[PSLE MT] PSLE less weightage in Chinese / Mother Tongue

[3Boys]

NOW I get it!!


This whole notion of Mandarin as being part of the Chinese identity is all of 55 years old! And for silly old me to think that there was some huge and deep tradition stretching back millenia, and hence all the strong emotional attachment.

Oh me oh my! All this hand-wringing because of the communists! :lol:

snideness aside, gnoikj, I doubt if many of the pro-MT camp would agree with your position. If a political act half a century ago is all its about, I doubt there would be such a reaction.

[tree nymph]

3Boys:

Let me elaborate further to nan.nan


Does it not seems farcical to you that whether someone qualifies to be a Chinese is on account of a political act of the communist party of China in 1955? The 4000 year old history of the country does not count then? What if the KMT had won the war in the 1940s? Would Hokkien be the official lingo of Chinese then? Actually I think Tang poetry would sound really nice in Teochew, its got a beautiful sing-song quality to it (and at least I could speak it)

Hi 3Boys,

The New China in 1955 uniformed the spoken language - which is Mandarin. But the written Chinese language IS never changed. Ok, actually it was changed from Baihuawen to Wenyanwen during the same period, which I think was a brilliant decision, but this is the style of writing. The basis of this (uniforming the language) is that the chinese govt wanted to have a common language for Chinese, so that the people from the different region can communicate with ease. Actually if you notice, Teochew is in Guangdong, but Teochew is not Cantonese and they will not be able to communicate easily if there's no common spoken language, guess they may have to resort to writing all the time.

Anyway, I understood that Cantonese was almost selected to be the official language, but there are more people speaking the Beijing Dialect then other dialect and so Beijing Dialect was chosen instead. And Beijing Dialect is Mandarin.

For further details, you will have to refer to nan.nan's link from baidu.

Just OT a bit, if KMT had won the war in 1940s - maybe we will have to write in traditional chinese words and not the simplified chinese words now.

Actually you are very chinese, you speak Teochew well, but you probably did not have the environment to learn the words. However, today if we lower the importance of the Chinese Language, then what do we have left? Do you mean you want our future generations to be like ABC who can't speak a word of Mandarin? Funny thing is that the offsprings of these same ABC are sending their kids to Beijing and other chinese cities every year for at least a term to learn Chinese and Mandarin. Even the angmohs are doing that. So if we lower the importance of Chinese, we are not just moving backwards, we are also closing our doors to lots of opportunities.

I'm not for the lowering of the weightage of MT, be it Chinese, Indian or Malay. We need to know our MT. Even if now the gahmen decides to lower the weightage, I will still stress the importance of my MT to my kids and will still continue to encourage them to do well in their MT. I truly feel that its a loss if we were to give up our MT. Some day, I hope they will be able to appreciate the excellent Chinese literature...

[minnie2004]

3Boys:

nan.nan:

I hope I open up a new perspective for you. But again, what I wrote above could be put in better way by someone who knows more than me. I only learn Chinese up to GEC \"O\" level. I am still learning.

I understand you perfectly. Does it not seem strange to you that something that supposedly has such deep roots is defined by a political act in 1955? And I don't even like the communists...... :lol:

I don't think you understand nan.nan at all. You still seem to have problem differentiating Chinese language from Chinese dialects (Mandarin is just one of which, along with Cantonese, Teochew etc). It sounds like your resentment of Chinese is actually just towards Mandarin, as it's linked to \"communists\" according to your father. However, I bet your father can speak better Chinese than Eng., since he speaks 3 dialects, which I presume are all Chinese dialects, and that he reads more Chinese newspapers than Eng ones.

Not all Chinese (even in China) can speak Mandarin, but most Chinese (as long as they're literate) can read Chinese, that's what matters the most. HK schools teach Chinese using Cantonese (although nowadays more schools are starting to use Mandarin), but I can assure you that their Chinese (maybe not Mandarin) is better than Singaporeans judging from the fact that the best selling newspapers and magazines there are in Chinese. Singapore schools teach Chinese in Mandarin. That's a choice by the govt for either political or economic reasons. Singaporean kids are actually lucky as they only need to learn the simplified version, and Mandarin also happens to be the easiest dialect to learn Chinese as it only has 4 tones, as compared to 9 tones in Cantonese. Imagine if the govt had opted for Cantonese or Teochew to teach Chinese, how many more complains we'd see now!

If you feel more comfortable learning Chinese in Teochew, by all means. If you think Tang poems sound better in Teochew, why not recite them in Teochew? Afterall, spoken Chinese is just one aspect of the language. Reading and writing are the more important aspects of a language, which you can learn in whatever dialect you like.

