Department for Education in Britain proposes to include foreign languages to 2013. This proposal will include Mandarin, Latin and other european laugauges.
Learning secondary language is essential to students under seven. Mandarin may be needed on certain types of careers in future . It is not the best way, however, to consider Mandarin as one of languages student should be learned.
- difficulty on writing: especially for non-Chinese speakers. It is time-consuming on writing a Chinese characters. Also, most effective way of learning language is lower investment (especially time)to learn most parts on these skills. There are 6000 Chinese characters and much time to be consumed to learn most of them, compare with other languages.
- difficulty on speaking: as the pronounciation on Mandarin is totally different from English. Syllable changes between characters is most hard to non-Chinese spokers. A research tells that Mandarin is the most difficult language in the world. Make young students to learn difficult language is stressful and even frustrated, if they fail to learn
- not the only choice on asian language as secondary language: Hindi is one of dominant language in Asia. The economic growth is observable in India. Population of India will exceed that of China in 2026. In the other words, more people will saying Hindi, instead of Mandarin. Also, the percentage of Indian in Britain is more than that of Chinese by over 1%, according to census of 2011. It is easier to learn Hindi with more opportunities to practice speaking skills. Other languages such as Japanese and Korean are choices as secordary language as well, due to increasing awareness of Japanese and Korean cultures.
Ability of speaking multiple language is one of the advantages. Enjoyment on method of learning lauguage is even more important to understand the language. Morever, mathematical & science skills are as fundemental as languages. Time investment on these 3 skills is suggested being equal. Mandarin, which is time-consuming, hard to be mastered, should not be one of secondary language to be learned in future.
