Well, I think we have a lot of problems with our education system, including, but not limited to English. (Chinese is a big problem as well, but that would be too big a topic to open up, so let’s focus on English here).

I respectfully disagree with the comment on level 1. I do think foreign languages are important and it doesn’t conflict with our native language. There is a quote I like very much: “if fish were scientists, the last thing they discover would be water. they don’t see water, they see through it.” The same can be said about culture, people don’t see their own culture, they see through it. We are not conscious about our own culture until we see other cultures, which are vastly different from our own. We then begin to understand our own culture through the reflection on other cultures.

I keep talking about culture where the topic is language because I think they are inseparatable. Languages very much reflect the way of thinking of their speakers. On the other hand, languages have huge impacts on their hosting culture too. Every now and then I involuntarily compare Chinese with English and Chinese culture with western cultures and I can often find very interesting similarities and discrepancies. And in my opiion, no language is superior than another, you can’t rank languages in this way. Languages are vehicles of thoughts, as no thoughts are necessarily better than others. Different languages focus on different aspects that are closely related to the social and natural environment of the speakers.

An interesting example is that most Chinese speakers are frustrated by the tense in western languages and we often appreciate the simplicity of Chinese in this regard. There was a movie “Artificial Intelligence” directed by Spilberg. The movie itself wasn’t interesting at all. But there was one line that I still remember. It was by the robot played Jude Law. Just before he died, he said to the little boy: “I am”, after stopping for one seconed, he rephrased “I was”. Personally I think those two lines are the essense of the whole movie. I appreciate the conciseness and simplicity very much and I very much doubt we can translate into Chinese in an elegant way. Three words (actually two) so simple, but raised such a profound philosophy question. That is amazing.