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原文地址：
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/06/chinese-0
Learning Mandarin, whatever it takes （不惜一切代价学习普通话）
TODAY'S Wall Street Journal offers a useful update to the annual "Americans are rushing to teach their kids Mandarin" story. The reporters have found several families that have gone to unusual lengths. One Californian lawyer took a year's leave of absence from work and moved the clan to Chengdu, for the sole purpose of immersion in the language. Another family moved to Singapore in 2007, again only so the kids could grow up speaking Mandarin. Other parents are not quite so committed, but nonetheless, families are enrolling their children in Mandarin-immersion programs that are springing up from California to Maine. They are hiring tutors, Skyping with teachers in Beijing and recruiting Chinese-speaking nannies. Some are stocking their playrooms with Disney videos in Mandarin—not to mention the iPhone apps aimed at making kids into Mandarin speakers.
今日出版的《华尔街日报》又不厌其烦地推出了每年一更新的话题：一股“学普通话热”正在美国家庭之中蔓延开来。记者寻访并记录下了一些已经为了孩子学习普通话近乎痴迷的家庭：一位加州的律师不惜告假一年，拖家带口迁往中国
成都
，就是为了能够浸淫在一个“纯正的语言环境”之中；另一个家庭在2007年时举家搬往新加坡，唯一的目的同样也是为了让孩子在普通话环境中成长。其他的一些家长可能没有这么全心全意不顾一切为了孩子，但也找了相关的辅导班，让孩子能够潜心学习普通话。现在这样的课程正迅速从加州兴起，势头一路延伸至缅因州。望子成龙的家长们会请家教、通过Skype与远在北京的老师视频对话、专门找那些会说中文的保姆为孩子创造一切学习条件。一些父母已经在孩子的游戏室里准备好了各式中文配音的迪斯尼电影，还一早就在iPhone上下载好了相关应用，供孩子们与普通话亲密接触。
The article goes on that Mandarin is notoriously difficult to learn. The language is tonal, and fluency requires mastering thousands of characters. Mandarin competence takes 2,200 class hours, with half of that time spent in a country where it's spoken, according to the U.S. State Department's Foreign Service Institute, whereas Spanish can be learned in 600 to 750 class hours.
文章继续写到，普通话可是出了名的难懂难学。这门语言讲究四个声调，而能够熟练诵读又需要掌握逾千个汉字字符。根据美国国务院外交事务研究所公布的数据显示，顺利掌握普通话需要学习者完成近2200个学时的课程，如果有条件生活在中文国家，学时长度则可减少至一半。同样是语言，西班牙语仅需花600至750个学时便可攻克大半。
My upstairs neighbours' children have attended a Chinese-English bilingual school in New York for several years. It's the only public school of its kind in the city. Curious one day, I plied the younger one (eight years old) with a little quiz as we walked to the park with my son.
我家楼上一邻居的孩子已经在纽约的一所中英双语学校上了好几年学了。在纽约，这样的公立双语学校也仅此一家，别无分号。也是好奇心使然，有一次我带他和我儿子一块儿上公园玩，在路上，我出了道简单的题目考了考这个八岁的小毛孩。
Me: "How do you say 'house'?"
我：“house”用中文应该怎么说？
Boy: "Uh, I forget."
孩子：“呃，我忘了。”
Me: "How about 'car'?"
我：那么“car”呢？
Boy: "Uh... hm..."
孩子：“嗯……这个么……”
Me: "How about 'I am American?'"
我：那“I am American ”这句又怎么讲呢？
Boy: "Wo shi Zhongguo ren."
孩子：“我是中国人。”
Me: "Hm, I'm pretty sure that means 'I am Chinese.' Isn't American Meiguo ren?"
我：“不是吧，我很确定这句话是‘I am Chinese’的意思。American应该是‘美国人’吧？”
Boy: "Oh, that's right!"
孩子：“喔，好像是哦！”
Me: "How about 'he is my friend?'"
我：“那‘he is my friend’又怎么说呢？”
Boy: "Oh! Ta shi wode pengyou."
孩子：“哦我知道！‘他是我的朋友。’”
Finally a perfect answer on the first go.
终于，算是一次性回答对一个问题了。
This kid has been in this program since kindergarten. The Mandarin program is strictly speaking an after-school, voluntary one, but all kids go after school and study the language for 2.5 hours per day, I believe. At 180 school days a year, for just two years, he would have had roughly 900 hours of instruction and exposure, starting when he was quite small. (He may have had three years; I'm not sure.) Of course he's still quite small, and unlike State Department diplomats, doesn't have adult intellectual equipment to bring to bear. He does have a child's still-plastic brain, one of the reasons his accent was excellent. He's a bright kid. I can only take it that the State Department is right: learning Mandarin is very hard for a native English-speaker, and true immersion is pretty important.
这孩子从幼儿园开始就在中文班里学习。他上的普通话班严格要求学生在课后也要继续自觉操练，这样的话我估计每个孩子每天会花两个半小时左右的时间学习中文。假设一学年上180天的课，那么上完两年（也可能是三年，我不确定）就意味着，他从很小的时候开始就已经接受了大约900小时的汉语授课和语言接触。因为饿仍是幼子，想必他也不会具有比得上国务院外交官级别的成人智力水平熟记掌握语言。他还是个孩子，大脑对语言的接受还非常灵活，这可能也是他口音地道的一个原因。总的来说他算是个聪明的孩子。我只能表示我认同国务院的观点：学好普通话对于英语母语学习者来说是一件分外困难的事，而能够做到真正渗入这个语言环境当中也的确至关重要。
I'm interested in the experience of those who have studied Chinese for a while. The Journal mentions both the tones and characters as difficulties, but I have a hunch one problem is rather bigger than the other. Which is a tougher challenge: mastering and using the four tones (several each second) for accurate and fluent speech? Or learning the thousands of characters needed to read and write?
我倒对那些已经有一些中文学习经验的人较为感兴趣。华尔街日报的文章提到了中文的声调和方块字都是学习的最大障碍，但我还有一个貌似是最核心的问题：到底是熟练掌握运用四个声调，吐音咬字标准、发言对话流畅更为关键，还是熟记上千个方块字符，首先攻克写作和阅读更为重要？
I also know—because I've seen calligraphy homework around their apartment—that the kids spend significant time reading and writing. Is this a good idea? Or would you focus on speech and use pinyin first with young children? The answers are important, as more and more Americans are going to be studying Mandarin in coming years, and getting the pedagogy right will be crucial.
另外我还知道一个事儿——这孩子在汉语的阅读和书写上已经花了很大的功夫——这点从他们家墙上挂着他的许多书法作业上就不难猜出。然而这种做法科学吗？让年纪小的孩子更重视对话和拼音，效果是不是可能会更好？这个问题还是挺关键的，因为也就未来几年的功夫，一定会有越来越多的美国人开始把汉语学习摆上日程，到时候分清学习内容的主次就会成为一件再重要不过的事了。
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发表于 2019-4-6 21:33:00
