Hi, my name is Mojca. I am from Slovenia in Europe and I work as a student advisor at our Shanghai school.
Hi, my name is Sabatino. I am from Italy and I am a Student Advisor at LTL. Fancy coming to study with us in China?Is Chinese (Really) Becoming The Language of the Future?
The Language Of The Future // Here’s Why We Think It’s Mandarin Chinese
Language is a wonderful thing. It opens new doors to friends, cultures and food amongst many other things. But what really is the language of the future?
Today we put forward our case as to why we think the answer to that is Mandarin Chinese!
Whilst we do not think Chinese will become THE global language anytime soon, the influence and global reach of English likely won’t go away within the next 100 years. What we do think is that Chinese will become a global language of equal importance to English within our lifetimes.
With Chinese already being the language with the most native speakers in the world, there are already many benefits to learning the language as it enables you to communicate with over a billion speakers right away.
In the future, we believe that Chinese will not only become easier to learn but will also become more important for business and cultural purposes.
This will make Chinese significantly more popular as a foreign language.
The Language of the Future | The Barriers To Entry Are Much Lower Now
The Language of the Future | There Is A Historical Precedent
The Language of the Future | China’s Belt and Road Initiative
The Language of the Future | About 100 Million People Are Learning Already
The Language of the Future | Outbound Tourism of Chinese Citizens Is Growing
The Language of the Future | There Are More Resources Now Than Ever
The Language of the Future | FAQ’s
The Language of the Future | The Barriers To Entry Are Lower
Learning Chinese as a foreign language 30 or 40 years ago was certainly a herculean task.
Learning it more than 50 years ago was nearly impossible.
Nowadays, learning Chinese is much easier thanks to pinyin and the benefit of typing characters.
Gone are the days of having to memorise every single stroke from 3,000+ characters to write a simple text.
Now, as long as you memorise the pinyin you can type Chinese characters on your phone and computer very quickly.
This makes memorising characters a much more achievable task for everyone.
How To Memorize Chinese Characters // 8 Tips For Success
Learning Chinese is intimidating for many, but it’s not as bad as you think. We are going to reveal the top tips on how to memorize Chinese characters.
The Language of the Future | Historical Precedent
China was one of the most advanced civilizations in the world for the majority of human history.
Up until a couple of centuries ago, Chinese civilisation was a clear global leader in technology, innovation, culture, arts, and more.
This made the Chinese language very attractive to neighbouring civilisations.
Jeffrey Gill from Flinders University notes that “There is a historical precedent for the adoption of characters outside of China, with a long-standing use of written Chinese for scholarly and official purposes in Korea, Japan and Vietnam.”
Not only has Chinese been widely used before, but it is currently widely used in many countries.
Check out our article to read more about which countries speak Chinese.
Countries That Speak Chinese // + The Best Place to Study
Chinese is the language with the most native speakers in the world with over 1.3 billion native speakers. Check out all the countries that speak Chinese!
The Language of the Future | China’s Belt & Road Initiative
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a major infrastructure plan to connect China with the rest of Asia as well as Europe and Africa.
As of 2021, over 60 countries are participating in the BRI with major infrastructure projects completed, in construction, or in development.
The plan is that as countries start operating Chinese trains, Chinese-built ports, and Chinese-built highways, they will increase their commerce with China thanks to improved trade routes.
This will increase the need for Chinese speakers in countries with high rates of trade with China.
The Language of the Future | Over 100 Million Learners
The reality is that Chinese is already a very popular language.
It is estimated that about 100 million people are already studying Chinese all over the world. This is more than triple the estimates from 2004, which was just 30 million people.
If these trends continue, Chinese could be the second-most studied language in the world in just a few years. It will take a while for Chinese to overtake English though, as there are currently 15 times as many English learners as there are Chinese learners!
The Language of the Future | Outbound Tourism
Chinese citizens are keen to travel the world. As the economy grows and the PRC government makes it easier for citizens to travel abroad, the number of Chinese tourists going on overseas trips is growing.
The number of overseas trips from Chinese tourists has grown from just 42.2 million in 2004 to 162.1 million in 2019.
The numbers since 2020 are greatly affected because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but we can reasonably assume that the trend of growth in overseas tourism will continue increasing once the pandemic is over and travel restrictions are lifted.
This will help make Chinese a useful global language in two ways.
First, Chinese tourists will want Chinese-speaking tour guides in the countries they visit. This will make Chinese an attractive language to people looking to work in the hospitality industry in their home country.
Second, knowing Chinese will become very helpful to many people, especially those who don’t speak English.
Imagine arriving at a hotel in a foreign country whose native language you don’t speak, but suddenly you find out that they have a Chinese speaker on their staff!
We think this scenario will become more and more common as the number of Chinese overseas tourists continues to grow.
The Language of the Future | More Resources
Not only is learning the language much easier now thanks to pinyin and technology but there are countless study resources that can help you learn Chinese faster.
One of the greatest additions to the language-learning world in recent years is the development of spaced-repetition software (SRS).
These are apps that take flashcard decks and use an algorithm to help you learn them faster by showing you harder cards more frequently.
A great example of an SRS app is Hack Chinese. You can check out our full review here.
Another great new addition to Chinese learning is Pleco. This mobile dictionary is a game-changer compared to old-school paperback dictionaries.
The days of spending a long time counting strokes and looking up characters in fat dictionary books are over, as Pleco allows you to quickly find whatever word you’re looking for.
Check out our full review of Pleco here.
Finally, taking Chinese classes is now easier than ever in a world that is connected 24/7 through Zoom.
There was a time when Chinese was an obscure subject that not many universities offered, but now it is possible to take Chinese classes at any time of the day from your computer.
LTL’s Flexi Classes system allows people from all over the world to take small group Chinese classes whenever they want.
This allows anyone to sign up for a class at any hour, any day of the week, any day of the year. We offer Flexi Classes for levels from beginner all the way up to HSK 4+.
Click here to get three free hours of Flexi Classes!
None of these resources were available even as recently as a decade ago. We’ve got no better chance than now to become a wizard in Mandarin!
For all of these reasons, we believe that Chinese is the language of the future.
Mandarin will only become more and more important on a global scale moving forward.
If you haven’t started your learning journey yet, contact us to find out how we can help you become proficient in Chinese.
The Language of the Future // FAQ’s
How many Mandarin learners are there now?
It is estimated that about 100 million people are already studying Chinese all over the world.
This is more than triple the estimates from 2004, which was just 30 million people.
How many Chinese tourists travel currently?
The number of overseas trips from Chinese tourists has grown from just 42.2 million in 2004 to 162.1 million in 2019.
This number will only grow as we move further forward.
How many countries are working with China and the Belt Road Initiative?
As of 2021, over 60 countries are participating in the BRI with major infrastructure projects completed, in construction, or in development.
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