新加坡前总理李光耀先生精通英语、马来语、普通话、客家话、日语等多门语言。他在Keeping My Mandarin Alive: Lee Kuan Yew's Language Learning Experience（中文版书名：《学语致用：李光耀华语学习心得》）一书中介绍了自己学习语言的心得。

1. 英语再好，不练习都会退步

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.

在大陆，有多少中国人的英语能和我们说的一样好？（李光耀受英语教育，以优异成绩从剑桥大学法学专业毕业。）非常少。他们每天都使用中文，英文水平就会降低。我举个例子。我见过台湾一些老一辈的部长们，都是哈佛的博士。他们的毕业论文是用英文写的，但在台湾工作时，他们使用中文。我去台湾的时候，我和他们说中文，开始的一两天，我的中文非常生硬。差不多一周后，我说的更流利了。当他们来新加坡和我们的部长会面时，最初一两天他们的英文说的磕磕巴巴，但差不多一个礼拜就流利多了。

2. 流利比词汇量更重要

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.

从小学起，别在意是否标准，努力说的流畅，学会表达方式，正确使用语法，不要在乎词汇量太少，以后会扩大的。

3. 多开口才能活学活用

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.

你要花时间和精力。一定要有兴趣。归根结底，必须在生活中使用语言。除了看电视和读报，你必须和人们交谈。这才是活的语言。

4. 从小学语言记得更牢

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.

人们学会读写一种语言之前很久就会听说。一个人使用一种语言越频繁，就越容易用它来表达思想。学习语言的年纪越小，就越不会忘记。

5. 西学为体，中学为用

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，因为我从小就学习英文。但无论再过多少年，我都不会是个英国人，我并没有接受西方价值观。我的价值观是带有西方色彩的东方价值观。