Why Mandarin is tougher than David Cameron thinks

Chinese reference books. Photograph: Alamy

David Cameron wants our schools to teach Mandarin. But China’s first language has a reputation as one of the hardest in the world. Can we really expect our kids to get their heads round it? Here are eight reasons why – for a native English speaker – learning Mandarin is one of the trickiest tasks there is.

1. You’ll find the writing baffling …

Mandarin uses characters, rather than a phonetic alphabet. You need to recognise around 3,000 characters to read a Chinese newspaper. “The problem with Chinese all has to do with the writing system,” says Dr David Moser, academic director at CET Beijing. “It’s such a massive obstacle that there are people who make their careers here who make the decision just to ignore writing and reading because it isn’t worth it.”

2. … and the tones a nightmare

Mandarin is tonal. The way a word is spoken determines what it means. So the word “ma”, for example, can mean either “horse” or “mother”, depending on which of four tones it is spoken in. “Pretty much everybody learns the tones wrong the first time,” says translator Brendan O’Kane, one of the presenters of podcast Popup Chinese. “And then, after a few years, they realise they sound ridiculous.”

3. The mistakes can be filthy

The tonal system leads to some embarrassing errors. The word for “ask”, for example, is one tone away from the word “to kiss”, and the word for pen is one tone from a word for female genitalia. So students tend to ask their teachers some inappropriate questions.

4. Your progress will be glacial

“Chinese is not actually difficult,” says O’Kane. “All you need is five years and a high level of focus. You have to be prepared for the fact that at the end of one year you’re not going to be very good, and at the end of two to three years you will be slightly better but still not good.” Or, as Moser puts it: “Chinese is a five-year lesson in humility. And after five years, you’ve learnt humility and you still haven’t learned Chinese.”

5. You won’t be able to text message

Even once you’re fluent, the language remains time-consuming. “It’s so much slower to try to write Chinese on paper or digital media,” explains Moser. “Producing a simple text message in Chinese takes two or three or 10 times as long. You have to keep looking up characters over and over and over again. It wastes weeks of your life every year.”

6. Good teachers are in short supply

Chinese as a second language is a new field, and not a well-established one. “One of the obstacles to learning Chinese is that a lot of the people teaching it are Chinese,” explains O’Kane. “And they are wonderful users of the language, but they have never had to think about it from an outsider’s perspective.”

7. In any case, most of the people don’t speak it …

Although Mandarin is China’s first language, it is really only the language of Beijing. There are dozens of dialects and sub-dialects used elsewhere – and even in Beijing. “Among the dialects,” says Moser, “there are many, many accents and regional variations, and they are not like accents among English speakers, who can usually understand each other. Mandarin and Cantonese are as different as French and Italian.”

8. … and nor do their leaders

Even towering figures in Chinese history struggled with the language. “Strictly speaking,” says Moser, “Chairman Mao never really learned the poo-tong-hua [Mandarin] language.” Mao grew up in Hunan, and spoke with a strong Hunanese accent, using a lot of regional dialect. “He had lousy Mandarin,” says O’Kane. “If you listen to recordings of him, his accent was really jacked up. It sounds funny.”

Why Mandarin is tougher than David Cameron thinks

David Cameron urges British students to ditch French and learn Mandarin

David Cameron plays table tennis – pīngpāng qiú or 乒乓球, for you language college students – during his pay a visit to to a primary school in Chengdu. Photograph: AP

David Cameron, who has notoriously poor schoolboy French, is urging today’s youngsters to abandon the language of Molière and Voltaire to concentrate on the tongue of the future – Mandarin.

In a parting shot, as he left China after a 3-day check out, the prime minister explained that pupils need to appear beyond the classic French and German lessons and alternatively emphasis on China.

To reinforce his message the prime minister quoted Nelson Mandela, who said finding out a person else’s language is the very best way to their heart. Cameron stated: “I want Britain linked up to the world’s quick-expanding economies. And that consists of our young people studying the languages to seal tomorrow’s enterprise deals.

“By the time the kids born nowadays depart school, China is set to be the world’s largest economic system. So it truly is time to appear beyond the standard target on French and German and get numerous far more kids studying Mandarin.

“As Mandela once explained: ‘If you speak to a guy in a language he understands that goes to his head, if you talk to him in his own language that goes to his heart.’”

Cameron, who visited a college for six- and seven-yr-olds studying English in Chengdu, mentioned that a partnership amongst the British Council and Hanban – the Chinese National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language – will double the number of Chinese language assistants in the United kingdom by 2016 and offer improved funding to reduce the cost to colleges of offering Mandarin as a language selection.

