The English Language Has Raped the Chinese People

I came across this topic on the Peking Duck which I found very interesting, plus translating articles that are not remotely work related is infinitely so much more fun! You may also like to check out the full Chinese text and comments.

Why is it said that the English language has raped the Chinese people? (I am referring to the overwhelming majority of Chinese people, not including those who willingly allow themselves to be raped, indeed there are some outstanding heroes who on the contrary rape the English language) . In the opening to my essay I would like to discuss the definition and consequences of rape.

The literal meaning of rape is to violate someone's wishes and to forcibly have sexual intercourse with that person. This usually takes place between a man and a woman. Of course of late there have been numerous cases of male rape victims of male perpetrators. We can go further to include pyschological rape etc...

Rape usually leads to serious consequences: the timid suffer in silence and blame themselves; the bold lodge a police report immediately and have the rapists sent to jail but they often cannot escape the scrutiny and gossip of the public for what happened to them. The victims of rape suffer an irreversible setback and have a feeling of isolation. Some of them who are unable to bear the burden take their own lives, there are those who become pregnant with their rapists' child and end up marrying them. How a rape takes place is usually quite similar, but victims of rape suffer in many ways...

Let's take a look at how the English language has raped the Chinese people:

1) Compulsory English learning is in violation of the wishes of the majority

One must learn English as long as one is enrolled in a state-run school regardless of whether or not one needs to, regardless of whether the English learned will be put to use. I don't know what it's like in HK or in Taiwan but in the Mainland you will not be admitted to prestigious senior high schools (gaozhong), you may not even be allowed entry into ordinary senior high schools, let alone university. Even if you do make it to university, you will not be able to graduate easily or move on to further study if you do not achieve Grade 4 or Grade 6 in English, regardless of whether your work requires a knowledge of English. I think most ordinary people will find no use for English, there are many people around me who regret having put in so much effort to learn the language. If you would ask these people after 3 and a half years, you'll find that 70-80% will have forgotten all that they've learnt a long time ago. I really don't understand why I must learn an utterly useless foreign language in my own country and why my future prospects are affected if I don't. I'll learn it if I have to, why must I be made to? What is this if not rape? On some levels, English is an instrument of rape and the people who introduced the strategy of compulsory English learning are the perpetrators of rape.

2) Compulsory English damages the interests of the majority

Those who have attended school will have a deep impression of how even from junior high school (chuzhong) most of our time was dedicated to learning English, whether it was memorising vocabulary or grammar rules. We probaly spent half our extracurricular time and 2/3 of class time learning a language that is not ours. Our youth, our golden years raped by the English language!!! Some might say we could've chosen not to learn! Could we? If you did not take learning English seriously you would definitely not make it into a good school, perhaps not even into an ordinary school. When I was in junior high, I always came out among the top five in language, math and science subjects. I was often the top student in physics and chemistry. However, I was second last in the English subject in my entire school. When taking the exam to enter senior high , my overall results was 12 points short of that required by the outstanding high schools , and I only scored 17 points on my English paper. From then on my studies took a down turn. It was the English language that suffocated me. It was the English language that snuffed out numerous talented people... (I study by rote learning) Many people like myself had to go home to change the earth after junior or senior high. I really don't know whether they had to speak English to the earth everyday. I'm not too sure what he's trying to say here.

3)Compulsory English has ruined the future development of Chinese science

The blossoming of a hundred flowers refers to the blossoming of talents during the Spring Autumn Warring Period, which is arguably the Renaissance of the Chinese history. Now however, China has till today not produced a single Nobel Prize Winner on its own soil even while Western science develops and grows at a tremendous pace. Some people attribute this to a difference societal systems. I, on the other hand, think that this is a result of compulsory English learning. Students should be taught according to their aptitude and not forced to learn something that is against their nature. With most of their time spent memorising boring vocabulary lists and grammar, students do not allocate enough time to learn about other subjects. In order to gain admission into outstanding senior high schools and key universities - sometimes just so you earn the right to an education - you end up foregoing your interests and what you're good at. For some, this means forfeiting their chances of winning the Nobel Prize in the future.

4) Compulsory English learning has robbed many of their living

I don't object to learning English but I am very much against the notion of compulsory English. English should be a profession, not a basic skill. Those who have a need to learn English and succeed should be credited with a corresponding salary. Those who do not need to learn English should devote their effort to other areas of development. When they need English then they should employ those who have a very good command of the language which is far better than most other people. If everyone studies English language very hard but yet do not learn all that much, this on the contrary robs people who have a good command of the English language of their livelihood. Though how the writer came to this conclusion is beyond me and I'm not sure what point what his point is, assuming he had one in the first place.

5) Learning methods in spite of objective realities

Anyone who judges a country's citizens based on their command of a foreign language is just plain stupid, no matter how many arguments in favour he puts forward.

With our mother tongue, first we learn how to speak, then we learn the characters followed by grammar. The reverse is true of learning the English language. I remember when I was at school I used to note pronuncation of English words by writing down how they'd sound in Chinese characters and still I could not make myself remember them. My girlfriend's has attained Grade 4 English but still foreigners, even English-speaking foreigners do not understand what she's trying to say.

Dear me... what sort of times do we live in, that I must learn another person's language in my own country, in my home, in order to go to university and to look for work? This language will not benefit me in any way, I will have no use for it for as long as I live.

The English language has really raped the Chinese people in an unbelievable way and has done so for decades. Who knows how long more this outrage will continue?

I don't even know what to say to this guy. Hell, I don't even know what my mother tongue is. Maybe I have two, but I think that concept is a bit far fetched for him and too much for his puny, stubbornly monolingual brain to process.