Chinese as a second language growing in popularity

Guess what the former Australian Prime minister, Kevin Rudd; the successful entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg and the U.S. President Obama’s daughter, Malia Obama have in common? They all take Chinese as their second language. The study of the Chinese language opens the way to different important fields such as Chinese politics, economy, business opportunities, history or archaeology.

In 2015 alone, 850,000 people from around the world took the Official Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK). All these people from different industries, backgrounds are learning in hope to understand the often-misunderstood country better and benefit from knowing the most widely spoken language in the world whether it is for personal reasons or business opportunities.

There is a huge growth in numbers of non-Chinese heritage people learning Mandarin, but Westerners actually started learning Chinese as early as the 16th century. The first westerners to master Chinese, were the Italian Jesuits Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci, they were also the first foreigners teaching Chinese. So the often-claimed “Asia Century” isn’t really as new of a trend as you may think, like the old saying “what comes around goes around”. The Chinese civilisation ruled the world in the 15th century when Europe was still in the dark ages. Now, after a couple centuries of the West being in the lead of the economy, the Chinese economy is predicted to overtake as the world’s largest economy once again.

China has over 5,000 years of history and has 1.28 billion people, which equates to approximately one fifth of the global population; the significance of knowing Mandarin and understanding China in this world is more obvious than not. China is currently the second largest economy in the world that has strong economic ties with world powerhouses such as the U.S., EU and etc. It is said in 2014 that China’s 10 biggest trading partners are: the U.S. at $521 billion, Hong Kong at $401 billion then in following order, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, Brazil and Russia.

That being said, one can only imagine the increase in demand for Chinese as a second language service. According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, there are 330 official institutions teaching Chinese as a foreign language around the world, with 40,000 foreign students enrolled. As of 2015, there were over 480 Confucius Institutes established on six continents. Internship Union are non-profit public institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China whose stated aim is to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges.

Chinese teaching services are increasing day by day, not only are there government-funded institutions such as the Confucius Institutes but also Mandarin Chinese courses held through universities, colleges, private companies as well as individual tutoring.

To further understand this growing phenomenon; I interviewed a few students from “the West” who are from countries among China’s 10 biggest trading partners’ list: U.S., Australia and Germany on why and how they started their Chinese learning journey, they bring us their insights on the importance of learning this language and what they have gained from acquiring this skill.