Amid crisis, Europeans flock to learn Chinese

EU Observer ^ | 07.30.2012 @ 09:27 | Philip Ebels

[Olog-hai]

Ever since Europe’s economy began spiraling downwards, a growing number of people from Dublin to Athens is taking to learning the language of opportunity: Chinese.

Aggregate data are not available, but figures from local language centers across the continent suggest that the number of people in Europe enlisted in taking the official Chinese Proficiency Test—or HSK—over the last two years has grown by close to a factor five.

“I think the economic reason plays a very important role,” says Lili Lei of the Confucius Institute in Munich, where the number of students rose by more than 100 percent in 2011 and is expected to grow even further this year. “Many people learn Chinese because they must, or want to, work in China. Many even think [it] can bring them a better future.” …

[blueunicorn6]

Lizzie Warren is Chinese.....when it helps her.

[rurgan]

China will buy up the U.S. and Europe. But that's ok say the free traders just let China manufacture everything and we'll just borrow more and not do to China what china has done to us.It's ok we don't have to produce anything just print trillions more $ and give to welfare recipients and government workers who all produce nothing.

China will build 50,000 more skyscrapers like this in the next 20 years.

[3Fingas]

The Europeans see who their new masters will be. Just another sign that we are slipping in the world.

[dfwgator]

Soon enough, there will be a “Babelfish” App that will translate anything into any language, that will be good enough for people to communicate. Just speak English into your cellphone, and it comes out in perfect Chinese.

[Olog-hai]

There’s still a big property bubble in China that’s set to burst. They’ll stop building when that happens.

[Zhang Fei]

Back in the day, during the era of rapid economic growth in Japan, a number of people around the world decided to learn Japanese. These days that particular skill is mainly useful for watching Japanese movies without subtitles (if they ever became fluent). It’s not even particularly useful for ordering in Japanese restaurants since much of the wait staff doesn’t speak or read Japanese. Learning a foreign language is a major waste of time - even if you learn it in school as part of the standard curriculum. Anyone who bothers doing it outside of school is wasting time better devoted to other useful subjects, unless his job specifically requires it.