Learning English is overrated

South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

Academics do talk rubbish sometimes, says Jake Van Der Kamp. Last month, for example, some experts in early childhood education took Hong Kong’s native Cantonese speakers to task for not speaking enough English to their children. Nearly half of our first-time parents were only doing it for 15 minutes or less a day, they warned, when they should ideally be doing it for three hours. Are they kidding? Very few parents in this city get as much as three hours of close personal interaction with their child each day. Why would they want to ruin what little time they do get “conversing in a language with which both parties have only halting familiarity”? Besides, the advantages conferred by a high degree of fluency in English are overrated anyway. Yes, it’s the language of commerce, but people have long managed to do business using imperfect or pidgin forms of other tongues. “The obvious example is Lingua Franca, a combination of Italian, French, Greek, Spanish and Arabic, formerly spoken by merchants in the Eastern Mediterranean.” As more of Hong Kong’s high-level jobs go to locals rather than expatriates – a trend that is “already discernible” – there will be still less reason to speak English like a native. Three hours? Even 15 minutes a day may be too much.