MM Lee Kuan Yew at Speak Mandarin Campaign’s 30th Anniversary Launch

Thirty years ago, I launched this Speak Mandarin Campaign. Chinese students learn Mandarin in school. Unfortunately, they used to speak dialects among themselves and at home. When I watched interviews on our Chinese TV channel in the 1960s and ‘70s, I found students and workers speak Mandarin haltingly. They have not used Mandarin often. Mandarin has to be the common language of Chinese Singaporeans, regardless of their dialect groups. If the government had left language habits to evolve undirected, Chinese Singaporeans would be speaking an adulterated Hokkien-Teochew dialect.

To effectively promote Mandarin, we closed down all dialect programs on radio and TV from 1979. Also, I was setting a bad example making speeches in Hokkien in the 1960s and ‘70s to reach the largest number of Chinese. From 1979, some 30 years ago, I decided to stop speaking in Hokkien and switched to Mandarin. Had I not done this, Hokkien/Teochew will be the predominant common language for the Chinese in Singapore, not Mandarin.

The value of a language is its usefulness, not just in Singapore, but also in the wider world. If you speak Hokkien or Cantonese, you reach some 60 million in Fujian and Taiwan, or about 100 million in Guangdong and Hong Kong. With Mandarin, you can speak to 1,300 million Chinese from all provinces in China. Now, overseas Chinese and foreigners are learning Mandarin, not Chinese dialects. China is setting up 500 Confucius Institutes in different countries to teach Mandarin to many millions of people around the world.

I understand the strong emotional ties to one’s mother tongue. However, the trend is clear. In two generations, Mandarin will become our mother tongue.

English is the key language for our people to make a living. It is the second language of all non English-speaking peoples. Multinational companies use English. Internet data banks are mostly in English. PRC Chinese are learning English with great effort. If Mandarin were our first language, Singaporeans would be of little use to China. They do not need more Mandarin speakers to add to their 1.3 billion. English gives us easy access to English-speaking societies and the developed world. Thus, Singaporeans bring value-add to China. If Ms Lim Sau Hoong spoke only fluent Mandarin, she would not bring added value to her work in China. It is because she also speaks and writes fluent English that she has been able to compete in both languages in the advertising sector. That made her a valuable addition to Zhang Yi-mou’s team to polish up the dramatic opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August 2008.

To keep a language alive, you have to speak and read it frequently. The more you use one language, the less you use other languages. So the more languages you learn, the greater the difficulties of retaining them at a high level of fluency. I have learned and used six languages – English, Malay, Latin, Japanese, Mandarin and Hokkien. English is my master language. My Hokkien has gone rusty, my Mandarin has improved. I have lost my Japanese and Latin, and can no longer make fluent speeches in Malay without preparation. This is called “language loss”.

All new countries have multiple dialects and languages in their mixed populations. To become a united nation, the population must speak a common language, so that they can communicate with the government and with one another. Indonesia has hundreds of languages and dialects in their 17,000 islands. Since independence in 1949, they have been teaching and speaking Bahasa Indonesia. In secondary schools and tertiary institutions, they do their lessons only in Bahasa, and not the regional languages and dialects. Bahasa is now the language of government and business in all parts of Indonesia.

Singapore’s multi-racial peoples will never be united if we had used Mandarin as our common language. All non-Chinese, 25% of Singaporeans, will be disadvantaged. The result will be endless strife, as in Sri Lanka, where Singhalese was made the national language and the Tamil-speaking were marginalised. We made the right decision to use English as our common language. We also retained the teaching of mother tongues. Even in 1959 when we first became the Government, my colleagues and I could foresee a time when China would open up and become a huge economic power. Their common language is putonghua, not dialects. Our choice of English has enabled our fast growth. Now with China’s growing economy, parents and students no longer complain of the burden of learning Chinese, a difficult language without spelling or phonetics. Dialects are being overtaken by Mandarin in the region where Mandarin is taught in all Chinese schools. Mandarin will become the common language of the overseas Chinese.

China wants to collaborate with us because through English, we are able to connect with the West. At the same time, our Mandarin is fluent enough to communicate with PRC Chinese on different topics and subjects.

The Speak Mandarin Campaign and our bilingual education policy have resulted in a growing number of young Singaporeans speaking Mandarin among themselves in schools, ITEs, polytechnics and universities. They also watch Mandarin TV more than English TV.

Quite a few Singaporeans with only “AO” or “O” level passes in Chinese have sent me emails from China to thank me for making Mandarin compulsory for them. With this basic foundation, they have been able to expand their vocabulary and increase their fluency after a few months in China. Singapore Press Holdings distributes a free bilingual newspaper called “Wobao” or “My Paper”, which is bilingual in Chinese and English. They have a glossary of translations for the more difficult English and Chinese words and phrases. 250,000 copies of “Wobao” are distributed daily, read by about 500,000. During train or bus rides or at home, you can read it and refresh your recognition of Chinese characters.

