老外学汉语也是从娃娃抓起

随着中国经济迅猛发展，越来越多的人认识到学习中文的重要性。在欧美和亚洲国家，兴起中文热，英国也不例外。加之中国教育部门近年来也努力在英国拓展孔子学院，宣传中国文化，因此汉语的学习在英国搞的如火如荼。但是掌握一门语言本来就不是一件容易的事，更不用说理解它的文化了……

Ruby is a student from the UK studying Mandarin Chinese. She goes to primary school.

"I'm 7 and I like studying Chinese because it's a very big country and it's got lots of population and there's lots of Chinese people around."

Ruby attends a Mandarin club at Belmont Grovsnor School in the north of England. Head teacher Jane Merriman says this provides a foundation for further study.

"It gives them an additional language to learn and we do feel that with China being one of the leading countries in the world with the fastest growing economy, it's important our children have the skills when they leave school to contribute to a new globalised economy."

The number of UK schools offering Mandarin has rapidly expanded over the past few years. Now one in six schools in the country teach Chinese.

Rose Anibaba is a 17 year old student from Dartford Grammar School. Mandarin is one of her favourite subjects.

"The writing of the characters, that's probably one of the best bits because when you know that after 6 months I can now probably write a page or two completely in characters is really interesting and fun."

Katharine Carruthers is Confucius Institute Director at the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, a support network for Chinese teaching in the UK.

"Now I think there is a very strong demand, which is encouraging for us because the language uptake in the UK in general is not all that it might be and Chinese is encouraging a resurgence of interest in language learning but also encouraging maybe children who weren't terribly interested in, or opted out of, learning French or German in their classes but love learning Chinese characters."

According to the Confederation of British Industry Now Chinese is second only to French in terms of language skills desired by UK employers.

For CRI, I'm Dominic Swire.