[minnie2004]

3Boys:

What if the KMT had won the war in the 1940s? Would Hokkien be the official lingo of Chinese then?

I'm sorry, Hokkien wouldn't have made it as Chiang Kai-shek is from Ningbo, so he would be speaking Shanghainese rather than Hokkien, which is only a dialect of the Taiwanese natives

[tamarind]

nan.nan, minnie, tree nymph,


I agree with everything that you all wrote above.

I am Cantonese, and I make my kids speak both Cantonese and Mandarin, because all dialects are part of the spoken language of China. They are just different ways of pronouncing the same written language.

I realized that many English educated people here do not have the correct perspective of the history and culture of Chinese, and there is a lot of mis-interpretation, most likely due to prejudice that Chinese is inferior. Someone in this forum asked in another thread, whether Communism is part of Chinese culture. After a while you will realize that their perspective is all wrong and a lot of re-education needs to be done. I have lost the patience to explain and argue with them.

[tamarind]

I would like to share another excellent article for all parents :


The efficiency of the Chinese language by Yuen Ren Chao
http://www.unesco.org/education/nfsunesco/pdf/CHAO_E.PDF

Yuen Ren Chao was Chief of the Chinese delegation to the First Session of the General Conference of UNESCO.

We need a way to convince our kids to learn Chinese. Most parents tell them that it is our identity, our roots, as well as its economic importance. But there is something that is also very important, and that is the beauty and efficiency of the Chinese language. The above article explains it very well.

Remember that as parents we must have a positive attitude towards the language, if we want our kids to be very good at it.

It is a very long article (written in English), here are some important points :

Intonation of the voice :
One can express more things without spending more time. In a word, the space occupied in time by Chinese symbols is smaller than that of other languages.

...the essential feature of Chinese writing is that the arrangement of symbols in two dimensions has made possible a high degree of variety and brevity. ...a page of printed text in Chinese corresponds, in degree of comparable legibility, to an average of two pages of French text.

...it is much easier to find something on a page of Chinese than in a language written in the alphabetical form.

[3Boys]

Tamarind, just in case you are referring to me, I am not of the view that China or Chinese is inferior. However, I resist the imposition of someone else’s standards of what the level of Chinese language proficiency needs to be, and I want a good open debate on it. Once we get into this downward spiral discussion around culture, nothing can ever be resolved.

[nan.014182nan]

3Boys:

NOW I get it!!


This whole notion of Mandarin as being part of the Chinese identity is all of 55 years old!

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(x55)

Thanks for the others helping to reply earlier.

[rains]

I’m just wondering if people who advocate learning of Chinese for business-doing in China realise that the China Chinese have been furiously learning English?


A lecturer once said, a few years ago, that in 10 years’ time, China will have the biggest English-speaking population in the world, becos of their determination to learn. They probably are arguing in a forum only known to themselves that not learning English causes them to miss opportunities to venture into English-speaking markets.

I find it so bizarre that Singaporean Chinese, or Chinese who grow up and educated in Singapore, argue so fervently, heatedly over lowering weightage of MT at PSLE. Are our experiences so different? Perhaps.

Like 3Boys, I didn’t have any experience with Chinese or English until I went to kindergarten. But Chinese came natural to me while I struggled with English at the beginning. I’m not sure why Chinese was more appealing or why I found English more difficult. In fact, I still find English a more difficult language.

Growing up, I felt insulted when others ask me to give them tuition in Chinese. I thought they were teasing me as I didn’t understand Chinese could be a problem for some, until I see how my own kid confuses one character with another, or speaks in English-translated Mandarin.

I am of the view that Chinese can be easily mastered, not just acquired, if only given the immersion. I do not agree that my kid has missed the window period for learning Chinese just bcos I alienated her from the language till she was 7. I only started to be more diligent in cultivating her interest in Chinese at 10, early this year, and a few months on, she’s already picking up some skills in recognising characters and starting to read Chinese books on her own.

Chinese is a language easy to like and learn. Some of you make it sound as if it’s a challenge to like Chinese. I’m sure those who do not master Chinese have not found the correct method to learn it, or like what tamarind said, they have used the wrong method and thus found Chinese difficult.

Lowering the weightage of Chinese at PSLE does not undermine the importance of Chinese. I thought it over-sensitive to equate it to: gahmen thinks Chinese is not important. Perhaps that’s how one always perceives what the gahmen thinks that one is inclined to think this way.

[markfch]

3Boys:

I resist the imposition of someone else's standards of what the level of Chinese language proficiency needs to be, and I want a good open debate on it. Once we get into this downward spiral discussion around culture, nothing can ever be resolved.

Hi 3Boys,

Though we may have differing views on the above topic, I respect your maturity and patience in the discussion of this v touchy topic.