Cactus Language Blog

The Influence of the Olympics on Chinese as a Language

Posted by Sarah under Cactus Languages Abroad, Cactus Tailormade, Learning a language

Will the successful Olympics in Beijing encourage more people to study Chinese?

It is quite likely that there has been a increase in interest in all things Chinese, including the Mandarin language, since the Olympics in Beijing.

There certainly has been a massive increase in interest in learning Chinese in recent years. This is due to a number of reasons, including the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, the increasing numbers of Chinese companies setting up factories and offices abroad, and the significant expansion in the numbers of Chinese people travelling and studying abroad.

The number of people enrolling in Chinese language classes, and the number of such classes, has increased significantly. According to a report in the China Daily for example, the number of foreign nationals studying Chinese in China increased from about 8,000 in 1988 to 86,000 in 2004, and that figure is now something like 120,000 after the Olympics. Elsewhere over 30 million people were studying Chinese in 2007, according to the BBC.

The Chinese themselves are also studying Mandarin – within China just over 53% of the population are able to communicate effectively in the language, according to a survey undertaken by the Chinese Ministry of Education in 2007. Urban dwellers are more likely to speak Mandarin than those in rural areas, and the majority of people under 30 speak it, whereas only 31% of those over 60 do so. Those how don’t speak Mandarin speak other varieties of Chinese such as Cantonese, Shanghainese and Hakka. The situation in Singapore is somewhat similar: not all the people of Chinese there speak Mandarin and the Singapore government is trying to encourage them to learn it.

In some Asian countries, such as Thailand, Mandarin is becoming almost as popular as English as a foreign language. The Beijing Olympics may encourage even people to study the language.

However it remains to be seen whether all the people who start studying Chinese as a result of the Olympics or for other reasons manage to acquire more than a basic knowledge of the language. Learning Chinese is more difficult than learning a European language such as French or Spanish and it takes a lot longer to become fluent in the language, and even longer to learn to read and write.

If only a small proportion of those learning Chinese achieve a high level in the language, it doesn’t mean that the others are wasting their time. Even a basic knowledge of Chinese, or any other language, can be useful.

About the author
Simon Ager runs a company that provides information and advice about languages mainly via the website www.omniglot.com. He studied Chinese and Japanese at university, and has learnt a number of other languages.

Tags:china, chinese, Mandarin, Olympics