If you speak to Benjamin K. Hammer on the phone, you would think you were talking to a person who had lived in a Chinese-language environment since childhood, as he uses Mandarin's four tones correctly.

But Hammer started learning Mandarin when he was a high school senior in San Jose, California. Since there were no Chinese-related courses at his high school in the 1990s, Hammer studied Mandarin at a community school's night classes。

"In the United States, people are curious about Oriental culture and history, such as the culture embodied in religions, kung fu and traditional Chinese medicine," Hammer said。

Hammer is one of the US citizens who show great interest in Chinese culture. In addition to Mandarin, he learned kung fu from a Chinese teacher when he was a student at American University in Washington. He got his Chinese name, Meng Weilong, from his kung fu teacher。

"I use the same family name with my kung fu teacher, as there is a saying in China that the teacher is like your father," Hammer said。

At American University, Hammer majored in international relations, and selected Chinese as his foreign language without any hesitation. Since then, Hammer spent more time and effort on learning Chinese than he did on his major。

"Chinese and English belong to different language families. Learning Chinese is a great challenge, but I do like the language。

"It's rare that a Western foreigner can speak very good Chinese. I believe Chinese, rather than Spanish, can make me stand out among my peers," he said。

Hammer received his master's degree in Chinese classical philology at Shandong University and spent four years getting his doctorate in the same major from Peking University。

Now the 37-year-old works as a teacher at the Advanced Institute for Confucian Studies of Shandong University in Jinan. He is also the assistant editor of the English version of the Journal of Chinese Humanities, an English-language offshoot of the well-known culture and sociology journal Wen Shi Zhe, created in 1951.

Hammer spends hours each day enriching his knowledge。

His desk is covered with piles of books and paper. Two bookshelves besides his desk are stuffed with dictionaries and Chinese classical works such as The Four Books. The wall to the left of his desk is covered by a picture that shows the history of China。

"Being a teacher, you have to know your major very well, and then you have to have the ability to educate students," Hammer said。

In his classes, Hammer discusses with students in Mandarin the translation of Chinese classical works into English。

《中國日報》9月30日電，在電話上聽本杰明·K·哈默(Benjamin K. Hammer)說話，你大概會認為那是個自小在漢語環(huán)境下長大的人，因為他把普通話的四種聲調(diào)讀得太準了。

其實，哈默是高三才開始學習普通話，那時他在加州圣約瑟一所高中上學。20世紀90年代，那所中學還沒有開設漢語相關課程，哈默只好在一所社區(qū)學校上夜課來學習普通話。

“美國人對東方文化和歷史非常感興趣，比如宗教、功夫以及中藥所體現(xiàn)的文化。”哈默說。

哈默是對中國文化有濃厚興趣的美國人中的一個。除了學習普通話，他在華盛頓的美利堅大學上學時還向一位中國老師學習了功夫。他從他的功夫老師那里得到了他的中文名字——孟巍隆。

“我跟我的功夫老師用同一個姓，因為中國有句俗語‘一日為師，終身為父’。”哈默解釋道。

哈默在美利堅大學主修國際關系，輔修科目毫不猶豫地選了漢語。自那以后，哈默在學習漢語上花費的時間和精力比在本專業(yè)上還要多。

“英漢兩種語言屬于不同的語系。漢語學起來很難，但我就是喜歡漢語。”

“西方人很少有漢語說得非常好的。我覺得漢語能讓我在同輩中脫穎而出，而不是西班牙語。”他說。

哈默在山東大學[微博]獲得了中國古典文獻學專業(yè)碩士學位，又花了四年在北京大學攻讀這一專業(yè)，獲得了博士學位。

今年37歲的哈默在濟南的山東大學儒學高等研究院任教。他還是《中國人文雜志》英文版的副編輯，這是1951年創(chuàng)刊的著名人文社會科學類學術期刊《文史哲》的英文副刊。

哈默每天都會花好幾個小時豐富自己的知識。

他書桌上堆滿了書本和紙張。書桌旁的兩個書架上擺滿了各類字典以及《四書》等中國古典作品。書桌左邊的墻上掛著一幅圖，那幅圖展示了中國的歷史。

“作為一個老師，必須要對專業(yè)了如指掌，才能把學生教好。”哈默說。

課堂上，哈默還會用普通話與學生討論將中國古典作品翻譯成英語。