内容，那么也许会发现，接下来作者似乎未作解释就“跑题”了好多段，解释英语是如何如何重要。绕了一个大弯到末尾才揭示，作为“全球语”的英语，是与英国人自己讲的英语不一样的，学一门外语对英国人了解外国人讲英语时的感受很有帮助，并且可以帮助英国人调整自己太过口语化的说话习惯。从而可以更好的沟通。想想看，你对一群略懂汉语的外国人说“人艰不拆，喜大普奔”的时候，该是多么“2333”？