In an expansion of the United kingdom-China School Partnerships programme, funding will also be offered for 60 headteachers to make research visits to China in 2014.

The announcement was welcomed by the British Council and the British Academy, the two of which have been pushing for policies to reverse the decline in college students taking contemporary languages at school and university level.

Martin Davidson, the British Council’s chief executive who has been going to China with Cameron, explained: “The promotion of Chinese language in the Uk and the English language in China are both crucial to economic and cultural relations between the two countries. This initiative will boost collaboration and is specifically considerable offered that recent British Council study exhibits that Mandarin is a single of ten languages not broadly spoken in the Uk and nevertheless crucial to our long term development and prosperity.”

In recent research the British Council placed Mandarin in the best 5 most essential languages for Britain’s potential prosperity, protection and influence. But it located only 1% of the grownup population speaks Mandarin to a degree that makes it possible for them to conduct a basic conversation. Just 3,000 pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland entered for Chinese languages GCSEs in 2013, placing it far behind the traditional selections of French with 177,000, Spanish with 91,000 and German with 62,000 entrants, as effectively as Urdu, Polish and Arabic.

But the popularity of Chinese languages improves at A-degree, where it was the fourth most common present day language in 2013, with three,300 entrants compared with 11,000 taking A-degree French and four,200 taking German.

The estimated 500,000 ethnic Chinese residing in Britain make it the largest overseas Chinese population of any European country.

Professor Dame Helen Wallace, the British Academy’s foreign secretary, stated her organisation had been arguing for an improvement in foreign language skills, and had identified Mandarin as 1 of the extended assortment of languages to be promoted in schools.

But a lack of certified teachers could be a barrier to strengthening its acceptance, Wallace explained.

“The provide chain wants to work in each methods. Youngsters require to be persuaded to do it and you need to have the availability of capable teachers at all levels – main, secondary and university – to develop optimistic reinforcement in the availability of teachers and the curiosity of teachers.”

And she warned: “No such approach works unless you stick at it. There’s no use doing this for two or 3 years and then forgetting about it – you have to make a extended-term investment in this type of alter capability.”Laura Chan, one of the co-founders of the Marco Polo Academy, a bilingual Mandarin-English primary school opening in Barnet next September as portion of the free of charge schools programme, explained the prime minister’s announcement was very good information for the standing of Mandarin.

“It’s a wonderful aid. It will enhance people’s awareness of Mandarin as a language they can understand,” she mentioned.

“One particular purpose we desired to set up the free of charge school is that the educating of language in the Uk is not especially effective, specially for young children.”

From September 2014, studying foreign languages will be compulsory in main colleges under the new nationwide curriculum.

David Cameron urges British students to ditch French and learn Mandarin

A blanket opposition to education funding cuts isn"t the answer | Daniel Carr and Cameron M Knott

The Coalition program to save $ 2.4bn in higher schooling funding, initial proposed by the Gillard government in April, is now in jeopardy as a outcome of Labor’s determination to heed calls from the Greens to block the legislation in the Senate. Half of the cost savings will come from imposing an efficiency dividend on universities and lowering reductions for early charge repayments, with another $ 1.2bn saved by converting pupil commence-up scholarships into HECS-Assist fashion loans.

The proposal has incensed pupil bodies and the tertiary sector union, who have launch campaigns towards the cuts. Fears have been raised about an era of declining university quality and impoverished college students with crippling personal debts. A more regressive policy would be difficult to locate, right? 

Nicely, not really. Students do face genuine hardship while at university, but the progressive answer is to move towards a deferred payment model that is the two far more generous when students are cash poor, and more demanding of them when they are funds rich. After all, subsidising folks to attain disproportionately substantial incomes – earning more than $ one.1m far more than non-graduates on common – even though expecting tiny in the way of personal contributions is hardly paying cash pretty.

This is specifically the case when we seem at just who goes to university. Above half of students coming from the richest 10% of households enroll in university. For students coming from the poorest 10% of households, enrolment is beneath 10%. Worse, students from the bottom quarter of socio-financial (SES) households make up just 14.eight% of undergraduates, rather than 25% which we would count on in a “honest” method.

As soon as you think about that graduates disproportionately come from and go onto join the most properly-off groups in society, it raises the query: is this the very best way to assist disadvantaged students?

