Part 3 READING PASSAGE 3

The Language revolution

Read the text below and answer Questions 28-40.

“In the next decade the new ‘must learn’ language is likely to be Mandarin”, said language researcher David Graddol, in a recent issue of the journal Science. He echoed a view expressed by academics and business people across the western world.

English speakers have had it pretty good. Modern English is the most widely taught and understood language in the world. It is the dominant international language in communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, diplomacy and on the Internet. Around 400-500 million people speak it as their first language and up to 1.5 billion have a basic proficiency in English.

Mother tongue

There have of course been other languages bidding for the language crown. Competing world languages have included, at various times and in various regions, Neo-Latin, French, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Sanskrit, Hindu-Urdu and Malay.

Today, Mandarin Chinese, the official language of China, is the one to watch. And while the global share of English is clearly still huge, the number of native speakers is vastly outnumbered by those who speak Mandarin as their first language: an estimated 867m.

The sheer size of China’s population and the country’s increasing importance in the world economy and in politics account partly for its position. We are also seeing the spread, for example, of the government sponsored Confucius Institutes which run courses in Chinese and Chinese culture in many places outside China, reflecting the country’s increased power and confidence.

Education too is starting to reflect the growing importance of the language, particularly in the US where an estimated 24,000 young people are already studying Mandarin. With the government setting up a US$114 million initiative to increase the teaching of ‘critical’ languages in US schools, this number looks set to rise dramatically.

And people are recognising the practical benefits and role of Chinese in business. In particular, businesses are interested in employing people who can speak Mandarin, but are not necessarily Chinese, though even those working in China can still get away with only limited knowledge of the language.

Nick Harrison, a UK banker based in Shanghai, has on the ground experience having moved there in December 2005. “Our business discussions are all in English, and the vast majority of office administration is written and spoken in Chinese.”

Learning the language

Learning Mandarin is a big challenge though. “We generally say it takes three years of full time study to have a working knowledge of Chinese, including knowledge of the script. If you just want to speak it, it probably takes one year”, says Michel Hockx, professor at London’s School of African and Oriental Studies. “Perhaps if we started learning at an earlier age, we might learn faster, but if you are starting in your early

twenties, it takes much longer.”

Nick Harrison’s experiences support this theory. “I definitely don’t speak Mandarin, but am having lessons once a week”, he says. “My two year old daughter, Claudia, is progressing well and is destined to be my translator in the future.”

Questions 28-32

Complete the table below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the text for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet.

FACT	DESCRIPTION
28	The person who predicts the growth of Mandarin
29	The name of the journal mentioned in the article
30	The number of people worldwide speaking a little English
31	The name of China’s language teaching schools
32	How often Nick Harrison studies Mandarin

Questions 33-40

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?

In boxes 33-40 on your answer sheet, write:

TRUE.	if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE.	if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN.	If there is no information on this