School examinations no longer concentrate on mo xie, dictation from memory, or ting xie, listening and writing. They are not needed in real life. With computer programs, you can type the pinyin and the characters will appear. Since 2007, we have allowed the use of digital dictionaries in national examinations.

Singapore’s advantage has been that we have a Mandarin-speaking community. We have newspapers, magazines, books, and television programmes in Chinese. We need some 300 Singaporean graduates each year who have Chinese language and culture at a high level, to interact with their China counterparts. The flow of new migrants from China as our citizens and Permanent Residents will help in this process.

English is our dominant language everywhere. Most students will have little difficulty in mastering working-level English. However, if parents speak in English to their children at home, learning Mandarin will be a problem. Research of American-born Chinese disclosed that when these second-generation Chinese try to learn Chinese in college, those who speak English at home found mastering Chinese as difficult as Caucasian-Americans; those whose parents spoke to them in Mandarin easily made the grade. My advice is for both parents to speak Mandarin to their children if they can. If one speaks in Mandarin and the other in English, the child will grow up speaking more English than Mandarin.

And with IT digital dictionaries that can translate from English to Chinese and vice versa and also pronounce the words, learning Chinese has become much easier and more convenient, something I did not have when I started learning Chinese in 1955 at age 32.

李光耀资政讲华语运动30周年庆典致辞

新加坡以英语为主的大环境，为英语学习者提供了非常有利的条件，要掌握英语不成问题。但是，随着越来越多的家庭讲英语，要学好华语就成了大问题。所以，今天讲华语运动面对的主要挑战，并不是华语与方言的抗争，而是要扭转华人家庭讲英语的趋势。

说到学习语言，我们必须考虑它的实用价值。英语是世界上最通行的语言，也是我国最重要的工作语言，非掌握不可。华语是全球华人的共同语，是中华文化的主要的载体，也是中国13亿人的通行语言。好好掌握英、华双语，对我们和下一代都有很大的好处。

但是，对于大多数的孩子来说，要同时学习和掌握英、华两种截然不同的语言，不是一件容易的事。所以，我们一定要集中火力学习英、华双语，而不是倡导方言的学习。

学习方言不但剥夺了孩子学习英、华双语宝贵的时间与精力，而且方言的发音、词汇、和语法与华语有许多不同之处，这也严重干扰了孩子英、华语文的能力。为什么我们要加重孩子不必要的负担？为什么我们不让孩子好好掌握英、华双语？

天下父母心，每位家长都希望子女将来能出人头地，事业有成。所以父母亲在孩子年幼的时候，就必须明智地为孩子设想和决定，学好哪一种语言，对他们日后的发展最有利。

我鼓励那些能说华语的家长，在日常生活中和孩子讲华语，让孩子多接触华语，这对孩子学习华语文肯定会很有帮助。有些家长担心，不和孩子讲英语，孩子在学校里或工作上吃亏。这种顾虑是可以理解的。

我的其中一个华文老师蔡志礼就是个例子。他女儿出世后，为了帮助她掌握双语，他太太就用英语和女儿沟通，而他本人则用华语。但是他发现这样的方式行不通，因为在新加坡以英文为主的大环境里，英语自然而然的成了孩子的主导语言。三年前，他当年四岁的女儿向他说, “爸爸， ABC比较容易”。我那时就给了蔡志礼一个忠告，劝他太太不要再和女儿说英语。他听从我的建议，夫妇俩在家中只用华语和女儿交谈，替她打好双语兼备的根基。

报业控股执行总裁陈庆鏻和他的太太的华语都说得很好。但是他们却以英语和孩子交谈，现在孩子都不喜欢讲华语，学习华文也面对困难，所以他 对我说后悔已经太迟了。

我的两个儿子都是华校生，我的两个媳妇都能说流利的华语，可是他们在家里用英语和孩子沟通，结果在我的7个孙子孙女当中，除了一个孙女，其他都不喜欢说华语，学习华语也面对问题。当我以华语向他们提问时，他们总是喜欢用英语回答。有时候，我还得逼着他们用华语回答。

报业控股和蔡志礼正帮助我编辑一本书，说明学习英、华双语这两种截然不同语言的困难，和探讨语言教育的方向。

我希望大家认真参考这些例子，在孩子年幼阶段，就和孩子说华语，为孩子奠下学习华语的良好基础。这对他们日后的发展大有帮助。将来，孩子一定会感谢你们所做的明智决定。