To master Chinese or English?
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Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, the person who introduced bilingualism more than 40 years ago, advised chinese parents to choose whether to let their children master English or Chinese.
he said in parliament yesterday, "You make up your mind... But remember, the more English, the less chinese; the more Chinese, the less English. There is no such thing as 100% English, 100% Chinese."
give your point of views.
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i prefer writing and read english but i prefer speaking mandarin
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I like the way it is - both. Maybe the Chinese speaks better mandarin than me, and the ang mo speaks better English better than me. But I am the one who can speak to both of them.
In fact, I love to study a few more languages if possible. Nevermind every single one of them is sh1tty. I feel good as long as I can speak in different languages. -
sameOriginally posted by Qitai:I like the way it is - both. Maybe the Chinese speaks better mandarin than me, and the ang mo speaks better English better than me. But I am the one who can speak to both of them.
In fact, I love to study a few more languages if possible. Nevermind every single one of them is shitty. I feel good as long as I can speak in different languages.
me slowly learning jap language liao -
By his latest revelation, MM Lee indirectly or directly admitted that he did not realise learning both English and pushing learning of mother tongue to the hilt of making a good passing as a university admission criteria would indeed cause dilution of both English and Chinese.Originally posted by Gordonator:Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, the person who introduced bilingualism more than 40 years ago, advised chinese parents to choose whether to let their children master English or Chinese.
he said in parliament yesterday, "You make up your mind... But remember, the more English, the less chinese; the more Chinese, the less English. There is no such thing as 100% English, 100% Chinese."
give your point of views.
Today, he finally has to rectify that fundamental error of judgment.
When I had to switch from Chinese to English education after secondary level some years ago, for economic reason, I found it extremely difficult (not so smart) to learn English and so had to forego Chinese (including reading of Chinese newspaper) so as to concentrate 100% on learning English.
In the same way, if we are to compel the child to learn both he will most likely not learn both well.
Such compulsion would also seriously hamper mastery or effective learning of science and technological diluting excellence needed to produce an highly knowledgeable work force of tomorrow.
In theory, it is desirable to learn both. In practice forcing on children to learn both will be at the expense of either of them and also of science and technological mastery.
So, do we want education for all round knowledge acquisition and application or do we to go overboard with learning two languages with penalty to create problems for children in other areas of excellence? -
i think english is more important. unless u are living in a country where everyone speaks chinese or you intend to do business with china men.
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Speaking for myself, I have little practical use for Mandarin except when ordering food at hawker centres. That said, I have taken a personal interest in brushing up on my Mandarin just for the sake of it. I'd agree with robertteh that making of a subject compulsory is the easiest way of killing one's interest in said subject. Jow that I don't have to study mandarin, I can actually do it and enjoy it.
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Knowing both languages has been an advantage to me in my life and still is.
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i enjoyed learning the chinese language and had a hard time grasping the engrish language though
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i m just the opposite...me only like to speak mandarin...write and read prefer englishOriginally posted by poon cho tang:i enjoyed learning the chinese language and had a hard time grasping the engrish language though -
me ok with both....although i am more towards english, my teng nan also passable..
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well. finally good ol' Lee wake up his idea. but put me through so much hardship to pick up chinese. lolOriginally posted by Gordonator:Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, the person who introduced bilingualism more than 40 years ago, advised chinese parents to choose whether to let their children master English or Chinese.
he said in parliament yesterday, "You make up your mind... But remember, the more English, the less chinese; the more Chinese, the less English. There is no such thing as 100% English, 100% Chinese."
give your point of views.
but he's right though.. cannot 100% both english and chinese.. for me, is 70% english, 30% chinese.
well, i'm glad the younger generation don't have to get screwed up like us old birds yea? -
I believe that English will be a more viable language to learn. This is for economic and social and racial cohesion reasons perhaps. I believe that most of us can see that whenever we converse in our mother tongue, we inadvertently alienate our friends who are of different race. Furthermore, most of the subjects that we learn are written in English.
In retrospect though, it is viable to learn Japanese too..... it helps understanding some movies better -
well..I actually agree to this, I noticed that when I like English, I tend to hate chinese. Perhaps this could be due to the fatc that most of my friends prefer speaking to me in english rather than chinese. But ever since I started learning Japanese, I seem to have a sense of renewed respect for my chinese So Perhaps it is possible to master both English and Chinese but if you are able to do that, you belong to the Bilingual Elite.
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just 50 50 can liao la....I hate languages, they are a waste of time.
oh look I learn shakespeare!! I caneth speaketh liketh thiseth!! -
MML had special one to one tuition in Chinese by a chinese linguist in the comfort of his home, but he does not have the environment where he has to speak chinese. But we don have the one to one tuition and we are often in environment where we have to speak chinese. So I really dont know if old man's experience is relevant to me.Originally posted by Gordonator:Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, the person who introduced bilingualism more than 40 years ago, advised chinese parents to choose whether to let their children master English or Chinese.
he said in parliament yesterday, "You make up your mind... But remember, the more English, the less chinese; the more Chinese, the less English. There is no such thing as 100% English, 100% Chinese."
give your point of views.
