In 2030, bilingual countries’ badmouthing is also a driving force for growth.

Taiwan will become a bilingual country in 2030. When I first heard the news, I thought, "Taiwan is so international and trendy!" However, some language scholars believe that if English is placed above Taiwanese languages, it will become a vicious cycle in the long run. ; With the passage of generations, local languages ​​will disappear and become extinct, and national language and cultural identity will be lost; the current education system planning lacks feasibility and will be in vain. Yaoshou is worthy of being a scholar. I only think about the good tide.

I have a friend who is very worried that the next generation will not be able to speak Taiwanese. He married a very wealthy Chinese girl a few years ago. Once I saw a video of a conversation between him and his 5-year-old son, I shed tears silently because the content was Talking about life and death, and doing so in Taiwanese, made me reflect on the importance of language and culture. None of us want to lose our own culture, which is what the country and the people must work together to preserve.

Even English will be manipulated?

When I was a kid, I didn’t listen to anything in class, no matter it was English, Chinese, or singing classes. When I grew up, I needed to use it until I realized that I would miss the book when I use it. Internationally, it seems that if you don’t speak English, it will be difficult to connect with the world; if you don’t have English skills in the workplace, the jobs you can do are limited; some universities also have English proficiency tests, and if you don’t pass the threshold, you won’t be able to get a diploma or even enroll in a graduate school. I don’t even have the qualifications; I can’t ask for directions when I go abroad because I don’t understand the language, but the odds are against the odds.

There are too many examples in society. Under the pressure of internationalization, English skills have gradually been classified as basic language skills. Under the hype of the media, English learning has also become anxious. You are anxious, your mother is anxious, and your whole family is anxious. anxiety. I saw actual cases of language manipulation in a paper written by He Wanshun and Jiang Wenyu, "Bilingual Country in 2030: The Fallacy of Reason and Value," and I was honestly a little angry.

In 2003, Zhongxin Company held a press conference with the Taiwan Global Education Promotion Association and Excellent Public Relations Company to publish the "Survey Report on the Current Situation of English Proficiency of College Students". The report pointed out that "32% of college students only have a junior high level in English". In public relations Due to the company's successful operation, various media outlets rushed to report and exaggerate it. Since then, fake news such as "college students are good at English" and "Taiwanese people are good at English" have been staged every year. There have been at least thousands of similar fake news in the past two decades. – 2030 Bilingual Country: The Fallacy of Reason and Value (He Wanshun, Jiang Wenyu, 2021)

How much social or workplace discrimination does the anxiety caused by these fake news extend to? These people heat up the topic and make a lot of money. There are many ways to learn a language, and by using this anxiety-provoking method, you really have to help everyone pay the National Health Insurance premium.

The inevitable process for a bilingual country is to be badmouthed

Every time a reform is proposed, there will always be someone who refuses or pessimizes it. Well... it should be said that they are worried, but some pessimism also makes the policy better, so pessimism still has a positive meaning. The government’s four concepts: “Comprehensively strengthen the English proficiency of Chinese people from the demand side”, “Use digital technology to shorten the gap between urban and rural resources”, “Talk into account bilingual policies and the development of mother tongue culture”, and “Create the talent competition advantage of the younger generation”. Sorry, I think everything is very positive no matter how I look at it, and I also responded that the mother tongue culture will be taken into account. Maybe the policy sounds good, but it will be a bit sad to implement it in practice. But people are not omnipotent. How will you know if you don’t try? Only by trying can there be room for improvement. , I may be more Buddhist-minded and optimistic.

In the past, military unification was used, but now economic unification is used. If you look at the case of mainland China, you will know that if you can improve the national competitiveness through English, what's wrong with that? I am not belittling Taiwan’s language. I just hope that Taiwan can be seen internationally and have a more international perspective. We can no longer just look at Taiwan’s news media to learn about world affairs, but we must also look at the news balance of international media. Otherwise, our thoughts will be easily influenced.

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Related information reference

• Taiwan Executive Yuan｜2019/01/11｜ Building Taiwan into a bilingual country by 2030—Building people’s English proficiency to enhance national competitiveness
• Economic Daily｜2019/03/13｜ Bilingual country, are we ready?
• Key comments｜2022/01/21｜ The "2030 Bilingual Nation Plan" is a challenge for the government and will also become the courage for Taiwanese people to get out of the island
• Taiwan Linguistic Society｜2022/02/21｜ Replace “bilingual country” with “multilingual Taiwan, English-friendly”! Position statement of the Taiwan Language Society’s “2030 Bilingual Nation” policy
• Reporter｜2022/03/11｜ Guo Lixin/Bilingual national policy and deep-rooted cultural inferiority