Let’s crunch some numbers! What follows is a roundup of Chinese language growth trends, from language preferences to online shoppers.
• It’s a tough one! The U.S. State Department rates Chinese as a Category IV language, equivalent in difficulty for English-speaking students to learn as Arabic and Japanese. Foreign language experts say it takes twice as long to master Chinese as French or Italian, classified as Category I languages. It means that a student has to spend five to six hours a day of face-to-face instruction for two years to reach a level that allows for basic professional functioning, according to the U.S. government’s scale of zero to five.
• Geographically Speaking. Mandarin is the official language of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (Taiwan), as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. Mandarin is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
• Shop ‘til you drop. According to iResearch, by the end of 2006, the total number of shoppers in the Chinese online shopping market was 43.1 million, increasing by 32.6 percent than that of the previous year. The number is predicted to reach 100 million by the end of this year.
• Number One. There are approximately 6,900 languages currently spoken around the world, the majority of which have only a small number of speakers. According to Ethnologue, Chinese comes in as the language with the most speakers. This figure includes all varieties of Chinese, such as Mandarin and Yue, which are not necessarily mutually intelligible.
Read more language growth trends each month in our e-Publication, Global Communicator.