More Koreans opting to learn Chinese instead of English

[MaPoSquid]

news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&c … &printer=1

[quote=“Park Sung-woo, Reuters”]More Young South Koreans Opt to Learn Chinese

Sat Sep 18, 8:42 AM ET
By Park Sung-woo

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean teen-ager Lee Jun-ho hopes to talk himself into a job someday – in Chinese.

Snubbing offers from two local universities in favor of a language institute in downtown Seoul, the 19-year-old studies Chinese seven hours a day in hopes of winning a place at a prestigious school in Shanghai or Beijing.

Lee has embraced a growing trend in South Korea (news - web sites), where more and more young people are opting to focus their foreign language skills on Chinese rather than English, the traditional lingua franca of the business world.

“I think China holds a better future for me, so I persuaded my parents to let me go there to study business,” said Lee.[/quote]

[cableguy]

Yeah, when I read this I was kind of surprised but I think it is to be expected. After all, I think it may actually have more to do with Chinese being kind of new and “exotic” as compared to English. After all, Koreans, like Japanese, Taiwanese, etc, have for years been studying English, often forced to study it, and now here comes something different. I am not really convinced that Koreans are choosing it for business reasons but I could be wrong.

Thanks Squid for all your hard work this weekend. You did a great service.