新加坡前總理李光耀先生精通英語、馬來語、普通話、客家話、日語等多門語言。他在Keeping My Mandarin Alive: Lee Kuan Yew's Language Learning Experience(中文版書名：《學(xué)語致用：李光耀華語學(xué)習(xí)心得》)一書中介紹了自己學(xué)習(xí)語言的心得。
1. 英語再好，不練習(xí)都會退步
How many Mainland Chinese can learn English to the level that we can? A very small percentage. They are using Mandarin all the time, they will lose their English. I will give you an example. I used to meet the Taiwanese ministers, the older generation - all Harvard PhDs. In other words, they wrote their theses in English but worked in Taiwan in Mandarin. When I went to Taiwan, I spoke to them in Mandarin, first two days (my Mandarin was) very stiff. At the end of the week, I was more fluent. They came here to meet people from our ministries, first two days their English was halting, at the end of the week they became more fluent。在大陸，有多少中國人的英語能和我們說的一樣好?(李光耀受英語教育，以優(yōu)異成績從劍橋大學(xué)法學(xué)專業(yè)畢業(yè)。)非常少。他們每天都使用中文，英文水平就會降低。我舉個例子。我見過臺灣一些老一輩的部長們，都是哈佛的博士。他們的畢業(yè)論文是用英文寫的，但在臺灣工作時，他們使用中文。我去臺灣的時候，我和他們說中文，開始的一兩天，我的中文非常生硬。差不多一周后，我說的更流利了。當(dāng)他們來新加坡和我們的部長會面時，最初一兩天他們的英文說的磕磕巴巴，但差不多一個禮拜就流利多了。
2. 流利比詞匯量更重要
Learn young, never mind the standard, capture the fluency, capture the way you speak it, capture the grammar, never mind if your vocabulary is limited, you can expand it later on。從小學(xué)起，別在意是否標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，努力說的流暢，學(xué)會表達(dá)方式，正確使用語法，不要在乎詞匯量太少，以后會擴(kuò)大的。
3. 多開口才能活學(xué)活用
You need to spend the time and effort. You must have the interest. At the end of the day, it must be a live language. Apart from watching it on the TV or reading the newspapers, you must meet people and talk. Then it is a live language. 你要花時間和精力。一定要有興趣。歸根結(jié)底，必須在生活中使用語言。除了看電視和讀報，你必須和人們交談。這才是活的語言。
4. 從小學(xué)語言記得更牢
Language is heard and spoken long before people learn to write and to read. The more frequently one uses a language, the easier it is to express one's thoughts in it. The younger one learns to speak a langugae, the more permanently it is remembered。人們學(xué)會讀寫一種語言之前很久就會聽說。一個人使用一種語言越頻繁，就越容易用它來表達(dá)思想。學(xué)習(xí)語言的年紀(jì)越小，就越不會忘記。
5. 西學(xué)為體，中學(xué)為用
I may speak the English language better than I speak the Chinese language because I learnt English early in life. But I'll never be an Englishman in a thousand generations and I have not got the Western value system inside me; it's an Eastern value system with the western value system superimposed。我的英文大概比中文好，因為我從小就學(xué)習(xí)英文。但無論再過多少年，我都不會是個英國人，我并沒有接受西方價值觀。我的價值觀是帶有西方色彩的東方價值觀。
