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Jake Van Der Kamp

'Some say the standard of English is worsening in Hong Kong, and the government says the solution is sustained learning. Indeed we have to work hard to improve our English, or Hong Kong will become a joke.'

Letters to the editor

October 6

IT IS A recurrent complaint in the pages of this newspaper. Everyone knows (because everyone says so) that English is the language of commerce. It is, however, spoken more fluently in Singapore than in Hong Kong and Shanghai is now catching up fast. We are in danger of falling behind in this crucial requirement of a world city.

But if English is the language of commerce, does this mean that everyone must speak it and, furthermore, must do so to standards of fluency expected on the streets of central London?

There is a simple standard to apply when we mention commerce and any skill in the same breath. Commerce runs on money. If a skill is commercially valuable, the person who has that skill can expect to be paid more money than the person who does not have it.

Thus immediately you know that there has to be an efficient self-adjustment mechanism operating in any economy to produce the standards of English needed by that economy. Do we want bank tellers who speak fluent English? Then we must pay up for them.

If we decide not to do it because we do not want the extra cost, then we have effectively said that fluent English is really not so important to us after all. The market has asked us to set a price on a commercial skill that takes time and effort to acquire and we quoted too low a price for that time and effort. We have said in the plainest way possible that we think there are better uses for our money.

If, on the other hand, we are happy to pay the price, then not only will we get our English-speaking tellers but we will have created a powerful incentive for more people to learn to speak English fluently. We may initially have to pay a much higher price if there are not enough good English speakers around but, the higher that price, the more quickly people will put in the time and effort to learn good English.

It is called Economics 101. Price brings supply and demand into balance. It is so for every skill, service or item of goods to which a price can be applied and one can definitely be applied to learning English. People who live in a society that does not speak chiefly English learn English not for the joys of reading Shakespeare but to earn a better income.

So what standard of fluency in English does Hong Kong need? Your answer is a simple one supplied by the market. It is the exact standard of fluency that Hong Kong has right now and, by the way, it is not really a poor standard of fluency at all. It is good enough to make learning Cantonese unnecessary for all but a handful of expatriates in Hong Kong.

Does it really matter that Chinese speakers of English occasionally confuse gender or plural and singular? You, if you are a native English speaker, invariably understand them perfectly well. If, however, you find that their grammatical faults still grate on your ears, ask yourself how much money you would be willing to take out of your wallet to make their grammar perfect.

I already know the answer. Not enough to make it worth their time and effort. In the fluency of English market, as in any market, demand and supply are in balance at the price you are willing to pay.

And if that seems to you still to be a low standard of fluency, ask yourself what skills you really need if you are the boss or key employee of a small or medium-sized enterprise active in trade services with manufacturing plants across the border, in other words, the most obvious Hong Kong commercial activity.

High up on that list will be familiarity with the product you trade and its markets. You will also prize certain technical skills, financial knowledge and management ability and you will certainly set a high value on speaking Putonghua, as much as on speaking English. Just look at the job ads.

You will, of course, need to communicate with your overseas buyers in English but if you think your own English is not quite up to it, you can always hire someone whose English is. This is common practice in cross-border enterprises. Poor English does not automatically mean poor income.

In short, the standard of English fluency people really need to thrive in the Hong Kong economy is not a high standard. Why should large numbers of them then go to considerable effort to polish up their fluency when it will not make much difference, when they do not see a sufficient reward in higher pay and when it will very likely be a futile effort anyway. Fluency in a language is acquired on the street, not in school, but on the street the language is Cantonese.

It is not Hong Kong that risks becoming a joke but Shanghai, which wants to push English fluency to a much higher standard than it needs. This will almost certainly be a waste of effort and a sad joke on the people who go to that effort.



Market has last word in debate on English standards. Full stop