Lee Kuan Yew: "In two generations, Mandarin will become our mother tongue"

[dream_waker]

The 2nd language policy is/was a distraction & a disaster. How many here struggled with mandarin in school

Think of all the time & effort people wasted trying to learn this language

More importantly how many really need mandarin? Many don't need to communicate with PRC chinese. How many times do you communicate with bus drivers, food handlers,...., that are working in Spore?


The language policy & other PAP policies have driven many Sporeans to find a new home in west. Sporeans are a diverse group: chinese, indians, malays, eurasians,.., how can you force all of them to learn mandarin? Now that we have filipinos, indonesians, indians, etc in Spore do you think they'll want to learn mandarin?

In today world, if you only know english, you are not much better than ah neh, it is amazing how outdated are the mindset of some people.

 

[KNNBCCB]

Fuck LKY for abolishing dialects and forcing Putonghua into everybody's throats.

This i really have to Fuck him... :oIo:
We should preserve the dialects...
How many of the youngsters nowadays really know about the dialects ?

 

[kukubird58]

This i really have to Fuck him... :oIo:
We should preserve the dialects...
How many of the youngsters nowadays really know about the dialects ?

hahaha...don't worry, at least they know what knnbccb stands for...

 

[dream_waker]

This i really have to Fuck him... :oIo:
We should preserve the dialects...
How many of the youngsters nowadays really know about the dialects ?

The dialects spoken by sinkie were very crude and peasant-standard.

 

[SneeringTree]

LKY is not wrong. In two generations all the Chinese in Sinkapore would be from PRC.

 

[scroobal]

These guys are playing with fire. Language has been a political tool from day one in Singapore.

The moment PRC came into picture in terms of scholarship, students enrolled at young age in schools across the country the equation changed. These guys were placed in classes at a lower standard to catch up on English while they rocketed ahead in other subjects.

And to Sneer's point, old man is right but for all the wrong reasons. I have spoken to IB Bilingual Diploma holders and they tell that is significant gap between locals and PRC and they don't see it ever being breached.

If China becomes a significant trading partner, that relationship on the Singapore side will owned by Singapore PRC and not the local. It reminded me a time until the late 1980s when the only non malays employed by local banks were Indian office boys and Malay mailroom and despatch staff.

It also explains why emigrations within the professionals ranks are growing including for doctors.

 

[Ramseth]

The 2nd language policy is/was a distraction & a disaster. How many here struggled with mandarin in school

Think of all the time & effort people wasted trying to learn this language

More importantly how many really need mandarin? Many don't need to communicate with PRC chinese. How many times do you communicate with bus drivers, food handlers,...., that are working in Spore?

I beg to differ. I went to an English school at pri. sch. level (during days when Chinese pr. sch. were still available). It was thanks to the bilingual policy that I got at least a few periods of Chinese lesson per week. Chinese is beautiful and not difficult once you get pass the psychological barrier of imagining that a few thousand characters is impossible to memorise. Get pass that and you'll realise that the complicated strokes make Chinese characters easier to memorise and to recognise.

At sec. sch., I was also in a deeply entrenched traditional English school that wouldn't have Chinese lessons if not for the bilingual policy. Chinese is not only beautiful but useful, in Singapore and elsewhere in the world, even well before China becomes the economic power as she is today.

However, I disagree with the policy of local Chinese must pass Chinese. Teaching is one thing. If the student isn't interested or inclined, there's no use forcing. It has the opposite effect of making them fear or even hate it.

 

[123456787654321]

The only thing I can see from this is the same old divide and rule bullshit being applied to the local Singaporean Chinese population again.

You have some who are good in English only, some who are good in Chinese only, a few who are good in both English and Chinese, and a whole lot who speak Singlish only, and all of them look down on one another all thanks to the Mother Tongue policy. English will argue Chinese is overemphasized; Chinese will argue about roots, heritage and culture; Effectively Bilingual will smugly declare it's not difficult at all to master two languages and those who can't are dumb and lazy; Singlish will ask why the big fuss ah, you all just want to hao lian, see us no up iz it?

Time to play class segregation again... er I mean time to play language segregation again. Wonderful.