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Chinese becoming popular with US learners
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-02-23 05:32
But when broken down, the data reveal more information: Graduate students who
took Chinese kept constant over a decade, but two-year and four-year
undergraduates had double-digit growth. French and German, despite their high
enrolments, have not wavered much in popularity, but Chinese has overtaken
Spanish in growth rate.
According to Cynthia Ning, executive director of the Chinese Language
Teachers Association, Chinese will eventually surpass Japanese and several other
languages to become the fourth foreign language in the United States, trailing
behind only Spanish, French and German.
Rosemary Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association,
cautioned about levels of study when making such predictions, but she said
"Chinese is definitely the largest growth language, and it should be."
She said she expects that a survey that the association will conduct later
this year will reveal a growth rate of more than 20 per cent compared with 2002.
"Chinese is already the third most common spoken language at home in the US,
right after English and Spanish," Feal said. "Chinese study on all levels is on
the increase, and I expect the trend to continue."
Winds of change
The biggest difference for Chinese learners now and those a decade or two ago
is their purpose. "Before Chinese became hot, students took it purely out of
interest," said Wen, the University of Houston professor. "Some people studied
it to become sinophiles."
Nowadays, Americans are studying Chinese out of necessity or in search of
opportunities. In Silicon Valley, some high-tech companies are even offering
their employees free tutoring in the language.
"The opportunities that have popped up because of China's economic growth are
the driving force behind most of my students here," Wen said.
She took a group of these students on a tour of China last summer. Two of
them stayed because they landed jobs. One of them is teaching business English
in Guangzhou, and the other is working in Hangzhou. Many of their fellow
travellers were stunned.
"For the past year or two, China was constantly in the headlines in US
mainstream news," Wen said. "That has an indelible impact on many students."
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