Not Enough Foreigners Learning Chinese, say Officials

By Yan | Wednesday, March 18, 2009 | View Comments

Reuters came out with an article about how China’s officials are worried too few foreigners are learning Chinese.

There has been a big rise in the number of foreigners learning Chinese, but still too few are studying the language, officials said on Thursday, worried this may affect efforts to soften China’s global image…

“At present, the basis for the studying or teaching of Chinese is very weak, unlike for English, French or Spanish, which have been popularized for hundreds of years,” said Xu Lin, director of the Confucius Institute Headquarters.

Xu, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of China’s annual meeting of parliament, said that in the United States more students studied Latin at middle school than Chinese.

“Though the desire to learn Chinese is very high, there is a lack of teachers and teaching materials,” she added, referring specifically to the Confucius Institute.

I guess I have a bit of background in this —- my mother runs her own Chinese school and I have been a veteran of several Chinese programs both domestically and abroad. From my view, the majority of people who learn Chinese are mostly interested in doing business in China or perceive the political and economic importance of China. In the minority are those actually fascinated enough by the culture to seek out classes. Chinese is the only major language left that does not rely on an alphabet system. This, coupled with its reputation as a difficult language, greatly deter many interested in studying it.

Cultural differences greatly enhance the problem; because there is still a dearth of Chinese teachers in America, many American schools and organizations have had to import teachers and professors from China. My old high school’s Chinese program had a visiting teacher from China who had no experience teaching Chinese at all; he taught English in his native country. Just because you speak the language doesn’t mean you can teach it.

With these imports also come Chinese teaching techniques that often don’t fly over well with American students. The teaching style in China is more lecture-based, fast-paced, and strict — it can be very dry and dull for the unaccustomed. Chinese is still a new foreign language to English-speakers and teaching techniques have not caught up to demand yet.

This problem is prevalent in China as well, where many English programs have minimal qualifications for English teachers and give little, if any, training. From what I’ve seen, to become an English teacher in China you have to be white and have a college degree. When I applied for a teaching post in China, they rejected me because my Chinese was too good. They did however, take the French guy. He was white.

China’s problem with not being able to attract as many foreign Chinese learners as they would like brings up China’s lack of soft power and global political image. But that’s for another time.

(Flickr photo credit: peiqianlong)

What next?

Other posts you may be interested in:

NOTE: 8Asians.com is a community, and we thank you for being a part of it. While we welcome and appreciate differences in opinion, if you're rude or you're promoting spam, we have a right to edit or delete your comment. Read our comment policy for more information.

Anonymous

“From what I’ve seen, to become an English teacher in China you have to be white and have a college degree.”

Many places don’t even require the college degree part. I’ve encountered some pretty shady characters teaching English in China (and when I taught, I hadn’t completed my degree either).
Edna

“From what I’ve seen, to become an English teacher in China you have to be white and have a college degree.”

Many places don’t even require the college degree part. I’ve encountered some pretty shady characters teaching English in China (and when I taught, I hadn’t completed my degree either).
http://www.pikindaguy.com Tien Nguyen

Chinese is the only major language left that does not rely on an alphabet system
—
Has Japanese phased out of this? Or Korean?
http://www.pikindaguy.com Tien Nguyen

Chinese is the only major language left that does not rely on an alphabet system
—
Has Japanese phased out of this? Or Korean?
http://twitter.com/yanarchy Yan

Japanese still uses Kanji (Chinese characters), but with hiragana and katakana it’s pretty phonetic.
Korean used to be written with Chinese, but now they officially use Hangul. You can easily learn the Korean alphabet and be able to sound out the words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul
http://twitter.com/yanarchy Yan

Japanese still uses Kanji (Chinese characters), but with hiragana and katakana it’s pretty phonetic.
Korean used to be written with Chinese, but now they officially use Hangul. You can easily learn the Korean alphabet and be able to sound out the words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul
THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC

Chinese has pinyin.

When I took a few chinese courses at my school, most (60-80%) of the students in the class were chinese students. Some of the students actually spoke chinese as a first language, but were enrolled in the class simply because they didn’t know how to write it. I hear at Cal Berkeley, native speakers are separated from those who aren’t.

The different Chinese professors I had were each “imported” from china, but I wouldn’t say that their teaching style was difficult or too unaccustomed to the American students. For the most part, we closely followed the “integrated chinese” textbook series. The professors were all qualified and competent, too. Some, despite living in mainland china for their entire lives, had antagonistic things to say about the PRC.

But I do agree that the cultural differences between the Americans and the Chinese enhance the problem in the sense that the cultural differences tend to alienate American students from having a desire to learn chinese. Chinese isn’t sexy.
THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC

Chinese has pinyin.

When I took a few chinese courses at my school, most (60-80%) of the students in the class were chinese students. Some of the students actually spoke chinese as a first language, but were enrolled in the class simply because they didn’t know how to write it. I hear at Cal Berkeley, native speakers are separated from those who aren’t.

