Learning Chinese, Are You Motivated?

With businesses now rushing to People’s Republic of China (Mainland) and many Chinese immigrants establishing their business and life in foreign countries, the influence of Chinese culture is obvious in all the major cities of the world.

People’s Republic of People’s Republic of China (Mainland) is experiencing rapid economic transition, one built upon the back of a phenomenal “catch-up”, but which has also triggered a chain of social and cultural changes that will be on display for the world to see as we approach the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The novelty of the new Chinese immigrant speaking fluent English has worn out, and now it is the Westerners that must tackle the language barrier and avoid wearing the tag of speaking broken Mandarin Chinese. While the Chinese people overseas and at home have had to live with their notorious Chinglish, many second-generation Chinese immigrants have shed the image of the broken English and now speak as fluently as the native speakers.

There are many reasons why someone want to learn Chinese. Many second and third generation Chinese immigrants also want to join the club of learning Chinese, because in their swiftness to learn English, they have deserted their own mother tongue – Mandarin Chinese.

So what are the top motivations for many of us who want to learn Chinese? We compiled some top motivations here for you:

For the businessmen/businesswomen – the savvy and culturally sensitive generation of business people realize n

- the advantage of having capturing information and data from the source of origin, thus avoid the ‘Chinese Whisper’ effects. Small businesses and websites have also taken advantage of technology improvements to n

For translators/interpreters – the influx of immigrants to places such as America, Australia, England and other countries now means that n

- bring the research of Chinese academics to the Western world, much in the same way that Russian research has been translated and published in Western journals.

For interest groups/people – with the loosening of media and technological regulations and restrictions, the Chinese language and culture has been opened up to more interest groups than ever before. People who are fascinated by then

- trying to recover their language and culture origins, lost when they were busy trying to integrate with their new environment. nAlso, second/third generation migrants who have retained their language skills want to give their children a head start by teaching them the language early, and wish to let their children learn Chinese.n

Some useful resources: n

1) Learn Chinese Shanghai

2) AP Chinese

3) Chinese schools in Toronto