Learning the Language 217skyrocketed literacy rates within a generation after the
revolution. Specific numbers are hotly debated, but
almost all observers agree China’s literacy rate today is well
over 85 per cent nationwide, and in urban areas well over
90 per cent, probably higher than for urban areas in the
United States. In this book, except where otherwise indicated,
all printed characters are in simplified form.
Meantime, throughout Mainland China and in much of the
Chinese-speaking world, Pinyin spellings have increasingly
become the standard way of organising Chinese characters,
replacing the 214 radicals in dictionaries and encyclopaedias
and, crucially, for purposes of entry into word-processing
software. Today, typing in English letters using Pinyin
spelling, working with intelligent software that helps auto-
select the specific character combinations wanted from
lists of characters with similar spelling, Chinese typists can
enter words just about as quickly as their English-speaking
equivalents. This is undoubtedly an important part of the
very rapid rise in Chinese-language content available on
the Internet—some observers believe Chinese may in the
coming years replace English as the majority language of
online content.
All this, of course, raises the question (often raised in
Taiwan) of whether or not younger generation mainland
Chinese, raised on Pinyin-based software, simplified writing
and the 6,766 characters of the National Standard set, still to
any meaningful degree have that connection with the writings
of their ancestors so valued by traditional Chinese.
To some extent, this is of course an unanswerable
question, being dependent on individual abilities, interests
and exposure. Certainly a mainland high school student
would have more trouble than a Taiwanese high school
student with ancient texts. That said, our impression, based
wholly on unscientific and anecdotal observation, is that
whenever mainlanders put their minds to learning to read
classical Chinese, they are able to learn it very quickly;
certainly far more easily than native speakers of English.
The rules of character simplification are, after all, standard,
and can be learned in reverse to go back to the traditional