最新研究說中國人退化的書寫能力大綱

CALLIGRAPHY has been a reveredart form in China for centuries. Children are taught to write with brushes;endless copying of characters is a rite of passage in their schooling. Writingis a feat of memory. Mastery requires learning thousands of unique ite these ordeals, literacy rates have increased from around 20% in 1949 toover 95% now. But computers, smartphones and tablets are posing a new obstacleto progress. Penmanship is on the decline. Reading skills may follow.
數個世紀以來，書法在中國是一種受人敬畏的藝術形式。孩子們學用毛筆寫字；不斷地重複是孩子們在學校必須經歷的。書寫依靠非凡的記憶力。要學習數千個字纔算掌握了書寫。即使考驗重重，中國的識字率已由1949年的約20%上升到現在的95%以上。但電腦、智能手機和平板電腦正給這種進步造成新障礙，因爲提筆書寫正呈下降趨勢。而閱讀技能可能也緊隨其後。

Pundits the world over blame a reliance oncomputers for shoddy handwriting and spelling. In China the problem is particularlyacute. The number of primary schoolchildren with severe reading difficulties isrising, according to a 2012 study in the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences. The authors linked poor reading scores to increased use ofkeyboards.
全世界的專家將糟糕的書寫和拼寫能力歸咎於對電腦的依賴，而問題在中國尤爲嚴峻。據《國家科學院學報》2012年發佈的一份研究，有嚴重閱讀困難的小學生數量正在增多，而作者們將可憐的閱讀得分與越來越多地使用鍵盤聯繫在了一起。

One reason is that learning to write is soarduous. Because Chinese uses ideograms, or characters, rather than analphabet, to represent each syllable, it takes six years of primary educationto master the 3,000 or so characters required to read a newspaper.
原因之一是，學習書寫是艱鉅的任務。因爲中國使用文字而非字母來代表每個音節，這需要通過6年的小學教育掌握大約3000個字才能閱讀一份報紙。

The problem is already evident. Agovernment body helped to launch a popular television spelling show that pitsmiddle-school students against each other to write difficult words; in oneepisode in July more than 50% of the adult audience incorrectly drew atwo-character word meaning “gossip”, feiwen.
問題已經很明顯了。政府機構已經通過推出受人歡迎的書寫電視節目來協助解決問題，節目邀請中學生展開難字書寫競賽；在7月份的一期節目中，過半成年觀衆將“緋聞” （英語單詞gossip）兩字寫錯了。