BBC TV teaches children yi, er, san

A new TV cartoon show in Britain is teaching toddlers how to speak Mandarin - a sign, experts say, of the language's growing popularity around the world.

The Lingo Show is broadcast weekdays on the BBC's CBeebies channel, whose target audience is children under 6 years old, and aims to introduce Chinese, French and Spanish words to young viewers through a range of colorful characters.

Since making its debut this month, the show is already proving a hit, with its companion games website reportedly attracting 238,000 visitors in the first week, or a quarter of all CBeebies visitors that week.