The HECS-Assist method we enjoy in Australia allows students to shell out the value of their schooling with an curiosity cost-free loan that they do not repay until their yearly earnings exceed a generous threshold. At the moment, no student pays back their schooling loan till they earn over $ 51,309. To place this into context, following 5 years the common university graduate is generating $ 75,000 yearly, although the median full-time employee in Australia earns only $ 57,400. Effectively, HECS only requires you shell out back your loan if you are in the best 60% of incomes. It is entirely sensible that college students contribute a lot more in direction of their schooling when they are earning sums far higher than the common employee. 

So in flip, how can we inspire a lot more disadvantaged college students to earn a potentially existence changing qualification?

Initial we have to appreciate that the real barrier to minimal SES larger training is minimal ATAR scores, not cost. Currently, students who score above 80 come overwhelmingly from higher SES backgrounds. Pupil who score below 60 are twice as most likely to come from a lower SES background.

This would propose that the government would do nicely to redirect university funding into earlier many years. Without a doubt, a new wave of schooling specialists, such as Nobel Laureate James Heckman, are arguing that the smartest way to improve social mobility is spending money before school even begins. The dividends early intervention programs provide are demonstrably greater than the superficially alluring choice of reducing pupil debt. 

Authorities say that you can enhance social mobility by concentrating on early many years education.

Not only will raising personal contributions to fund much more equitable programs, it will allow our universities to continue to offer a world-class education. Numerous of those campaigning against the mooted modifications have repeatedly cited OECD figures displaying Australia sits at the bottom of rich nation public schooling investing, drawing the implication that this jeopardises the continued achievement of our tertiary program. This is highly disingenuous, as it ignores the position personal contributions play in bringing Australian university investment to a level over the OECD regular.

Higher private contributions could also increase university teaching quality, which presently falls quick of expectations. According to the most current Program Expertise Questionnaire, only 60% of college students are satisfied with the high quality of the educating they get. Bad teaching impacts all college students. Nonetheless, reduced SES students bear a larger share of the discomfort as they are far more most likely to need additional consideration. If a lower SES student falls amongst the cracks, they are much less very likely to be caught. 

A promising way to raise teaching high quality has been put forward by the Grattan Institute. In their report Taking University Educating Critically, it is argued that university educating could be substantially improved by funding an additional 2,500 academics to specialise in university educating. These positions could be funded by way of a five% reduction in commonwealth tuition subsidies, just below $ 350 per student. This small improve in pupil fees to spend for much better teaching would tremendously advantage reduced SES students.

Senator Lee Rhinanon has argued the the Coalition’s pending adjustments “will further exacerbate declining education high quality and previously struggling pupil welfare schemes.” This is only the case if we really don’t wake up to the regressive nature of much of larger schooling funding. The progressive response ought to not be to give a lot more funds to the once and long term rich. 

If Labor and the Greens are critical about social mobility, and not just middle class welfare, they must rethink their opposition. They must assistance reallocating funding toward far more progressive policies this kind of as early years education, and funding teaching positions that benefit reduced SES college students already in university.

The improve in private contributions to fund these reforms want not be big. Although it appears counterintuitive, this would be a more progressive step forward for our increased schooling method than blanket opposition to funding cuts.

A blanket opposition to education funding cuts isn"t the answer | Daniel Carr and Cameron M Knott

One thing Cameron can"t rip from the young is the vote | Polly Toynbee

Rachel Reeves, Labour’s function and pensions shadow, in her Leeds West constituency. ‘She will not have the youthful unemployed damned as feckless when there are no jobs and little assistance.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond

If Mosquito anti-youth alarms had been fixed to its gates, this government couldn’t have experimented with tougher to repel the misplaced generation. But the youthful do not vote and never matter, whilst castigating them for lack of aspiration scores nicely with David Cameron’s get together. Should not a million young unemployed be creating a youthquake?

The Youth Contract has missed its target by miles. Only two,070 youthful people had been found jobs, when employers have been supposed to be subsidised to take on 160,000 by the election. Some do get function experience, but handful of get genuine work. The cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood, is to report on what to do following.

Top apprenticeships at Rolls-Royce or BAE are gold dust, with a lot more candidates per spot than Oxbridge. But most of what the government calls “apprenticeships” are taken by grownups presently in jobs, carrying out in-house education. A report by the IPPR thinktank this week referred to as for a youth levy on all massive employers failing to offer genuine apprenticeships: Uk businesses offer you disgracefully handful of.

