Chinese is a fascinating and extremely rich language. It is the most spoken language on earth and is becoming increasingly important thanks to China's economic boom. These two reasons alone should be enough to convince you to want to learn Chinese.

Why Learn Chinese?

There are numerous reasons to learn Chinese (Mandarin), the most spoken language in the world:

Learn Chinese out of interest for the Chinese Language, Culture and Customs

To fully understand the Chinese people and their culture it is necessary to learn Chinese and have a good understanding of the structure of the language. Just like many other languages, the Chinese language contains a lot of words and expressions that reflect traditions, values and ideas that have been passed on from generation to generation.

Improve your CV and get ahead in the business world

Since China has become a major player in the world economy, the demand for experienced professionals with Chinese language skills has increased dramatically. For people taking their first steps into the job market, it is important to differentiate themselves from the crowd. Learning Chinese will provide you with an excellent chance to get a step ahead and draw the attention of future employers.

Challenge yourself

For most western people Chinese is not an easy language to learn and it can certainly be seen as an academic and linguistic challenge. Although Chinese does not have conjugations, declinations, articles, tenses and so on, its writing system and 4 tones of pronunciation are very challenging for Westerners. It's definitely a challenge to learn Chinese, but with the right method, anybody can do it!

Mandarin Chinese is Asia’s future lingua franca (common language)

Although English is still the most commonly used language for business communication in Asia, this is slowly but surely changing. As China is replacing the US as the main trading partner of most East and Southeast Asian countries, Mandarin Chinese will play an increasingly important role as a language for business communication. Especially in countries like Japan and Korea, and also in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, Chinese is slowly becoming the most popular foreign language. If you take up the challenge to learn Chinese, you will not only be able to communicate with Chinese natives, but more and more with other Asians who decided to learn Chinese as a foreign language themselves.