Top five reasons to learn Chinese

Chinese is such as beautiful language. It may sound like to most of us a bunch of “chings,” “wangs” and “wolla’s” but once you get into it, you begin to hear the words and understand the musical language that is Chinese.

1. China right now has one of the fastest growing economies in the world and there are so many opportunities. Many of which are untapped and speaking the language can reveal these. There are also many jobs for Mandarin speakers outside of China. This could be in international relations, tourism, and there is a shortage of qualified Chinese language teachers.

2. When you learn Chinese you also learn about their culture and how the Chinese think (possibly a good reason for business men!).

3. As mentioned in one of my previous posts, Chiense grammer is easy. There are no verbs to remember!

4. Chinese are very proud of their written language, which a lot of people consider an art. Traditional Chinese characters have been simplified over the years. Chinese is the only language where its history has been written in the same language for more than 3,000 years.

Although there are thousands of Chinese characters don’t be put off. There are in fact only around 400 syllables or sounds which you only need to learn in Chinese. These sounds tend to have their own characters and to make new words these characters are combined. So when looking to a new character for the first time you can actually begin to understand it’s meaning.

5. Chinese is an ancient language and has survived through the ages. Over one billion people speak Chinese which is a 5th of the world’s population. According to Wikipedia 850 million of the speaking Mandarin. That’s a lot of people you can speak to if you speak Chinese.

Any other reasons to learn Chinese? Post them in the comments

Chinese language changing

Language is changing constantly, and while it used to be cool in China for internet users to say “Oh my God!” in English, the newest fad is to say “Oh my Lady Gaga!”

Oh My Lady Gaga has swept across the digital nation in China in internet chat rooms, instant and text messages. Lady Gaga, don’t we just love you!

However Chinese academics are worried about such slang will poison Chinese culture and that the English language will slowly alter Chinese.

Chinese authorities are discreetly banning slang phrases from various broadcasts and are replacing it with proper Chinese. A number of banned English include acronyms NBA (National Basketball Association) and GDP (Gross Domestic Product), which by the way China’s GDP grew by almost 12% in the first three month’s of 2010… China certainly is an economy on steroids!

Iceland Volcano Errupts - Holiday makers and businessmen may be stranded in China

Holiday makers and businessmen may be stranded in China if planning of flying back to Europe. Most Chinese air carriers have cancelled flights to Europe due to the high amount of volcanic ash is the atmosphere from a volcano eruption in Iceland. Four days on and there is still no sign of services returning to normal.

If you are stranded try logging onto http://www.airchina.com.cn/ or call 4008100999 for the latest information.

Have a go at practicing your mandarin and ask when you can get a plane to Europe:

我可以什么时候做飞机去欧洲？
wo keyi shenme shihou zuo feiji qu ouzhou?