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Basic foundation in a second language is important: MM Lee
By May Wong, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 14 July 2007 2224 hrs

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew says it is important for parents to give their children the basic foundation in a second language.

This is so that when a situation arises, they will be able to make use of their knowledge to converse.

Mr Lee was speaking at the opening of the Nanyang Technological University's Confucius Institute at One North on Saturday evening.

Many young Singaporeans use English more frequently than their mother tongue.

That is why Mr Lee suggests parents allow their children to pick up on the tones and words used in a second language.

Using a computer analogy, he says, the child can then store it for life, in the hard disc or brain.

MM Lee said: "My Chinese is inside the megabytes so when I'm using it, it comes out it's hyper-linked. When I'm not using it, I must put down control F to look for the word."

Mr Lee says learning two languages is not easy, something these students can identify with.

He acknowledges that one may face problems with many words and phrases in a second language like Chinese.

But he says at least they will learn the basic sentence structure and be able to convey ideas across.

MM Lee said: "So my advice to all parents is: never mind how much trouble your children are having in primary school and in secondary school. Get them to catch the sounds, sentence structure, words. They don't have to score A or A star, even a B or a C, but they've got as sense of the language, they can talk, they can listen."

Mr Lee says when he was prime minister, he encouraged the Chinese children to learn their mother tongue and Confucian values.

This was to act as ballast against the increasing influence of western values and culture because English is the first language in Singapore schools and workplaces.

But emphasis on retaining the second language is not lost.

Mr Lee said: "So for the Malays, we want them to keep their Malay language alive then when we do business with Malaysia, with Indonesia is easy and we want some of our non-Malay officers also to understand Malay. For the Indians, they've got to keep the languages alive, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, and even our Arabs, we're trying to get our Arabs to revive their Arabic so that they can connect with the Gulf states and we can do business with them. So two languages for Singaporeans will gives us a cultural and an economic advantage."

Mr Lee adds Singapore still has a Chinese-speaking population in the heartlands, while some students watch and understand Chinese features.

So he says do not lose touch with the language or something precious will be lost. - CNA/ch