The different Chinese professors I had were each “imported” from china, but I wouldn’t say that their teaching style was difficult or too unaccustomed to the American students. For the most part, we closely followed the “integrated chinese” textbook series. The professors were all qualified and competent, too. Some, despite living in mainland china for their entire lives, had antagonistic things to say about the PRC.

But I do agree that the cultural differences between the Americans and the Chinese enhance the problem in the sense that the cultural differences tend to alienate American students from having a desire to learn chinese. Chinese isn’t sexy.
THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC

heh, I suppose there’s SexyBeijing, but that hasn’t become mainstream enough to light a passion to learn chinese for American students.
THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC

heh, I suppose there’s SexyBeijing, but that hasn’t become mainstream enough to light a passion to learn chinese for American students.
Steve

As one of the apparently rare foreigners who’s learning Chinese I think it’s pretty obvious what the roadblocks are, and they’re nothing the Chinese government has any ability to fix.

The writing system is a HUGE barrier to entry compared to just about every other language. After a couple weeks of Spanish study (I also studied Spanish in school), one can look at Spanish-language signs or newspapers whatever and not understand them, but at least have a sense that these are merely words you have yet to learn. Learn 500 Chinese characters and everything outside of beginner-level textbooks is still complete gibberish. After a year or two of Spanish study you can read well enough to get some sense of the meaning of all but the most advanced of materials, even start reading classic literature and newspapers. And you can pronounce it all immediately.

Even after four years of Chinese study (though admittedly mostly spare-time) I can barely read a newspaper article, and every one of them will invariably contain at least one or two characters I’ve never seen before. I can often work out the meaning from context but I can’t read them out loud. And try to read any of the classics that are constantly alluded to in chengyu and elsewhere? Forget it, they’re effectively in a different language that happens to use the same writing system.

And I sometimes find myself able to remember what a character means but have no idea how to say it or vice versa. That is impossible in almost every other language. It even happens to native speakers.

Pronunciation is another issue. It is probably impossible for someone who grew up speaking a tonal language to appreciate how difficult it is for non-tonal language speakers to wrap their brains around tones. It wasn’t until I’d been studying for around three years that I really started to hear the different tones as different sounds on an intuitive level, and I’m still not fully there despite having achieved a decent level of day-to-day verbal fluency. In the beginning you have to think about each syllable you want to speak: Is this a third tone syllable? Am I about to say another third-tone syllable after it and should thus turn it into a second tone? Or is that next syllable, despite being third-tone if I said it by itself, neutral-tone in this case and thus I should skip the tone sandhi? A native speaker does all of this subconsciously and totally effortlessly, but learners have to think it through one syllable at a time.

It’s also the case that Mandarin has a lot of sounds that aren’t present in any western language, e.g., the “i” in “zhi”. (Maybe I shouldn’t say “western” here; the Koreans and Japanese in the summer class I took in China had a lot of trouble with that sound. I did okay, but only because I had previously spent hour upon hour recording and playing back my voice until it sounded right.)

And even if you stick with it for a while, it’s easy to find reasons to give up later on. The endless number of chengyu that are completely indecipherable without learning a zillion folk tales. The lack of a good dictionary that differentiates between words that your native-speaker friends tell you mean the same thing (“What’s the difference between 而且 and 并且?” “No difference, you can use either one.”) but will look at you funny when you use one instead of the other. The lack of word roots to let you take educated guesses at meanings of unfamiliar words or phrases (knowing what 领带 means will not help you guess what 带领 means!)

Now, *I’m* not giving up. In fact, I’m going back to China this summer for more immersion. But I can totally understand how someone who isn’t obsessed with learning for its own sake would give up and move on to something with a much less steep learning curve.
Steve

As one of the apparently rare foreigners who’s learning Chinese I think it’s pretty obvious what the roadblocks are, and they’re nothing the Chinese government has any ability to fix.

The writing system is a HUGE barrier to entry compared to just about every other language. After a couple weeks of Spanish study (I also studied Spanish in school), one can look at Spanish-language signs or newspapers whatever and not understand them, but at least have a sense that these are merely words you have yet to learn. Learn 500 Chinese characters and everything outside of beginner-level textbooks is still complete gibberish. After a year or two of Spanish study you can read well enough to get some sense of the meaning of all but the most advanced of materials, even start reading classic literature and newspapers. And you can pronounce it all immediately.

Even after four years of Chinese study (though admittedly mostly spare-time) I can barely read a newspaper article, and every one of them will invariably contain at least one or two characters I’ve never seen before. I can often work out the meaning from context but I can’t read them out loud. And try to read any of the classics that are constantly alluded to in chengyu and elsewhere? Forget it, they’re effectively in a different language that happens to use the same writing system.

And I sometimes find myself able to remember what a character means but have no idea how to say it or vice versa. That is impossible in almost every other language. It even happens to native speakers.

