即席英文撰稿比賽第一名
Will Chinese Become the Next Global Language like English?
五專應外五甲/王湘貽
English has been the lingua franca of the world for decades due to the extremely strong economy of the United States and Great Britain which was powerful enough to be considered he sun never sets on the British Empire.?As the economy of China is booming, some might wonder if Chinese will be the next global language.
Yet, strong economy is not the only reason that behooves English to become a global language. What really leads English to this condition is that it is an easy language to learn and have wide public acceptance. Chinese, without these two factors, can be a very unlikely candidate for the next global language.
There are numerous evidences indicating the difficulty of Chinese, which indeed poses the threats for it to succeed. With hundreds of thousands of characters and four different tones in every single word, Chinese is deemed one of the hardest languages in the world. Compared to English having only twenty six letters, Chinese has relatively high amount of characters and most of most of which are picture words. That is to say each of them requires commitment to memorize in order to comprehend. As to the phonetics, English has certain rules to follow. On the contrary, Chinese is a tonal language and people can not pronounce words just by looking at the characters. A global language needs to be attainable in terms of pronouncing, writing or usage.
The wide acceptance of English can be easily told from two aspects: the usage of names and computer language. Anything requiring a name has an English one, such as the title of a company. This is the world that we can not live a day without seeing a single word of English. English has secretly influence our lives to the degree that people on the planet know many English vocabularies, meaning and pronunciation. This level of acceptance of a language is irreplaceable. In the world of computer, people use English as the only language. From the address of a website to a computer protocol, there is no way we can arouse a revolution to change from English to Chinese. At this point, clearly, English is inseparable from our lives.
Chinese is definitely on its way of gaining more importance and popularity in terms of business, politics, and culture due to its outperforming economy. However, Chinese is unlikely becoming a global language since it is too hard to approach and can not be widely accepted. Yet, it surely grants those able to speak Chinese a chance to gain their value in employment market.
英文撰稿比賽第一名
The Ways of Cultivating Students' International Perspectives
五專應外五乙/高頵
A couple weeks ago, I was chatting with several of my classmates and was really surprised by their inadequacy in international common sense. This problem seriously drew my attention, and I suddenly came up with a question: we major in Applied Foreign Languages right? Then why are most of my classmates still in shortage of international perspectives? As far as I am concerned, developing international perspectives plays a crucial part in future successful career since one's mindset and outlook might completely change one's deeds and decisions. There are a variety of simple accesses to be connected to the world such as through mass media, international activities and exchange program.
Media are the easiest and most direct way due to its ubiquity. Students can cultivate their mind by reading print media such as newspapers or magazines, listening to radio such as studio classroom or ICRT and also watching BBC or CNN. Take myself as an example, not only do I read Ivy League and listen to advance studio classroom on a daily basis, but also spend time watching CNN. Sometimes I am really busy, and I simply click on website links reading what the breaking news is on that certain day. Those website articles are fairly helpful as they are usually short and easy so that enables me to save time during the hustle and bustle of Iife. Therefore, paying attention to current events around the world is an efficient way to enhance international perspectives.
Another accessible way to cultivate international perspectives is through activities. There are a bunch of international activities either held in Taiwan or abroad. Participating in any kinds of international activities is a golden chance to explore unknowns and broaden horizons. For example, numerous students as volunteers joined 2011 Symposium on Second Language Writing at Howard International House. It was a grand conference full of scholars who have diverse cultural backgrounds. Through listening to their speeches, students can take the advantage of gaining different perspectives and of learning how things were operated and how people were cooperating. Thus it can be seen that joining international activities is a wonderful experience.
If one is brave enough, exchange program also can be quite attractive. It used to be difficult for a lot of students mainly because of the large amount of spending. However, exchange program is not rare anymore thanks to increasing openings from schools and scholarships from the government. During the exchange year, students can be immersed in a certain culture for almost a year and make friends with other exchange students and indeed local students. Based on my many years of observation on myself and other exchange friends, I found something in common Exchange students tend to be more independent and broad-minded after their exchange year. They grow a lot in many aspects, especially spiritual development. They are people of foresight instead of frogs in a well. Naturally， global views have been built up in their minds.
Students may foster interest in whichever way they like. Cultivating international perspectives is important in this competitive global village because it thoroughly changes one's point of view. If one could put more efforts in exposed to media and involved in international activities and exchange program, how does it possible for one lack international perspectives?