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."