Pronunciation is another issue. It is probably impossible for someone who grew up speaking a tonal language to appreciate how difficult it is for non-tonal language speakers to wrap their brains around tones. It wasn’t until I’d been studying for around three years that I really started to hear the different tones as different sounds on an intuitive level, and I’m still not fully there despite having achieved a decent level of day-to-day verbal fluency. In the beginning you have to think about each syllable you want to speak: Is this a third tone syllable? Am I about to say another third-tone syllable after it and should thus turn it into a second tone? Or is that next syllable, despite being third-tone if I said it by itself, neutral-tone in this case and thus I should skip the tone sandhi? A native speaker does all of this subconsciously and totally effortlessly, but learners have to think it through one syllable at a time.

It’s also the case that Mandarin has a lot of sounds that aren’t present in any western language, e.g., the “i” in “zhi”. (Maybe I shouldn’t say “western” here; the Koreans and Japanese in the summer class I took in China had a lot of trouble with that sound. I did okay, but only because I had previously spent hour upon hour recording and playing back my voice until it sounded right.)

And even if you stick with it for a while, it’s easy to find reasons to give up later on. The endless number of chengyu that are completely indecipherable without learning a zillion folk tales. The lack of a good dictionary that differentiates between words that your native-speaker friends tell you mean the same thing (“What’s the difference between 而且 and 并且?” “No difference, you can use either one.”) but will look at you funny when you use one instead of the other. The lack of word roots to let you take educated guesses at meanings of unfamiliar words or phrases (knowing what 领带 means will not help you guess what 带领 means!)

Now, *I’m* not giving up. In fact, I’m going back to China this summer for more immersion. But I can totally understand how someone who isn’t obsessed with learning for its own sake would give up and move on to something with a much less steep learning curve.
Kim

Ha ! Right on Steve……. better learn it young….or struggle with all you suggest, particularly the tonal part. When I finally realized how polite the native Chinese speakers around me were being, as I tried to converse…I finally realized I should give it a rest—-many seem to want to practice their English on me anyway,

—And therein lies the great danger to America in a century when China’s rise as the world’s second super power will define global relationships—and America’s economic life at home in ways we are already beginning to see— (ie. Stimulus and bail-out costs held as US Treasuries by an increasingly worried PRC) — this is a good post—and article, but in some ways has a man-bites-dog character to it—-last article I read on the subject (a couple of years ago) indicated that over 50 million children in China are learning English. Since I first traveled in China, it has become a totally different language experience—13 years ago, I was often met with blank stares, suspicion and silence. Now, even on local commuter trains in remote areas where I may be the only white—young people approach wanting to help—and at the same time, practice their English.

The lack of discipline, (and rote learning which Chinese requires) and liberal lock on American public schools—almost by definition, Euro-centric—is primarily to blame, I believe, for the pitifully small number of American kids learning Mandarin. And it is another way America is falling behind in the cultural and economic competition with China (yes—competition—that word liberal educators hate to hear)
Kim

Ha ! Right on Steve……. better learn it young….or struggle with all you suggest, particularly the tonal part. When I finally realized how polite the native Chinese speakers around me were being, as I tried to converse…I finally realized I should give it a rest—-many seem to want to practice their English on me anyway,

—And therein lies the great danger to America in a century when China’s rise as the world’s second super power will define global relationships—and America’s economic life at home in ways we are already beginning to see— (ie. Stimulus and bail-out costs held as US Treasuries by an increasingly worried PRC) — this is a good post—and article, but in some ways has a man-bites-dog character to it—-last article I read on the subject (a couple of years ago) indicated that over 50 million children in China are learning English. Since I first traveled in China, it has become a totally different language experience—13 years ago, I was often met with blank stares, suspicion and silence. Now, even on local commuter trains in remote areas where I may be the only white—young people approach wanting to help—and at the same time, practice their English.

The lack of discipline, (and rote learning which Chinese requires) and liberal lock on American public schools—almost by definition, Euro-centric—is primarily to blame, I believe, for the pitifully small number of American kids learning Mandarin. And it is another way America is falling behind in the cultural and economic competition with China (yes—competition—that word liberal educators hate to hear)
Nicolas

I have been learning Chinese for 5 years… and I still struggle with the tones (both speaking and listening). The only way to improve your pronunciation are 1) listening more 2) speaking more and 3) speaking even more.

This is not easy when you do not live in Asia…

The best I found is a combination of podcasts and real teaching with Chinese teachers. I personally use Chinesepod podcasts and http://www.ChineseTeachers.com respectively.
Nicolas

I have been learning Chinese for 5 years… and I still struggle with the tones (both speaking and listening). The only way to improve your pronunciation are 1) listening more 2) speaking more and 3) speaking even more.

This is not easy when you do not live in Asia…

The best I found is a combination of podcasts and real teaching with Chinese teachers. I personally use Chinesepod podcasts and http://www.ChineseTeachers.com respectively.

8 Asians