Learning online adds to appeal of Chinese

Sixteen-year-old Peyton Fu-Sarosa, who lives in the United States, attends an online Chinese class every week. With her teacher from Shanghai on screen, she reads books and practices conversations.

She's also part of a Chinese club at school. In April, she visited Taiwan with classmates studying Chinese. She noticed a big improvement in her Chinese skills during the trip, and often helped translate for her friends.

Fu-Sarosa comes from an Indonesian Chinese family. She lived in China from 3 to 7 before moving to the US. Three years ago, she started learning Chinese again, and found that it was fun.

Every day, she spends about five minutes practicing on language-learning platform Duolingo, which she's been doing for over 300 days.

"I know Chinese will be really useful. My grandma and other family members speak it, so I hope to chat with them in Chinese," she says.

There is a surge in global demand for learning Chinese, particularly evident in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative. At the same time, online platforms have emerged as a favored avenue for acquiring linguistic proficiency.

A plethora of online education platforms have emerged, offering apps tailored to learning Chinese. The apps cater to different aspects of language acquisition, including the use of pinyin, listening, speaking, reading, and writing, mainly in English. Examples include Wukong, Du Chinese, Learn Chinese, and Chineasy: Learn Chinese Easily.

According to HolonIQ's 2023 report, the Chinese language learning market is valued at $7.4 billion and is projected to double in the next five years.

Ministry of Education statistics from 2021 underscored this trend, revealing that over 25 million individuals overseas were engaged in learning Chinese at the time. Notably, Duolingo had over 12.9 million users dedicated to mastering the language last year, marking an annual growth rate of 31 percent.

Duolingo's latest language report for 2023 sheds light on data about Chinese learners for the first time. Compared to the global average, a whopping 76 percent of foreign users studying Chinese are under 30.

This report analyzes language trends and user behavior from millions of Duolingo learners worldwide. Chinese ranks ninth in popularity among the app's courses and is the second most popular language in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Among the fastest-growing countries for Chinese learners are Bangladesh, Mongolia and Myanmar, with growth rates exceeding 100 percent annually.

Bangladesh experienced a 180 percent increase in Chinese learners last year. Their motivations include communication, educational support, using their time more efficiently and career advancement.

In November 2017, Duolingo introduced a course for learning Chinese through English, initially created with the help of volunteers teaching Chinese to English speakers. As the course gained popularity, Duolingo improved it over time. They also launched courses for learning Chinese through Japanese and Vietnamese, according to Tan Xiuting, Duolingo's course designer.

"We realized there's a large audience of Chinese learners from different language backgrounds worldwide. So, we're developing a Chinese course tailored to them," Tan says.

To tackle the challenge of tones, they introduced a pinyin practice section and added exercises for writing Chinese characters.

"We include various aspects of Chinese culture in our courses, such as traditions like the Spring Festival, martial arts, and Peking Opera. We also introduce new cultural knowledge relevant to daily life," Tan explains.

Tan, who has experience teaching Chinese in classrooms, believes online education allows more people to learn, and with the help of AI, online courses can provide more personalized and targeted practice for each student.

"The gamification of online learning makes it fun and easy for Chinese learners to study. Features like leaderboards and streaks help users build a habit of learning every day," Tan says.

"I understand that many learners also attend live classes, but they use our app for additional practice and to study by themselves since teachers aren't always available to answer questions," she adds.

Maxime Chaussignand, a French expatriate in Singapore, is teaching himself for the Chinese Proficiency Test, and uses Duolingo to keep his skills sharp. He hopes that when he next visits his wife's hometown of Chongqing, he'll be able to communicate smoothly with her relatives in Chinese.

Chaussignand's journey with Chinese began at university, and in 2015, he moved to Shanghai for work. Three years ago, he and his wife relocated to Singapore.

For now, he doesn't find listening and speaking too hard, but reading and writing are still tough. It's hard to read Chinese characters if they're not on a computer or in a book, he says, explaining that he writes characters the way they look on computers.

"For me, writing is the toughest part because many of the characters are like drawings," he explains. To learn, he writes each character out 50 times, practicing twice a week.

"I am trying to learn Chinese to specialize in finance, to be able to read financial news in Chinese," he says.