The Prince’s Believe in – no hotbed of revolution – says: “If we lined up Britain’s unemployed younger individuals, the job queue would stretch from London to Middlesbrough.” It reviews a 334% rise in young people unemployed for two years, warning that when people who retreated back to schooling return to seek out jobs, they could “burst the banks of an previously flooded jobs market place”.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics on debt-burdened graduates created grim studying, with half in reduce-degree operate providing weak prospective customers. But as graduates slide downmarket, they push out those beneath them. The IPPR report on Neets (not in training, employment or training) and the semi-competent says 700,000 young individuals on jobseeker’s allowance waste their time on jobcentre targets to make 40 futile work applications a week, instead of going for instruction – since to do so would cost them the allowance and so depart them with absolutely nothing to dwell on.

Many despair or are bullied off rewards: 400,000 Neets have misplaced get in touch with with any person who may well aid. The IPPR would entice them back with a £56.80 allowance for unemployed 18- to 24-year-olds, even in instruction (signifies-tested if parents earn more than £25,000).

Nonetheless, Rachel Reeves, Labour’s perform and pensions shadow, brusquely dismissed such meanness. She will not have the youthful unemployed damned as feckless when there are no jobs and little support. She will generate her definitive social safety policy in January, fleshing out Ed Miliband’s pledge to lower the advantages bill. Which is not to be done by cutting barely survivable advantage prices, (dole is just £71 a week) – but by obtaining people into perform and shrinking the housing advantage bill by building homes.

What Labour delivers the young will be an electoral touchstone. She will enhance Labour’s Jobs Guarantee by cutting the waiting time from a single year to 6 months, so they are not neglected for as well long. Labour’s Potential Jobs Fund was a accomplishment, acquiring a hundred,000 into great jobs in the 9 months just before the last election. Worthwhile operate for the public sector and charities was paid at the minimal wage, with out displacing other jobs. In contrast, this government’s Youth Contract replacing it has been a disaster, except exactly where city authorities took it more than: Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds and others do nicely, matching skills by way of regional expertise of employers and colleges, with personal advisers to aid on housing, travel and family members or psychological wellness obstacles. The national scheme reaches 27.5% of sixteen- to 17-year-old neets, but the cities reach 57%.

Recessions are hardest on the young, but they need to feel this government has been vindictive: the Potential Jobs Fund was abolished Michael Gove seized back the £270m invested on careers advice, telling colleges to do it themselves with no income Ofsted finds only one particular in 6 colleges “satisfactory” the education servicing allowance was abolished, although the Institute for Fiscal Research discovered that it improved numbers staying on soon after 16. Connexions, providing advice and help outside college, was cancelled, and youth services had been often the initial to go in tight council budgets. Even the kid trust fund, providing some long term capital to every 18-yr-outdated, was abolished. Schooling policy focuses obsessively on the best handful of, and vocational programs for individuals not university-bound are neglected. Cameron’s conference speech laid out programs for the Tory manifesto to take housing advantage away from younger men and women, forcing them to remain house even if they do not have a single.

Labour, according to Reeves and Miliband, will make rescuing the misplaced generation their major mission – jobs, properties, help and hope. A £600m tax on bankers bonuses will fund their jobs promise. Votes at 16 might help shift grey-hefty voting that skews every little thing toward safeguarding the interests of the outdated: candidates will require to appeal to sixth form and college students. Labour ought to go additional: why not cost-free bus passes for under-25s, paid for by means-testing elderly people’s winter fuel allowance?

David Willetts’s guide The Pinch lists with brutal clarity how wealth, property and chance had been seized by the infant boomers, who now need the downtrodden youthful to shoulder the price of their old age. But are “the younger” a political entity? Like every age group, they are far a lot more riven by class, education and cash than by chronology. Sharing tastes in music or outfits only masks deepening social divides. Attitudes of the young to rewards make dismal reading for Labour: polls display they are even less supportive of benefits for the unemployed, brought up with this puppy-consume-canine, A*s-only concern for their long term. Ipsos Mori says these furthest from the basis of the welfare state enjoy it least, especially when they’ve paid their own costs and have no good jobs or homes to present for it (though they are unexpectedly warm-spirited in direction of pensioners).

Outrage at Lib Dem perfidy on tuition charges could have turned many off politics. Maybe Russell Brand will rouse them – if he can be bothered to organise a revolution. Some random event may spark the fires of generational injustice. But if the young are not going to organise, riot or rebel, then at least they’d better declare an intention to vote with a vengeance, simply because that may well rattle Westminster’s cage.

Labour will place them centre stage, intending to touch voters of all ages with concern for the plight of the younger: the 1997 New Deal for the youthful unemployed, paid for with a walloping £5bn windfall on the utilities, was not just a fantastic vote-winner – it worked as well.

One thing Cameron can"t rip from the young is the vote | Polly Toynbee