The last two decades have seen a tremendous rise in the strength of the Chinese economy and its interconnection with the global economy. During the same period, China’s reserves of foreign currency have grown immensely to become the world’s biggest. Therefore, it’s no surprise that people in many countries are becoming more and more interested in doing business with China and, in order to do so, they are looking to learn the Chinese language.
Napoleon Bonaparte once said that “China is the sleeping giant. Let her lie and sleep, for when she awakens she will tremble the world.” Nearly two centuries after that visionary statement of the legendary man, China’s dormant economy has emerged so dramatically that the economic power held by the country now directly affects and facilitates the pace of the global market.
People and businesses around the world are now deliberately moving forward to exchange relations with the world’s fastest growing nation, a nation that is experiencing a huge transition from a central-planned economy to a global-oriented market and has become a dominant player in the international economy and financial system. Hence, for better business understanding, business opportunity and cultural exchange, learning the Chinese language has become a priority, with approximately thirty million people studying Chinese in universities, colleges or private courses.
Which Chinese?
Chinese is considered to be one of the world’s most popular languages and is a simply-structured, tonal language where a single word can have a different meaning depending upon the way it is pronounced. There are a number of dialects in Chinese, spoken in different provinces, but Mandarin is by far the most popular and influential language in China and has been recognized as its official language.
In order to keep up with these developments, the United States is investing huge sums in establishing Chinese learning schools and passing bills to encourage the programming of the Chinese language in schools across the U.S., together with cultural exchanges to improve the ties between the two countries.
After beginning their Chinese language studies in their home countries, people often prefer to travel to China and spend time there to get accustomed to its tradition and culture and to gain first-hand experience of what it means to be Chinese. With the huge demand in Chinese language study, a number of major cities in China are overcrowded with schools of Mandarin, many of which provide superb accommodation facilities and native Chinese-speaking teachers qualified in teaching Chinese as foreign language.
Students often choose the Chinese language with the hope of finding employment more easily in areas like banking, trade, finance, diplomacy, academia, news media, content management, tours and travel and many more sectors.
What Should I Do?
So, if you feel that learning Chinese is for you, there’s no better time to start than right now - it will give you a head start to benefit from the growing trade and cultural contacts between China and the rest of the world. Before you can go off to China to perfect your language, you’ll need to learn the basics. Rocket Chinese offers a free course to see if Chinese is for you - click here to grab your 6-day course. If you like it and find it useful, you can easily move on to the full course.
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