中印说英语人数PK

印度正在迅速失去其相对中国的一项明显经济优势：中国能说英语的人数已与其邻国加竞争对手不相上下。

英国文化协会(British Council)公布的一份新研究报告称，中国说英语的人数可能已经超过了印度。鉴于英国在南亚殖民统治留下的语言传统，这一变化颇不寻常。

由大卫·葛拉多尔(David Graddol)主持进行的这项研究名为“英语走向之印度篇”(English Next India)。研究表明，印度很可能会发现与中国竞争将更加困难，中国已经有了更好的基础设施，还有更灵活的劳动力市场。

研究估计，只有不到5%的印度人会说英语。这意味着，到2010年，只有约5500万印度人能讲流利的英语。

India is rapidly losing one of its clear economic advantages over China, with the number of Chinese able to speak English on par with its neighbour and rival.

A new study published by the British Council says China may already have more English speakers than India, a remarkable development, given the language legacy of British colonial rule in south Asia.

The study, English Next India, by David Graddol, reveals that India is likely to find it harder to compete with China, which already has better infrastructure and a more flexible labour market.

The study estimates less than 5 per cent of the Indian population speaks English. This would mean that by 2010 only about 55m people in India will be fluent English speakers.

The report compares this with an apparent 20m new Chinese speakers of English each year, a figure attributed to new education policies that require English to be a compulsory subject in China's primary schools. According to an earlier British Council study, China had 200m English users in 1995.

In both countries exact figures are vague and those cited often confuse the number of students enrolled in English classes with real proficiency.

Nevertheless, English Next India highlights the lack of English-medium education as one main cause of India's “educational failure”. It says this has hindered the spread of the language despite high demand for it from the employment sector.

Recent studies have shown that India's talent pool may be drying out. With nearly two-thirds of India's population under the age of 35, the country has the world's largest pool of young people but is lagging competitively because of a gap in employer expectations and realities.

Whether the Chinese population will surpass India's number of English speakers as a percentage of the population remains difficult to determine, as reports show progress in some sectors and not in others. For example, the bulk of China's growing peacekeeping mission, which reflects its desire to become a big power, lacks one necessity: good English skills.