Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg surprised Chinese students when he spoke to them in Chinese. In a talk at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Zuckerberg spoke Chinese for about 30 minutes. Although his Mandarin was far from perfect, students and teachers cheered his effort.
Clayton Dube is the head of the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California. He praises Zuckerberg’s effort and thinks more American CEOs should learn foreign languages. “To speak Chinese means you begin to think as Chinese people do. You begin to understand how Chinese speakers have the words organized, how they understand things. And that is an important step if you’re going to be culturally competent.”
Zuckerberg’s talk raises a larger question: Is Chinese the future of language? Could it replace English as the world’s international language? Mandarin Chinese already has the most native speakers. And, China may soon pass the United States as the world’s largest economy. The study of the Chinese language is increasing in the United States and around the world. In 2009, about 60,000 American college students were studying Chinese. That was three times as many as in 1990.
Clayton Dube thinks Chinese will grow in importance, especially for people who want to work and do business in China. But he does not think Chinese will supersede English any time soon. Chinese is a more difficult language to learn. The U.S. Foreign Service Institute estimates(估计) it would take a native English speaker 2,200 hours to reach professional fluency in Chinese. That is four times longer than it would take to reach the same level in Dutch, French, or Spanish. While Chinese grammar is much simpler, Chinese has a tone and writing system that is more difficult for adult learners to master.
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