The main problem with most of us is that we grew up thinking in english and we do mental translation when we speak chinese, that is difficult. Our parents used to think in chinese dialects and they also have problem learning english initially till they started thinking in english.
Gobemen likes to attach a number to everything. Language learning should be fun and fun cannot be measured by numbers. The fun in learning english and chinese are different as the culture are different and each should be allowed to develop in its own pace. How to say this is 60% and that is 40%? Is this percentage of usage or competency in the language? if you language competency is low then do you use more to improve otherwise this competency will drop further??
In europe, most people speak at least 3 languages, and english may not be one of the them. I think singapore should encourage the learning of all our official languages, including tamil and malay. There are also big economic value in these two languages as India and Indonesia economy improve.
In this case other races will not feel alienated. -
Actually, most of us managed to be bilingual.
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Remember that MML is a politician. He isn't a educationist. What he say now can be wrong too.Originally posted by Gordonator:Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, the person who introduced bilingualism more than 40 years ago, advised chinese parents to choose whether to let their children master English or Chinese.
he said in parliament yesterday, "You make up your mind... But remember, the more English, the less chinese; the more Chinese, the less English. There is no such thing as 100% English, 100% Chinese."
give your point of views.
Look at the people around you for answers. Hear more comments by ppl. -
learn enough to communicate. enough la.
but master one language is good. the other, just make sure u can at least read and speak?
but i kinda read in a newspaper report that language learning require certain part of the brain, so learning chinese is supposedly as easy as learning english.
but. its the exposure that makes the difference. i'm exposed to english since i was a kid, parents both speak english, only have english newspaper, watch english program. stuff like that.. yea..
exposure la. what makes this so difficult is that you can't be exposed to either languages fairly.. you'll pick up one or the other, like one or the other.. *shrugs* -
master both. it is possible as long as we dun stop learning.
english is very impt in modern world.
mother tongue, a personal responsiblity to learn. becasue of our skin color. -
Agreed. Studying a language in a sanitised classroom environment is not ideal - immersing oneself in a culture is the best way of studying a language. Besides, the study of languages is much more than just learning how to read, write and speak the language - those are simply the doors to that culture's philosophy.Originally posted by sgdiehard:MML had special one to one tuition in Chinese by a chinese linguist in the comfort of his home, but he does not have the environment where he has to speak chinese. But we don have the one to one tuition and we are often in environment where we have to speak chinese. So I really dont know if old man's experience is relevant to me.
The main problem with most of us is that we grew up thinking in english and we do mental translation when we speak chinese, that is difficult. Our parents used to think in chinese dialects and they also have problem learning english initially till they started thinking in english.
Also, the proportion of our time spent in English- and Chinese-speaking environments could well determine the percentage balance described by MML, creating a self-correcting mechanism. After all, if you spend 80 percent of your time in a Chinese-speaking environment, being more than "20 percent English" serves little practical purpose.
Odd that you should mention thinking in languages, sgdiehard. During my national service, I realised that I was thinking in Hokkien at one point. -
Hee hee hee...Originally posted by greengoblin:I believe that English will be a more viable language to learn. This is for economic and social and racial cohesion reasons perhaps. I believe that most of us can see that whenever we converse in our mother tongue, we inadvertently alienate our friends who are of different race. Furthermore, most of the subjects that we learn are written in English.
In retrospect though, it is viable to learn Japanese too..... it helps understanding some movies better -
Hee hee, me opposite. I have always been more Chinese than English until I grow older when I work for the ang mo. But at that same time, I find that reading Chinese is extremely useful. I travel to Japan often now and am very very glad that, although I cannot speak Japanese, I can read almost everything in Japan.Originally posted by shade343:well..I actually agree to this, I noticed that when I like English, I tend to hate chinese. Perhaps this could be due to the fatc that most of my friends prefer speaking to me in english rather than chinese. But ever since I started learning Japanese, I seem to have a sense of renewed respect for my chinese So Perhaps it is possible to master both English and Chinese but if you are able to do that, you belong to the Bilingual Elite.
Also, I was even surprised once when in Korea. At the time, although I am unable to communicate to a Korean in Korea and his English sucks, but yet somehow he knows how to write Chinese!! So, we communicated in Chinese Writing!! So, being able to read and write Chinese may be more useful than one may think. The east Asian countries seems to be heavily influence by ancient China culture. -
me english 50% chinese 50%
add up to 100% -
When he have make a mistake in his judgement,
we, the people, suddenly become reponsible for his error.
This is really amazing !!!!
The education system have already geared towards us becoming banana.
So, how responsible do you expect the parents to be in making language choices for his/her kid.
There is no choice.
English is the only way.
Considering most of the young parents are banana themselves, how much chinese can you demand the kids in learning ???