Children Learn Chinese

Learning Chinese, are You Motivated?

With businesses now rushing to People’s Republic of China (Mainland) and many Chinese immigrants establishing their business and life in foreign countries, the influence of Chinese culture is obvious in all the major cities of the world.

People’s Republic of People’s Republic of China (Mainland) is experiencing rapid economic transition, one built upon the back of a phenomenal “catch-up”, but which has also triggered a chain of social and cultural changes that will be on display for the world to see as we approach the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The novelty of the new Chinese immigrant speaking fluent English has worn out, and now it is the Westerners that must tackle the language barrier and avoid wearing the tag of speaking broken Mandarin Chinese. While the Chinese people overseas and at home have had to live with their notorious Chinglish, many second-generation Chinese immigrants have shed the image of the broken English and now speak as fluently as the native speakers.

There are many reasons why someone want to
learn Chinese1. Many second and third generation Chinese immigrants also want to join the club of learning Chinese, because in their swiftness to learn English, they have deserted their own mother tongue – Mandarin Chinese.

So what are the top motivations for many of us who want to learn Chinese2? We compiled some top motivations here for you:

For the businessmen/businesswomen – the savvy and culturally sensitive generation of business people realize

- the advantage of having capturing information and data from the source of origin, thus avoid the ‘Chinese Whisper’ effects. Small businesses and websites have also taken advantage of technology improvements to

For translators/interpreters – the influx of immigrants to places such as America, Australia, England and other countries now means that

- bring the research of Chinese academics to the Western world, much in the same way that Russian research has been translated and published in Western journals.

For interest groups/people – with the loosening of media and technological regulations and restrictions, the Chinese language and culture has been opened up to more interest groups than ever before. People who are fascinated by the

- trying to recover their language and culture origins, lost when they were busy trying to integrate with their new environment. Also, second/third generation migrants who have retained their language skills want to give their children a head start by teaching them the language early, and wish to let their children learn Chinese.
Some useful resources:
1) Learn Chinese Shanghai

2) AP Chinese

3) Chinese schools in Toronto

About the Author

1) http://www.yaomandarinschool.com
2) http://www.learnchineselearnchinese.com

Children Learn Chinese

Learn Chinese Today Reap the Benefits Tomorrow

China currently has a population of over 1.3 billion people. While English is still the most widely used language in the world it is hard to ignore the fact that learning Chinese is the language of the future. Given the fact that China is the fastest growing economy in the world it is ignorant to believe that we only need communicate in English and expect the rest of the world to follow us. By failing to foresee this need to learn Chinese we could be shortchanging ourselves and possibly lose out on business opportunities.

As I mentioned in a previous article I had wrote, the number of people learning Chinese in the United States still lags far behind French and Spanish. In sharp contrast, the study of Chinese has increased tremendously in Asian countries. For instance in Japan it ranks second behind English as the most studied language in schools. This could signal that Americans are still unreceptive to the idea of learning Chinese or fail to understand the importance of this language in helping them compete on the global economic stage. This has not gone unnoticed by the US government who a few years ago listed Chinese as a critical language and provided millions in funding for schools to increase the number of Chinese classes being offered. They also increased the number of teachers to help increase the exposure in the US to learn Chinese.

As a result we are now starting to see a trickle down effect. In previous years we mainly saw Chinese families taking their children to learn Chinese as a way of maintaining their cultural heritage. Times have changed as more non-Chinese parents are enrolling their children in classes to learn Chinese. These countries believe by being proactive it will open more doors and career opportunities for their children in the future. This realization has come to light as China continues to be the United States biggest trading partner. Learning Chinese will help any budding business person or current business person to compete on the global economy. Chinese is not only spoken in China but widely used in Asian countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

There are other benefits of learning Chinese other than pure economics. It can open up opportunities to study in China and learn Chinese culture. Secondly, it helps you build discipline and knowledge. Thirdly it helps develop your creative and critical thinking skills.

About the Author

If you would like to read more about how to learn Chinese, you can do so here: www.rocketchinese.biz