Chinese language, culture still unfamiliar to most westerners

Although China has a trade surplus, with foreign exchange reserve of 700 billion US dollars, westerners still have a very limited knowledge of the Chinese culture and language, Zhao Qiguang, director of the Asian Language and Culture Department of Carleton University said in Beijing Thursday at the World Chinese Conference.

He added that some Chinese children speak better of Western culture than their own.

Currently more than 300 million foreigners are learning Chinese, but it is hard to tell how many of them can really master the language, Zhao said. In the United States, about 24,000 high school students are learning Chinese, while more than one million high school students are learning French.

"We should take notice that the 1.3 billion population in China and the 80 million population in France stand behind these two languages. The Chinese language still has a long way to go before becoming an international language," Zhao said.

As a veteran Chinese teaching expert, Zhao pointed out the Chinese teaching method should comply with a modernized society. "We should emphasize Putonghua, Pinyin and simplified characters in the teaching courses. The textbooks should be simple, and standard Chinese should be taught systematically and continuously."

"Most importantly, only 50 percent of the Chinese people can speak Putonghua, so we must improve ourselves to better popularize our language and culture," said Zhao.

He noted that the establishment of the Confucius Institute overseas was of great significance, as more and more foreign students and businesses are taking an interest in Chinese language and culture.

The two-day conference debuted here on July 20 with the theme of "the Development of Chinese in a Multi-cultural World", and has attracted nearly 600 government officials, Sinologists and Chinese learners from 67 countries and regions, among which more than 350 came from overseas.

Source: Xinhua