既然印度软实力比中国强大，那为什么外国人更喜欢学习中文而不是印度语言呢？ [美国媒体]

John Garrison, I can speak Chinese
Answered May 22, 2017
As a foreigner who learned Chinese I can tell you the exact reason.
I was very interested in learning Hindi, in fact I purchased a book and asked a buddy to tutor me in it. But then I realized something kind of depressing.
According to this English proficiency index, India has among the best English speakers in Asia. This is pretty true as I know plenty of foreigners who have travelled to India(both on business and vacation) and gotten by just fine only knowing English.
What’s more each region in India has a different language, I didn’t have time to learn 10 languages. In absolute terms I could reach more people with Mandarin Chinese than with any single Indian language. In fact I would need to learn Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, and Punjabi to reach the same number of people as Mandarin Chinese. Let’s see…learn 4 languages, or learn 1….hmmm….

作为一个学过中文的外国人，我来告诉你为什么。
我之前非常想学印地语，我还买了一本书，找了一个老师来辅导我。但是后来我发现了一件令人沮丧的事情。根据这个英语流利指数，印度人在亚洲的英语水平是最高的。这倒是真的，我知道很多去印度旅游和出差的外国人只要会说英语就能畅行无阻。
但是，印度每个地区都有不同的语言，我没时间是去学习10门语言。比起学习一门印度语言，我学习普通话就能和更多的人交流。实际上我得学会印地语，孟加拉语，泰卢固语和旁遮普语才相当于学会普通话。所以学习一门语言，还是学习四门语言呢，自己掂量看看。

It seems the Indians also asked themselves this question because English and Hindi are both given status in the government, and English(according to the BBC article below) is the sole lingua franca of India. I already know English, so I’m not going to learn a whole new language just to speak English all the time.
English or Hinglish - which will India choose? - BBC News
Business in India is conducted in English most of the time, so what good would Hindi do for me? In a work group I might have a Tamil speaker, a Marathi speaker, a Hindi speaker, and a Punjabi speaker. Rather than having everyone learn 4 languages, we would all communicate in English. Therefore I don’t need to learn an Indian language.
In China it doesn’t work that way. Business is conducted largely in Chinese, in fact the only time English is involved is when you are dealing with a foreign company. If you have a room full of Chinese people, they will speak Chinese. In India though you could see a room full of Indian people speaking English to each other.

印度人貌似也在问自己这个问题，因为英语和印地语都是法定语言，而英语（根据以下这篇BBC报道）是印度唯一的通用语。我已经知晓英语，所以在印度没必要学习一门新的语言。

在印度，大部分的生意往来都是用英语进行的，所以学习印地语对我有什么好处？在一个工作团队里，有人说泰米尔语，有人说马拉地语，有人说印地语，有人说旁遮普语。与其让每个人都学习4门语言，还不如大家直接都用英语交流。因此我没有必要学习印度语言。

在中国，就不是这样了。生意主要是中文进行，只有在面对外国公司时才需要用到英语。如果房间里都是中国人，那么都说中文。而在印度，如果房间里都是印度人，人们就会说英语。

I want to learn an Indian language, but they aren’t exactly easy languages, and I find it hard to motivate myself to do it when it isn’t necessary. I could learn Hindi, a language made almost obsolete by English in India, or I could learn Russian, a language necessary to doing business across Eastern Europe and Asia. When it comes to usefulness Indian languages aren’t incredibly high on the list of most useful languages.

我想学习一门印度语言，但是并不容易，而且不是必须的，所以我没什么动力。我可以学习印地语（一门在印度几乎被英语搞得没有用处的语言），或者我可以学习俄语，在东欧和亚洲做生意可以用到。所以在有用性上，印度语言真的不是最有用的语言。
Sanjeev Prasad M
May 22, 2017 • 29 upvotes
India is not as homogenous country as China with one common language for all. Even the widely spoken Hindi in the northern India is not understood or spoken by nearly 60% of India’s population, especially the southern India. So English remained the link language for official work as well as the upwardly mobile.
Its the language of courts, medicine, higher education and big businesses.

印度不像中国那样是一个同质国家，一门语言就可以走天下。即使是印度北部普遍使用的印地语也只占据印度人口的40%，尤其是南部印度人不会说印地语。因此英语依然是正式工作的纽带语言，是政府，医药，高等教育和大企业的官方语言。

JC Hóu, studied at National Taiwan University
Updated Sep 21
India has higher soft power than China,
Not necessarily. It really depends on your target audience.
For East Asians, the influence of India’s soft power is not comparable to China’s. The reverse is true for South Asians. For non-Asian people, what you probably would get is similar amounts of people who want to learn Chinese, and those who want to learn the Indian languages, which brings us to my next argument:
There are too many “Indian languages”, and none of them are exactly dominant even within India’s borders (Hindi is bordering being dominant in some degree with over 400 million native speakers, but still only spoken by less than 60% of the entire Indian population) which make none of them comparatively influential as Mandarin Chinese, or even Cantonese (120 million native speakers).

印度的软实力比中国强吗？未必吧。那要看你的目标受众是谁。
对于东亚人而言，印度软实力的影响力比不上中国。对于南亚人则相反。对于非亚洲人而言，想学习中文和印度语言的人数可能差不多。但是，印度语言真的太多了，没有一种在印度是占据主流的（印地语在某种程度上是印度的主流语言，超过4亿印度本地人说，但使用者依然不到印度总人口的60%），所以没有一种印度语言有普通话那样的影响力，甚至比不上广东话（1.2亿人说）

Finally, there is the language with even more “soft power”: English. And unfortunately for advocates for the use of Indian languages, there are simply “too many” Indians that can and are willing to speak English, although this can be a major advantage in various other fields (such as IT outsourcing).
Think about it:
If you are given the choice to learn 1 or 2 languages to cover 98% of a population of 1.4 billion people, or to learn at least 6 or more languages to cover ~85% of a similarly big population, what would be your decision?
What if you also happen to speak another language (possibly your mother tongue - English), that is also spoken by at least 12% (highly likely to be middle class or higher class people) of the latter?

最后，还有一种语言拥有更强的软实力，那就是英语。对于印度语言使用的倡导者来说不幸的是，有太多印度人可以以及愿意说英语。当然这在其他众多领域也是有优势的，比如IT外包。
如果你学习一两门语言就可以和14亿人交流，或者学习6门语言以上才和能类似数量的人口交流，那你会学习哪一种？而且如果恰巧你会说的另外一种语言（可能是你的母语-英语）也刚好被至少12%的印度人（几乎是印度的中产阶级和上层阶级）所说呢？