Chinese Is the Best Language

Being strong is important， but knowing who you can count on is also important. 做一個堅強的人很重要，但知道誰可以依靠也同樣重要。

Miracles will happen to those who believe in miracles. 相信奇跡的人，才能見證奇跡。

The best language to learn， argues Simon Long， is Chinese. Look at the numbers…

“In German oder English I know how to count down

Und I’m learning Chinese，” says Wernher von Braun

Half a century ago， when Tom Lehrer wrote his satirical song， the idea of a German rocket scientist counting backwards to zero in Chinese must have sounded both exotic and rather sinister to his American audience.satirical：含諷刺意味的，嘲諷的；exotic：異國的，異乎尋常的；sinister：危險的，兇兆的。 Now that China is ready to take over from America as the country that sends men to the moon， surely there can be no doubt that it talks the language the rest of us should be learning.

This is not， in fact， rocket science， but economic and political common sense. China is the most populous nation on earth. Even when India assumesassume：If you assume that something is true， you imagine that it is true， sometimes wrongly. that status in the next decade or so， Chinese speakers will still far outnumber those who understand and speak India’s biggest language， Hindi， even if Pakistani speakers of Urdu， which is very similar， are added in. If the point of a language is to be able to communicate with as many people as possible， there is no contestcontest：A contest is a competition or game in which people try to win.. Of course， there are many languages in China， too. But “standard Chinese” （putonghua， aka “Mandarin”)， or something close to it， is understood almost everywhere， as it is taught in schools. So there is no need to agoniseagonise：苦斗，苦苦思索。 over which dialectdialect：方言。 to learn.

China’s economy is going to be the biggest in the world—the only question is when. You can make your own educated guess by using the clever interactiveinteractive：If you describe a group of people or their activities as interactive， you mean that the people communicate with each other。 infographicinfographic：信息圖形。 at economist.com/chinavusa. The defaultdefault：A default situation is what exists or happens unless someone or something changes it. option is 2018. Already China’s spectacularspectacular：Something that is spectacular is very impressive or dramatic. 30year boomboom：If there is a boom in the economy， there is an increase in economic activity， for example in the amount of things that are being bought and sold。 has transformedtransform：To transform something into something else means to change or convert it into that thing。 our lives. When I grew up in London， there were no Chinese tourists， and nothing we owned was made in China. And now? The Chinese economy is likely to continue to outpace the rich world’s for decades to come， tiltingtilt：If a person or thing tilts towards a particular opinion or if something tilts them towards it， they change slightly so that they become more in agreement with that opinion or position。 the balance of economic power. Learn Chinese， not to impressimpress：If something impresses you， you feel great admiration for it. your future boss， but to understand what she is saying.

Simon Long is the Banyan columnist for The Economist

文章選自英國《Intelligent Life》雜志的一個系列專題“What is the best language to learn”。

這是個有趣的話題。在母語是英語的人們心中，如今最值得學(xué)習(xí)的外語是什么？好奇嗎？除了中文，還有French，Spanish，Arabic，Brazilian Portuguese和Latin。

祖母說，人的個性就像咖啡的不同味道：我是法式香草，甜甜的；爸爸是意大利濃咖啡，強烈，有人愛有人恨。那時我不相信，開玩笑說這個想法有點古怪。

多年后，我走進咖啡廳，“榛仁，奶油，一點點糖”——祖母生前的最愛。伴著咖啡香回憶祖母的人生哲學(xué)……