李光耀回忆起自己年轻时,由于不懂华文,从而回避了一场华文辩论后,内心所受的触动,“华人却不会讲华文,这使我产生了深切的失落感,我将因此与中国失去联系。”后来,他在一位新加坡《新报》记者的帮助下,进行了有生以来第一次华文演讲,并取得了成功。此后,他便开始潜心学习华文。“但是,1961年,为了争夺福建方言选区的补选,我开始学习福建话。”以至于新加坡的在校学生看到总理讲福建话,就把华文看成次要了。于是,李光耀从此改用华文。“虽然从政治上来说,那是能让最多群众了解的语言,但我觉得我不能误导年轻人,方言毕竟不是最便于交流的,我应该以身作则。” Lee Kuan Yew remembered that when I was young, I was ignorant of Chinese because of my ignorance of the Chinese language, thus avoiding the touch of heart after a Chinese debate. “Chinese do not speak Chinese, which gives me a deep sense of loss and I will therefore lose myself with China Contact. ”Later, with the help of a Singapore-based newspaper, New Zealand, he conducted his first Chinese speech and achieved success. Since then, he began to concentrate on learning Chinese. “However, in 1961, in order to compete for the by-election of Fujian dialect constituencies, I began to learn Hokkien.” So that students in Singapore saw the Chinese as a secondary when they saw the Prime Minister speaking Hokkien. So Lee Kuan Yew switched to Chinese. “Although it is politically speaking the most popular language, I think I can not mislead young people. After all, dialects are not the easiest to communicate with. I should lead by example.”