The Learning Chinese Craze-Actual Numbers?

I get news alerts on the learning Chinese craze, something I’ve been interested in for some time.

I know that globally, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of Chinese language programs, and a dramatic rise in interest levels in learning Chinese. I’m wondering if there are any reliable numbers available on things like the number of people actively enrolled in taking Chinese classes world-wide, the number of Chinese language study programs in different countries around the world, etc.?

I found this on digg.com (Warning: the writing is difficult to understand in places):

Link: http://www.shopyifu.com/viewthread.php?tid=512&extra=page%3D1&frombbs=1

[quote]30,000,000 foreigners are learning Chinese language

Since the mid 90’s in last century,After especially getting into for 21 centuries, along with the growth of the China comprehensive national strength and the exaltation of the international position, the Chinese language quickly promotes in the influence of world and learning Chinese language of the foreigner sharply increases.According to the covariance, there are 30,000,000 foreigners being learning Chinese language currently, 2300 remainings of more than 100 nations are teach Chinese the university, “the Chinese language be hot” growth of speed of quick, scale of big, scope of widely be more than to anticipate.At China, come to China learning the student abroad of the Chinese language increase very quickly.According to the introduction, 2004 the language university of in the last years Peking the foreign students of the learning exceeded 10000 people for the very first time.
At the world-wide locations, the need increment of the Chinese language learning is quick.For example, there are already 2500 primary and junior high school in the United States put forward setting up Chinese course, the Indonesian Ministry of Education plan gradually sets up Chinese course in 8039 high schools in the whole country in 2007 in 2004 -s.Many nations in Southeast Asia all call for widespread set up a Chinese language course in the primary and junior high school of whole country.BE widespread the primary and junior high school in Korea to set up a Chinese language course till 2007.At Korea, the examination result of the Chinese language level has already become many one of the standards that the big business enterprises use a person and rise a job.The Korea sets up Chinese course or professional university already 100 many.
At Europe, Chinese has already become Germany many state of the high school will test a category, British Ministry of Education support draws up Chinese language syllabus in the high school, French Ministry of Education just the method bilingual education experiments a plan in aggressively the push the high school.At Africa, at South America, this kind of demanding growth is also very widespread.

[/quote]

There are no sources given for this information. I wonder how much of it is true (e.g. 30 million? Are there that many people enrolled in Chinese courses?)

Anyone feel like finding some numbers from credible sources? Yes, Uncle Tomas is being a bit lazy.

All good but they better hire a real English translator …

There is just no way that it can be that high. No way.

That seems a little high. Most of the people I know who are really learning to speak the language are children or grandchildren of Chinese /Taiwanese immigrants. Dropout rates for adult classes seem to be really high, so I wonder if maybe that skews things a little bit. I also know that more high schools (and even lower level schools) here in the U.S. are making it an option, but I really doubt that the average high school student actually learns Chinese well enough to use it.

No numbers, just a personal perspective. I study here; confuciusinstitute.manchester.ac.uk/

The beginner classes fill up. but the advanced class only has two of us. I think it’s just too difficult to learn in this kind of program; people tend to drop out after beginner level; I’d say there is a lot of interest in beginner level classes in the UK, but few actually achieve any level of proficiency in this kind of environment.

Language learning, if you are not living in a country that speaks your target language is a little like joining the gym; you start off with good intentions, but you tend to trail off a little after the first flush of enthusiasm is over.

The school I am at is beginning a Chinese program in the sixth grade (12-year-olds) and we hope to keep them in it through their senior year, which would give them seven years of Chinese. Also, we are definitely not teaching the old traditional way, so I hope to see less attrition at the levels just after key exams (in NY kids need to take a proficiency exam in their second language at the end of the eighth grade, and there is an option for a Regent’s exam later, but so far neither of those exist for Chinese anyhow). I also expect far greater oral fluency and listening comprehension, in particular, compared to a traditional grammar-based class.

I expect my sixth-graders to be at an ACTFL Novice-High or Intermediate-Low level in speaking and listening and a Novice-Mid level in writing and reading by the end of their first year (about 110-120 hours of instruction). If I can get the literacy stations and classroom library going I suspect their reading may be above this level, but it’s a lot of work since I have to translate most of the books (no money…I’m buying second-hand English books and pasting over the text.)

