Leading London language school UIC (United International Languages) today stated that as the Chinese Year of the Dragon gets underway it is already seeing the study of Mandarin flying high. There are more students of Chinese at UIC than ever before and enquiries for places on its courses are at an all-time high.

UIC today claimed that many indicators suggest that the number of students studying Chinese will continue to grow. The cultural presence of China is ever more visible, the influence of China on the global economy and the economic clout of the Yuan are on the increase and there is a growing number of Chinese nationals living in, or visiting, the UK. Over the past decade the college has seen an annual increase in its Mandarin language students, and with the growing importance of the Chinese economy and its increasing cultural presence this trend looks set to continue. UIC teaches its Modern Foreign Language courses, including Chinese, from its centrally located London school, as well as offering teaching to be held in offices and workplaces nationwide and in the homes of private students across the UK. The Confederation of British Industry claims that Chinese is one of the most sought-after languages by British businesses in general. The growing numbers of corporate learning clients requesting UIC Chinese language courses to be held in their offices is testament to this need. In particular UIC have seen a surge in demand from businesses in the finance sector where money is increasingly talking in Chinese tones.

The government in China has done much to promote the global uptake of its language. By the end of the decade it aims to have established over a thousand Confucius Institutes worldwide to help spread the learning of Mandarin.

Official figures from the Confucius Institutes Headquarters suggest that across the globe the number of people learning Chinese is growing at a rate of nearly 2 million people every year and that there are currently over 50 million learners.

Chinese is a notoriously difficult language to learn. It contains four tones, an alien grammar, over 3500 characters and a profusion of homophones. This challenge, however, does not seem to be dampening the enthusiasm of students at UIC where more and more students are saying “Ciao” to more traditional language options like Italian and instead going on a quest to try and tame the dragon that is the Chinese language.

Via EPR Network
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