Chinese Whispers：英國人眼裡的中國語言

    冊子里有一篇Mr Paddy Ashdown寫的介紹普通話的文章：Chinese whispers，他從一個外國人的眼裡看待中國和普通話，十分有意思。Mr Paddy Ashdown曾經是一名外交官，是Mandarin的翻譯專家。

     第一段：the lingua franca of modern China is not actually called Mandarin（which comes from the bad old days before Communism and refers to the language spoken by the mandarins or court servants）．The politically correct word nowadays is putonghua-meaning the common or ordinary language．Mandarins應該指的是舊中國的政府官員。Mr Paddy Ashdown畢竟是在中國生活多年，比較了解情況。

     第二段：But whatever you call it，this is now arguably，after English of course，the world『s most important language．And not because it is the common language spoken by the world』s biggest country in term of population（1.3 billion now and rising fast-or nearly one quarter of the world『s population）．Though that『s one reason，for it means that，if you can speak Chinese and English，then you can speak to around half of the humanity of our planet。中國人口接近全球四分之一啦！，不過最後一句說得好，你能說中文和英文，你可以和這個星球一半的人講話羅。那麼很多中國人做得到哈。

    第三段：But now，China is more than big--it is also rising．There may be different views about whether this will happen quickly or slowly．I personally think that before China can achiever her full potential，she will have to democratise her society，just as she has liberalised her economy and this may bemore difficult than many understand．Either way，there are very few now who would not accept that she will be one of the major global powers of our age with interests in every part of the world。認同中國將成為世界大國，如同經濟高速發展一樣，其他方面也會發展的。

    第四段：So this is a great language，with great potential．But ，grammatically at least，it is not a difficult language．The difficulties a foreigner experiences with Chinese are more human rather than intellectual。中國語言是屬於高智商的語言呢。我們都應該為能說中國話感到自豪。不要羨慕人家會說英文，老外還羨慕你會說中文呢。

    第五段：And the fist comes from the language『s beauty．There is a wonderful mellifluous musical underpinning to chinese，which exists in no other language--indeed the language only works if you understand its music．This  is because this is a monosyllabic language with the differentiation between one word and another being entirely dependent on the tone is which it is said （there are four tones in Putonghua，seven in Cantonese）．And some of the tones even change according to heir juxtaposition with others．The effect,multiplied by a great richness of regional accent（in Beijing they roll their 「 r 」and slide their elisions in a way that would make any Devonian proud）adds up to a language which is immensely pleasing to ear．Often when I hear Chinese visitors speaking putonghua on the streets of London，I will hang around them for a bit，just for the pleasure of hearing them talk。這段開始談到中國話的印象了，單音節詞語再加上音調，組成美麗動聽的中國話。還特地談到北京人很為捲舌音自豪，京腔嘛。普通話有四聲調我知道，沒想到廣東話竟然是七聲調，不知道北海話是多少聲調。

    第六段：Learning to apply these tones accurately can be tricky for a foreigner at first and sometimes leads to hilarious mistakes（I once accidentally asked a very proper Chinese lady at a dinner party if she had ever sat on a flying penis，instead of what I meant to ask her，if she had ever flown on an aircraft）。還說了一個黃色笑話，不過我還沒完全明白，「坐飛機」怎麼就能說到那方面去了呢？

    第七段：To learn spoken Putonghua，you need a good ear（though not necessarily a musical）and an ability to mimic．To learn the written language，what you chiefly need is a good memory．Here the problem is that written Chinese is not spelt，it is drawn．Western written languages（and indeed most world ones）depend on words being spelt in letters from an alphabet．But in chinese there is no alphabet．Each word is represented by a different picture．This means that to read or write for a newspaper like，say the Sun，you would need to know perhaps 6,000 characters--for the Guardian you would need 10，000．And an educated Chinese would know upwards of 40，000。這談到中國字了，老外學拼音學得快，但寫中國字對他們來說是噩夢，這裡也有很多華人能說不能寫。不過就算中國字是筆畫，也是有規律可循的，你們老外沒掌握而已。說到一個受教育的中國人至少懂得4萬以上中國字，有這麼多嗎？ 不過中國人聰明、記憶好是全世界公認的，就因為我們從小就記憶那麼多高難度的中國字。

    第八段：Learning these can be quite a sweat，though by no means insurmountable．Speaking and reading Mandarin or putonghua will give you contact with one of the world』s greatest civilisations，richest histories and most importan nations in the emerging world。結束語，學習中文可以讓你見識到世界上最偉大的文化、最豐富的歷史和新興世界中最重要的國家。