The community seems very excited about it so far, so hopefully we can keep that going, bring in more teachers willing to teach in new ways (when the program needs to be expanded in the future) and eventually serve as a model for “a new way” to teach Chinese.

That sounds great, ironlady. Good luck with it.

That number is tiny compared to those learning English.

30 million learning Chinese? About 500 million to 1.4 billion have mastered English as a second language, not just learning it.

The numbers for people learning Mandarin – really learning it – are greatly exaggerated. And even when the numbers might look large there are often other factors at work. For example, in 2007 a total of 3,263 people took the U.S. high school AP exam in Mandarin. But only about 10 percent of those were not native speakers or not people with important extracurricular background in the language, which averages out to only about 7 such students per state. I, for one, do not see signs in this of anything like the boom that is being hyped in the media.

The test, BTW, appears to have been far too easy. (See the link above.) I suspect there’s a widespread dumbing down of Mandarin courses and expectations, rather than have students face the reality of all of the work they’ll have to do for relatively little progress compared with what people achieve studying other foreign languages (i.e., those with alphabets and esp. those with lots of cognates).

As for post-secondary Mandarin studies in the United States, Mandarin has indeed received a boost. But the percentage gain is a mere fraction of that of the real skyrocketing language over the past couple of decades: American Sign Language. (ASL has had a 4821 percent (!) rise since 1990, and presently has enrollments topping those of Mandarin by more than 50 percent.) Arabic, too, has grown at a significantly greater pace than Mandarin. Since 1990 even percentage growth in Korean beats that of Mandarin. And, significantly, still more people are studying Japanese than Mandarin, though the gap is narrowing.

Basically, Mandarin’s getting a well-deserved boost, much like Japanese got in the 1980s. And while I don’t expect the numbers to drop dramatically, I don’t expect them to keep growing at high rates for much longer – just as was the case for Japanese.

For months I’ve had most of a long post ready on the post-secondary numbers. I really need to finish that this decade… :blush:

Many of my friends back home are enrolled in all kinds of evening language classes. None of them actually learn much, for a native English speaker that only leaves the country on holiday there is little need to. But they have fun in the same way that people in the pottery class do. I guess many of the people learning Chinese are doing the same. If they ever get to China they should be able to mumble a few nihao’s and xiexie’s, but that’s about all.

Chinese is rapidly becoming standard in Korean schools. Not only high schools, but even elementary schools are adding it to the curriculum (as mentioned in the article). It’s been required in Singaporean schools for several years, now. Other countries are aggressively creating Chinese programs as well. Last year, one of my Thai friends from college told me that Chinese was very common in high schools there now. Even a tiny portion of Indians studying Chinese would add millions to the tally.

If the US were the only source of foreign language learners, the picture would be bleak… for every foreign language. That’s not the case, though.

Chinese is rapidly becoming standard in Korean schools. Not only high schools, but even elementary schools are adding it to the curriculum (as mentioned in the article). It’s been required in Singaporean schools for several years, now. Other countries are aggressively creating Chinese programs as well. Last year, one of my Thai friends from college told me that Chinese was very common in high schools there now. Even a tiny portion of Indians studying Chinese would add millions to the tally.

If the US were the only source of foreign language learners, the picture would be bleak… for every foreign language. That’s not the case, though.[/quote]

Mandarin Chinese, as one of Singapore’s four official languages, has been taught for well more than “several years”. Children are required to learn English and one of the other three official languages (Mandarin, Tamil, Malay). With an overwhelming majority of ethnic Chinese in Singapore, Mandarin is obviously by far the 2nd language of choice in education. Close to 30 years ago, the Singaporean gov’t even went so far as to start a Speak Mandarin Campaign to try to linguistically unify the ethnic Chinese population under a single Chinese language instead of the various non-Mandarin languages that were spoken at the time as well as today (i.e. Cantonese, Minnan, Chaozhou).

Ironlady, it’s great to hear that you’re involved in a new Chinese program. I hope you’ll post more about your experiences with it in the future.

