Why should we study Mandarin Chinese?

Did you know…?

• Mandarin is spoken by over 1 billion people around the world, about one fifth of the global population.
  
• Chinese characters are the world’s longest continuously used written language.
  
• China’s economy is second in the world and is expected to become first within a few years.
  
• Mandarin Chinese has a relatively uncomplicated grammar, which means it is not as difficult as many people might think. Unlike French, German or English, Chinese lacks of morphological changes in person, tense, gender, number, and case in the strict sense, the word order matters though.
  
• The Chinese script is the only logographic writing system still in daily use in the world today. Chinese characters can be written from left to right, right to left, or from top to bottom.
  
• We won’t just be studying the language of Mandarin. It will also be about the study of a culture and a people. At the heart of Chinese civilization is its rich heritage of novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and, more recently, film.
  
• We believe all parents want their children have a global view of the world that they live in, not only think of themselves as members of local community - but also as members of the international community with awareness and understanding of global issues – the early, the better. One of the many ways we will achieve this is though the study of Mandarin.
  
• And a lot more…