Guy S. Alitto simply dived into the vast pool of classical Chinese1classical Chinese文言文。when he first tried to learn the language as an adult in the 1960s, but quickly found out that the “sink or swim” approach just doesn’t work with the language.

[2] Even after two years of huffing and puffing up the steep slopes of classical texts such as the Analects of Confucius and Mencius, then a graduate student majoring in Chinese history at the University of Chicago, couldn’t use the language to order food at Chinese restaurants, and couldn’t even say ni hao, or hello, accurately.

[3] “We were supposed to learn modern Chinese first and then wen yan wen(classical Chinese), but nobody really knows how it should work,” said Alitto in fluent Mandarin. He is now professor of history at the University of Chicago. “At that time, people were not interested in less-developed countries like China. Chinese was an unpopular subject; few people studied it and even fewer knew how to teach it.”

20世纪60年代，艾恺初涉浩瀚无边的文言文，那是成年的他第一次尝试学习汉语，但他很快发现，全凭自己闯的方法在学这门语言时行不通。

[2]《论语》《孟子》等文言书籍犹如陡坡，即使艾恺花费了两年时光艰难攀爬，之后又在芝加哥大学攻读中国历史专业研究生，艾恺仍无法用汉语在中国餐馆点餐，甚至不能准确地说出“你好”。

[3]如今担任芝加哥大学历史学教授的艾恺用一口流利的普通话说道：“应该先学现代汉语，然后再学文言文，但是没有人知道该如何操作。当时，人们对中国这样的欠发达国家不感兴趣。汉语是冷门，没有多少人研究，更没有几个人知道如何教汉语。”

[4] Back in the 1960s, hardly any universities in the United States taught courses about China, the exceptions being a couple of elite Ivy League schools. But even in those establishments, knowledge was limited. Some professors could breeze through oracle bones2oracle bones甲骨文。, a form of Chinese script consisting of characters carved into the shoulder bones of oxen or turtle shells, dating from the Shang Dynasty (circa 16th century–11th century BC), but were unable to construct a complete sentence in modern Chinese, he added.

[5] Alitto acquired his Chinese name from his graduate adviser: Ai Kai,which means “optimistic and easily contented”. The name was apt: “You had to be very optimistic to be a sinologist at that time,” he admitted.

[6] But now, almost every university in the US has courses in Chinese. Alitto’s class at the University of Chicago, Introduction to Chinese Civilization, saw undergraduate numbers grow to 127 last year from 70 to 80 just a few years ago.

[7] “More students have become interested in China year-on-year,” he said. “If you put the number of students studying Chinese and China’s GDP on a graph, they match perfectly.”

[4]艾恺补充道，20世纪60年代，美国几乎没有大学讲授汉语课，除了几所常春藤盟校。然而，这些盟校所教的汉语知识也是有限的。尽管有些教授研究过甲骨文——一种刻在牛骨或龟壳上的中国文字，其历史可追溯至商代（约公元前16世纪至公元前11世纪）——但却不能造出一个完整的现代汉语句子。

[5]艾恺的中文名是研究生导师给取的，意为“乐天知命”。艾恺承认这个名字很贴切：“那个时候，要做汉学家必须十分乐观才行。”

[6]不过，现在美国几乎每所大学都有汉语课。艾恺在芝加哥大学开设了课程“中国文明概论”，选课的本科生从几年前的70至80人增长到去年的127人。

[7]艾恺说：“与去年同期相比，更多学生对中国感兴趣了。如果把学习汉语的学生人数和中国国内生产总值一道标在图表上，会发现这两者的发展趋势完全吻合。”

[8] “Just as the song says, ‘The whole world is learning Chinese’,” he said, quoting the band S.H.E. “China’s booming economy has attracted the world’s attention and has also produced a marvelous growth in Chinese studies in the academic field3academic field学术界。.”

[9] In the 1940s, only 26 people studied Chinese language and culture at universities in the United Kingdom. By the 1990s, there were 160 China specialists working in the UK, 60 percent of them conducting research into modern China,according to a report from the National Research Center of Overseas Sinology in Beijing.

