An online survey conducted jointly by China Youth Daily and sina.com from September 8 to 10 has shown that 80 percent of the respondents call for better protection of the Chinese language.

　　It is a sad fact that young Chinese are becoming less and less competent in using our native language. Misspelling and interposing their speech with English expressions are common problems. Public interest in ancient Chinese literature has been on the decline.

　　Some suggest two causes for this worrying trend. As computers have become widely available, young people are getting used to typing and ignoring handwriting. Also, globalization has put higher demand on English skills. They work so hard on that de facto lingua franca that they may switch to it subconsciously in their daily speech.

　　In contrast, foreigners are surging into China today to learn Mandarin. Chinese youngsters are expected to share their devotion and love for the Chinese language and stop abusing our mother tongue.

　　China Youth Daily