學習中文的可貴

　　THE VALUE OF STUDYING CHINESE

　　Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

　　菩提比丘

　　Talk at Spring Semester Graduation Ceremony, June 22nd 2013 Chuang Yen Chinese School

　　2013年6月22日菩提比丘講于紐約莊嚴寺中文學校春季學期結業典禮

　　I am delighted to be here today, and I extend my congratulations to Lucia Liu for introducing this program and to all the students who have completed the spring semester. I hope that you who have enrolled in this program won”t stop with an elementary knowledge of Chinese but will continue to study Chinese year after year until you can speak and read it fluently.

　　今天同學們順利的完成了本學期的學業。在這個充滿喜悅的日子，我向你們表示最熱烈的祝賀，希望你們一直堅持下去，直到能夠講出一口漂亮的中文。我也向培育你們的老師劉璐致以衷心的感謝。

　　Chuang Yen Monastery opened in the late 1980s.Its primary supporters through all these years have been Chinese people, yet this is the first time that the monastery has introduced a program in the Chinese language. This is due to the enthusiasm and commitment of Ms. Liu. She was not content simply to announce the class to the devotees of the monastery but she even went to the Putnam County School Board to make sure that students in schools throughout the area were informed that a Chinese class would be given at Chuang Yen Monastery. She knows that a knowledge of the Chinese language is not only for people of Chinese ancestry. For this reason we see here children of different racial and ethnic origins who have come to learn Chinese, and I was pleased to hear them speaking it so well. I hope that the Chinese language program here will become an ongoing project and that we will have more teachers, more students, and different levels of progress. It can become a center for disseminating a knowledge of Chinese throughout the greater Hudson Valley.

　　莊嚴寺是在八十年代由華裔建立的，中文課在這裏還是首創。授課老師不僅在寺院裏宣布這項活動，還到本地的學區進行大量的宣傳工作，因爲中文這個凝聚中國五千年智慧和文化的文字符號，不僅是華裔的財産，也是全世界人民的財産，就像中國的四大發明一樣。今天，我們欣喜地看到不同種族和民族的學生們在這裏學習，而且我很高興聽到你們把中文講得這麼好。我希望我們紐約莊嚴中文學校，會有更多的老師、更多的學生，和多種程度的班級，我也希望它能夠成爲整個哈德遜山谷傳播知識的中心。

　　It is very important for us to learn to speak and read other languages. The lack of emphasis on language study in the United States should be a reason for national shame. When I went to junior high school and high school, we all had to learn another language—at that time, mainly French or Spanish were taught—but I”ve heard that nowadays language study has fallen into neglect. This is a pity. We Americans think everyone should speak English, but this only encourages a narrow way of thinking. In Europe almost everyone can speak several languages. My friend, the Czech monk Ven. Thomas Dhammadipa, who teaches here from time to time, knows twelve languages, including Hebrew, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese. Another monk friend, Ven. Analayo, knows about eight languages. When I went to Germany, I found that, in addition to German, almost everyone knows at least English and French, and some can speak five or six languages.

　　學習外國語言是非常重要的。我們這個國家對學習外語不夠重視，就這一點而言，我們應該感到羞澀，同時這也是一種遺憾。我在上初中和高中的時候，外語是必修課，那時以法語和西班牙語爲主。我們美國人認爲每個人都應該講英文，其實這是一種狹隘的思維方式。在歐洲，除了德國人，幾乎每個人都知道英文和法文，有的甚至可以講五、六種語言。我的捷克朋友性空法師，他常在這裏指導禅修，他會講十二種語言，包括希伯來文、俄文、中文和日文；另外一個朋友阿難拉尤(音譯)他也會講八種語言。

　　In today”s world, probably the most important language for everyone in America to learn is Chinese. China is now a major economic and political power, and I expect that in the future the relations between our two countries will grow ever closer. The Chinese cultural sphere extends still further, to Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and elsewhere. Because every language is built upon a different way of thinking, when you learn a new language you learn to think in a different way. You expand the working of your mind. You learn to see the world in a different way, through another pair of eyes. And this enables you to relate to people from different cultural backgrounds.

　　在當今社會，中文對美國人來說，可能是最重要的一種語言。中國現在有著強大的經濟…

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