[10] The report noted that in 1963 there were 33 people in the US with a doctorate in Chinese studies. However,by 1993, there were more than 10,000 China specialists working for the government or universities, or in business and the media.

[11] In the 19th century there were no academic bodies that specialized in4specialize in专攻。Chinese studies in the US, but by 2012, the number had reached 250. Currently, Harvard University alone boasts more than 10 organizations related to Chinese studies.

[12] “But more important, nonspecialists have also developed their knowledge about China and are interested in China. I mean businessmen,school teachers and publishers,” said Ross Terrill, a China specialist and research associate at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.“Knowledge about China has moved away from pure sinologists. It has jumped out of the box, which is excellent, because understanding China involves various disciplines.”

[8]他引述中国台湾女子流行演唱组合S.H.E的歌曲说道：“正如那首歌里唱的，‘全世界都在学中国话’。中国经济的蓬勃发展吸引了全世界的目光，同时也推动了学术界汉学的极大发展。”

[9] 20世纪40年代，英国大学里仅有26人研究中国语言和文化。据北京的中国海外汉学研究中心的报告，到20世纪90年代，有160位中国问题专家在英国工作，其中60%专门研究现代中国。

[10]该报告指出，1963年，美国获汉学博士学位的只有33人。然而，到1993年，已有1万多名中国问题专家供职于政府、大学或企业和媒体。

[11] 19世纪，美国根本没有专门研究汉学的学术机构，但到2012年，这样的机构已达250家。目前，仅哈佛大学就拥有10多个汉学相关机构。

[12]哈佛大学费正清中国研究中心的中国问题专家、助理研究员罗斯·特里尔说：“更重要的是，非专业人士也在学习中国知识和关注中国。我指的是商人、教师和出版商。也就是说，研究中国不再只是汉学家的‘专利’。因为研究中国涉及各种学问，它已经跳出专业的框框，这种现象是很好的。”

[13] Terrill said there are many students from China on Harvard’s campuses, and the Confucius Institutes have promoted China for a long time. When US nationals travel to South America or Africa, they notice the scale of Chinese projects. “China is part of the world now, not just a place for sinologists to study. You can see for yourself,” he said.

[14] Terrill said there are many areas available to people who want to be China specialists. “For instance, we need to read more deeply about China.If you want to write a doctoral thesis on the life of Chiang Kai-shek, we might need it, because the picture hasn’t been totally filled in,” he said.

[15] He said there are fields that didn’t exist 30 years ago, such as Chinese law. “Now China is building a legal system. People are now able to sue each other. But I didn’t even feel that when I was a student. However, foreign sinologists should be purely objective.”he said. “We only have the authority to tell the facts as we find them.”

[13]特里尔表示，现在有很多中国学生来哈佛就读，而孔子学院长期以来一直也在宣传中国形象。美国公民前往南美或非洲时，会注意到中国在当地开展的大批工程项目。“中国现在不仅仅是汉学研究的对象，更是世界不可或缺的组成部分。这是有目共睹的。”

[14]特里尔说，有许多领域需要中国问题专家。“举例来说，我们需要更加深入地解读中国。比如，想写一篇关于蒋介石一生的博士论文，我们可能需要深入阅读，因为关于他的研究还不够充分。”

[15]他说，有些领域，如中国法的研究，30年前还不存在。“现在中国正在加强法制建设，人们相互间可以提起诉讼。可是在我的学生时代，对于中国的法律情况，我一点儿也不了解。不过，外国汉学家应该是纯粹客观的。我们只有发现了事实，才有权力公布事实。”

[16] In the 1980s, Terrill published a biography of Mao Zedong, the Chinese translation of which has sold more than 1.8 million copies in China. “I think I am objective in my book on Mao,” he said. “But the disadvantage was that I didn’t feel fully immersed like those people who lived during that era. Chinese readers didn’t know a lot about Mao’s personal life until the publication

of my book.”

[16] 20世纪80年代，特里尔出版了一本毛泽东传记，其中文版在中国的销量超过了180万册。他说：“我觉得我在书里对毛泽东的描述是客观的。但缺陷是，我没有生活在那个时代的那些人的深刻感受和体验。在看到我这本书之前，中国读者对毛泽东个人生活的

了解并不多。”