The chaos behind learning a foreign language

The State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs released not too long ago the results of a survey it conducted: Command of the Chinese language, it seems, remains a skill beyond the ability of most expats in China.

Seventy-three percent can understand only simple words in Chinese. Eighteen percent comprehend what's being said most of the time, but they cannot reliably make themselves understood. Only 8 percent can speak simple Chinese.

The main barrier, it seems, is that it is written in characters rather than an alphabet. It is said, for example, that to comfortably make one's way through a Chinese newspaper, one has to be familiar with about 1,500 characters. Beginner Chinese textbooks often set their goal at about 500 characters.

English, in contrast, is based on a 26-letter alphabet, and using that together with a few phonetic rules, one can plod his way through just about any piece of writing.

Easy, right? You might think so.

Out on the streets of Beijing, I always run into mothers or grandmothers who, seeing that I'm a foreigner, coach the toddlers in their care to say, "Hello" and "Bye-bye". Three－or 4-year-olds, mind you.

Around the corner from my apartment is a school that has an enrollment of several hundred 4- to 12-year-olds who spend much of their free time learning to speak English. There are similar institutes throughout the city.

And anyone who aspires to higher education in China had better bone up on English, because it's one of the subjects required on the national college entrance examination.