Eric's Beijing Diary

Met a young lady this evening on the way to the lab.

"Beautiful evening, isn't it?"

"Oh, thank-you! Thank-you!"

Oops. Wonder what she thought I said. I continued the conversation, but it soon became clear that her English was not strong. She explained it to me with one simple statement, which always blows me away,

"I studied German."

I have met several students like this. Not a lot of them, but enough to make me very, very curious. What would posses a student in this day and age to forgo learning English? I have told students many times, "If you want to study Russian or German or French, be my guest. But you must never, never use such studies as an excuse not to study English." I believe this warning is well placed in any field, but it is especially true in the field of Software.

The young lady I met this evening is not wrong to study German. But she is very, very unwise to neglect English in the process. A young university student in modern China who doesn't speak English. Unbelievable. I wonder what kind of future she has?