Learning Chinese is growing in popularity among American University students, demonstrating the prominent role China has taken in international politics and business and showing the push the Chinese government is making in introducing new language programs.
Chinese Education Minister Zhou Ji announced the initiation of a new education program designed to train high school educators in the Chinese language, according to CNN.
The program will bring over 150 guest Chinese teachers to the United States and offer immersion programs to nearly 600 American teachers during the summer, according to CNN.
The Chinese language "is an important tool for the rest of the world to learn about China and to communicate with the Chinese people," Zhou said.
Currently, Mandarin Chinese is the most commonly spoken language in the world, and China is considered one of the fastest growing countries in terms of both its economy and its population, according to china.org.
Xu Lin, director general of China's office for teaching Chinese as a foreign language, said over $4 million will be spent over the next four years implementing the new program, according to CNN. However, there are no set long-term plans for funding the program.
Agata Kaczanowska, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said taking Chinese will aid them in their future career plans.
"It should help in business and foreign diplomacy in the future since China is expanding into the world markets," she said. "I first took Chinese in high school just to get enough credits to graduate, but it involved so much work that I didn't want to forget about it after that, so I've ended up making it a concentration area in college since it's interesting."
The trend of learning Chinese is not confined to the United States. The Chinese government has begun establishing schools called Confucius Institutes to teach Chinese to foreigners, according to The New York Times.
"There is a China frenzy around the world at the moment," Xu told The New York Times. "The launch of [the Confucius Institutes] is in response to the Chinese language craze, especially in neighboring countries."
There are numerous Chinese language courses students can take at AU, as well as study abroad programs in China at the University of Beijing and the University of Hong Kong.