Buttercup, how good do you think the teaching quality is at the Confucius Institute? I’ve been wondering about this for a couple of years. In just a few years, at least on paper, the number of Confucius Institutes has grown very fast-so fast that one has to wonder how well they could maintain quality. I’d be really interested in reading your thoughts about the teaching at the Institute since you are a trained, experienced teacher.

There is so much money being thrown at the creation of new Chinese programs here in the US that it’s ridiculous. The main problem, of course, is that they cannot find certified teachers (the certification process being an entirely separate topic of discussion!) to teach them.

I think Cranky is right, though – the AP numbers say quite a lot. Although it’s true that we don’t expect all our Spanish or French students to go on to the AP level, it is something of an indicator. I do think that if all the new programs are taught “traditionally”, the numbers of fluent (or at least reasonably competent) speakers we produce will not rise substantially, because most high-school kids don’t have the time and dedication to devote to Chinese if it is to be done the old-fashioned way (memorize, memorize and memorize).

So far, most of you are confirming my thoughts about the learning Chinese craze. I’ve felt that the numbers reported are dramatically exaggerated. I’ve also observed that for all of the hubris surrounding the need to learn Chinese, the effectiveness of all of the programs being piloted remains in doubt.

Thanks very much cranky, ironlady, and others.

Maybe the distinction is between a “learning Chinese craze” and a “mastering Chinese trickle”?

Chinese is rapidly becoming standard in Korean schools. Not only high schools, but even elementary schools are adding it to the curriculum (as mentioned in the article). It’s been required in Singaporean schools for several years, now. Other countries are aggressively creating Chinese programs as well. Last year, one of my Thai friends from college told me that Chinese was very common in high schools there now. Even a tiny portion of Indians studying Chinese would add millions to the tally.

If the US were the only source of foreign language learners, the picture would be bleak… for every foreign language. That’s not the case, though.[/quote]

Mandarin Chinese, as one of Singapore’s four official languages, has been taught for well more than “several years”. Children are required to learn English and one of the other three official languages (Mandarin, Tamil, Malay). With an overwhelming majority of ethnic Chinese in Singapore, Mandarin is obviously by far the 2nd language of choice in education. Close to 30 years ago, the Singaporean gov’t even went so far as to start a Speak Mandarin Campaign to try to linguistically unify the ethnic Chinese population under a single Chinese language instead of the various non-Mandarin languages that were spoken at the time as well as today (i.e. Cantonese, Minnan, Chaozhou).[/quote]

Cranky, Singaporeans in your generation were not required to study Chinese in high school. Those my age didn’t have to unless they were ethnic Chinese. Now, they all do.

My main point remains. The US is hardly the top market for CSL and it probably never will be. Asians living in countries near China make up the bulk of the world wide Chinese learners.

As for Singapore, it is, in a former minister’s immortal phrase, “no bigger than a booger” and has a population that is primarily ethnic Chinese. So your example doesn’t exactly convince me of a massive craze. And, anyway, in Singapore the authorities have basically abandoned the idea that students will be able to write Chinese characters by themselves. (Students there can use electronic dictionaries even in exams.)

(BTW, I consider Singapore’s approach useful. And I have hopes that eventually they’ll institute a dual-track system that begins in Hanyu Pinyin and continues in Hanyu Pinyin but, for some highly motivated and promising students, will also branch off into Hanzi.)

Given the way Mandarin is traditionally taught, sooner or later (usually sooner – way too soon) people run up against the brick wall that is Chinese characters. And then, despite all the hullaballoo about Mandarin being the next world language, reality starts to set in.

My example (and the article of the OP) both mentioned Korea, too. Korea has about as many people as Canada and Australia put together and less than 1% are “ethnic Chinese”.

This article in the Straits Times gives some numbers: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/World/Story/STIStory_268726.html

From the article:

[quote]
More than 51,000 college students studied Chinese in 2006, a 51 per cent jump from 2002.[/quote]

Nothing on high school student numbers, but we get this:

And a prediction for the future:

So…I’m not quite sure where the 30 million are!

(And I love the “formidable” translation at the end of the article)