酷兔英语


Anshul Khanna went on his first business trip to Shanghai a couple of months ago. His biggest challenge there? Ordering a chicken burger at the local KFC.


安苏尔•卡纳(Anshul Khanna)几个月前第一次出差去上海。遇到的最大难题是什么?是在当地的肯德基购买鸡肉汉堡。



'I had to point at the menu to show what I wanted â ' no one spoke English,' said the 23-year-old, who recently joined his family business in New Delhi, a power cable company that imports equipment from China.


23岁的卡纳说,我不得不指着菜单来表示我要买什么,没有一个人讲英语。卡纳最近加入了位于新德里的家族企业,这是一家电缆公司,从中国进口器材。



While describing Shanghai as 'the New York of Asia,' he said basic communication was a huge problem. In taxis, he had to flash business cards with Chinese characters to get where he wanted. But it was outside Shanghai â '  in cities like Nantong â ' that linguistic barriers really drove him up the wall. There 'even the KFC menu was just in Chinese,' he explained.


虽然把上海称作"亚洲的纽约",但卡纳说,基本的交流都成了一个大问题。出租车上,他得把印有汉字的名片拿给司机看,才能到达自己要去的地方。而真正让他发疯的语言障碍还是出现在上海以外的南通等城市。他解释说,在那些城市里,连肯德基菜单都只印有汉字。



India has long benefited from the fact that English, which is widely spoken among educated Indians, is the main language of global business.


印度受过教育的人普遍说英语,英语是从事国际业务采用的主要语言,印度长期受惠于此。



But as China's economic power has grown, so has India's trade with its northern neighbor which is now India's biggest trade partner. China's premier Wen Jiabao -who arrives in India Wednesday for a three-day visit -is hoping to deepencommercial ties further, even as relations on some fronts continue to be shaky.


但中国经济实力今非昔比,印度与这个北方邻国间的贸易也是这样。中国现在是印度最大的贸易伙伴。尽管两国某些方面关系仍不稳定,周三到访印度展开为期三天访问的中国总理温家宝,仍指望进一步加深两国经贸关系。



The Chinese Embassy in New Delhi currently receives over 500 visa applications every day â ' and the majority of these are for business. Some Indians decided another language may be increasingly vital to their business interests.


中国驻印度大使馆目前每天接到500多份签证申请,其中多数是商务签证。一些印度人觉得,再学一门语言对于自己的商业利益或许是越来越重要了。



Mr. Khanna now takes weekend classes at The Chinese Language Institutein New Delhi, one of a handful of private Mandarin language schools in India's capital.


卡纳现在参加新德里的"中国语言学院"(Chinese Language Institute)周末班。该院是印度首都为数不多的几个私立普通话语言学校之一。



'I had enough of sign language,' he said, speaking after his third class in Mandarin, China's most widely-spokendialect on Sunday.


他在周日上完第三堂普通话课之后说,我已经厌烦了打手势跟人交流。



Many of the school's students, like Mr. Khanna, are businessmen who already work in China. Others hope learning Mandarin will help them do business there in the future.


学院很多学生和卡纳一样都是已经在中国工作的商人。其他人指望学习普通话将会有助于他们将来在中国做生意。



When Rachit Makker, a 21-year old masters student in internationalfinance, decided his CV could do with an third language on top of Hindi and English, Mandarin was the obvious choice because, as he put it, 'China is where the business lies.' Taking up European languages â ' like French or German â ' didn't even cross his mind. Again, he was thinking business: 'Most European countries are bankrupt, there are no good business opportunities there.'


21岁国际金融专业硕士研究生拉奇•马卡(Rachit Makker)决定要在求职信里加上除印地语和英语之外的第三门语言时,普通话成了显而易见的选择。正如他所说,中国是生意宝地。学法语或德语之类的欧洲语言?他想都没想过。他也是从经商的角度去想:多数欧洲国家都破产了,那些地方没有良好的商业机会。



During their lesson on Sunday, beginner-level students were practicing small talk in Mandarin and discussing the differences between 'good' and 'best' friend â ' 'hao' and 'zui hao'. Some students were grappling with what they saw as linguistic oddities. 'So there is no difference between 'I like her' and 'I like him?' one student asked when first confronted with Mandarin's gender neutrality.


周日课上,入门级学生练习用普能话作简短交流,讨论"好"和"最好"的区别。一些学生在琢磨他们眼中的神奇语言现象。一位学生在首次见识到普通话的性别中立时问:"'我喜欢她'和"我喜欢他"没有任何区别?"



The school's focus is strictly conversational. Rather than learn Chinese characters, Indian students work with the easier-to-look-at transliterations in the Roman alphabet, a system known as 'pinyin.' Teachers use both Hindi and English to help students get the tones right, one of the biggest hurdles to learning the language.


学院严格注重对话交流。印度学生学习的不是汉字,而是更容易辨认的拼音。老师用印地语和英语来帮助学生掌握声调,这是学习普通话的最大难关之一。



Enrollments at the school â ' which first opened in 2005 â 'Â this year climbed a roughly 25% to about 200 students, according to Purima Garg, the school's director.


学校2005年开办,据院长嘎格(Purima Garg)说,今年入学人数约为200,增长约25%。



Applications to study Chinese have also surged at the University of Delhi, according to Kailash Chand Mathur, an associate professor in Chinese language and literature at the university. This year, the university received over 400 applications for 70 places to study beginner-level Mandarin.


德里大学(University of Delhi)中国语言与文学助理教授马杜拉(Kailash Chand Mathur)说,该校申请学习中文的人数也已经大幅增长。今年德里大学收到70个地方400多份学习入门级普通话的申请。



Soon, many younger Indian students will also be given the option to take up Mandarin. Earlier this month, the country's board of education announced that 'in view of China emerging as one of the major global economies,' it plans to add Mandarin to its state-school syllabus. Starting in April 2011, this will give schools across the country the option of teaching Mandarin to their 11-year old students.


不久,印度很多年龄更小的学生也将可以选择学习普通话。本月早些时候,印度教育委员会宣布,考虑到中国正在成为世界主要经济体之一,它计划在国立中学课程大纲中加入普通话。这样,从2011年4月份开始,全国各个中学都将可以教11岁的学生学习普通话。



But one thing is signing up for a Mandarin course â ' another is sticking with it. 'The drop out rate is very high,' said Delhi University's Mr. Mathur. 'Only one in four make it till the end.'


但选课学习普通话是一回事,坚持下去又是另一回事。德里大学的马杜拉说,退课率非常高,只有四分之一的人坚持到了最后。



Margherita Stancati