Command of written Chinese declines in digital era
Many Chinese resort to pinyin, or romanised Putonghua, when using a keyboard but their grasp of the written language is weakening as a result
A popular spelling competition run on state broadcaster CCTV has reinforced fears Chinese are losing their grasp of their own written language - thanks, it appears, to computer and mobile device keyboards.
Seventy per cent of adults in the audience of Chinese Characters Dictation Competition have been unable to write, by hand, the characters for the word "toad" correctly .
The series, the first of its kind on national television, retriggered alarm among many Chinese about their growing difficulty in reading and writing their language in the keyboard era.
The programme, supposedly launched with a mission to resolve the Chinese character "crisis", was an instant hit when it was launched on CCTV this month. Altogether, 32 teams of middle-school pupils from across the mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are taking part in the competition, with the winner to be decided in October.
During the past two episodes, less than half of the adults randomly selected from the audience could write correctly such commonly used characters for the word "thick".
Evidence of declining competence in written Chinese has emerged in several studies. In May, a survey by the Beijing-based Horizon Research Consultancy Group found that 94 per cent of respondents in 12 mainland cities could not write correctly a character they assumed they knew.