Many of our students from American and Europe prefer simplified version due to its simplicity, and ease to write.  Our teacher tries to point out the related traditional characters to our student so they are aware of characters’ origin and its artistically constructed form.  On the other hand, our students from Hong Kong and Japan, prefers to learn the traditional characters since that’s most of the textbook and print media uses.  We tend not to teach simplified characters to student learning in traditional format unless requested by students.

Learning Chinese Online has so much flexibility on what to learn, from whom to learn, and when to learn, it became a lesser issue of a debate in practice of what to learn and teach, simplified or traditional.  We still would like the interested party to read the debate to understand the issue in your own mind.  Enjoy learning with us, the best online Chinese school.

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/chinese-language-ever-evolving/

Who are these ambitious language-learners?

In this particular school, less than half of the student body comes from families with Chinese ancestry (heritage Chinese Learners), and only a few are native speakers.  Indeed, the desire to learn Chinese has spread far and wide, moving beyond cultural boundaries.

Marty Abbott, director of education at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages thinks it is unprecedented. “I think we would have to characterize what’s happening with the expansion of Chinese language programs right now as an explosion,” he added, in a conversation with the Los Angeles Times.  The K12 Chinese learners have at least doubled from 20,000 plus to more than 50,000 in the United States.

It is becoming increasingly popular to learn Chinese online with the current younger generation since they were born and have grown up with computers, and instant communication with a teacher more than 10,000 miles away is no strange incident to them.  Benefit of our online Chinese program has shown to students and parents alike; even to the heritage Chinese learners (parents are of Chinese decent).

Why is learning Chinese gaining importance?

China plays an increasingly important role in our interconnected world, and its growing global influence can be seen across the political, cultural and economic spectrum. Savvy parents recognize that students who learn Chinese today may discover new and exciting ways to succeed tomorrow. Beyond the value of someday doing business in China, there await tremendous opportunities in world travel, the possibility of forming international friendships, and a chance for young students to broaden their horizons.

How hard is it for kids to learn Chinese?

A Harvard Study Says Kids Learn Chinese and English the Same Way. According to this study, recent research has found that toddlers may learn Chinese, or any other second language, by utilizing the same building blocks—and developmental process—that babies use when first learning to speak. However, toddlers enjoy a much faster acquisition rate for new languages.

Seeking to discover how children naturally acquire a second language, Harvard developmental psychologist Jesse Snedeker recently studied a group of preschool-aged children who were adopted from China. These children, who learn Chinese in their native country, often face an abrupt transition to an all-English environment. Snedeker found that, within 3 to 18 months after their arrival in the US, the adopted children had followed the same language-learning patterns we associate with infants.

Around their first birthday, most children start speaking in single-word utterances. This timeline holds true for children all over the world: it doesn’t matter if they first learn Chinese or English or Swahili. Then, after several more months, they begin to combine multiple words into phrases, gradually expressing more complex ideas, with greater consistency. For example, an 18-month-old child raised in an English-language household might ask, “Cookie eat?” while a 2-year-old raised to learn Chinese would greet the now-opened cookie jar with a grateful “Xie xie!” (Thank you!). Initial vocabularies are predominately nouns, and, at first, children keep their utterances short and direct.

Toddlers are quick to adopt a second language

Snedeker found that preschoolers and infants follow the same steps when acquiring language, but at a disproportionate rate. On average, the adopted preschoolers learned as many words during their first three months in the US as an infant would learn between 12-24 months of age. In other words, the preschoolers were at least four times faster overall. This suggests that many of these young children will eventually catch up with their English-speaking peers, and become fluent speakers of their new language.

Though Snedeker’s study pertains to children who learn English as a second language, rather than English-speaking children who learn Chinese, the implications extend across all languages. “Are the early stages reflections of cognitive immaturity, or do they represent necessary steps in decoding the target language?” asks Snedeker, in a recent issue of Psychological Science. “Our results strongly suggest that these features of early language production are due to the nature of the learning problem rather than the limitations of infant learners.” Moreover, the study affirms the incredible flexibility and resilience of young children’s linguistic abilities.

Programs for kids to learn Chinese

The adopted children in Snedeker’s study primarily attained their language skills through direct contact with peers, in a full-immersion environment. Most second language learners—including the thousands of American children who learn Chinese—also enjoy the benefit of bilingual teachers and language programs.

Some students attend language-immersion schools, like the Chinese American International School in San Francisco, which runs from preschool to eighth grade. “In the early days, probably up until 10 years ago—we were considered experimental, kind of ‘out there,’” said the school’s finance director, Betty Shon, in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I’d get questions like, ‘What kind of parents want their kids to learn Chinese?’”

Many advantages for kids who learn Chinese

“Now,” she says, with satisfaction, “there’s just no question.” The value of learning Chinese has become self-evident, and enrollment in top language programs is highly coveted. In fact, Shon reports that families have actually relocated their entire household to the Bay Area—”just so their kids can go to the school.” Who are these ambitious language-learners? Less than half of the student body comes from families with Chinese ancestry, and only a few are native speakers.

“Certainly, having an understanding of Chinese language and culture is an advantage,” concludes Marty Abbott. Parents of children who learn Chinese will undoubtedly agree.

Learning Chinese will fit in with a wider notion of ability.  Learning a secondary language, like Chinese, not only provide the learner with a concrete skill, but also introduce him to a new culture, and different way of thinking about issues and concerns of the world.

Article states, “Among America’s approximately 27,500 middle and high schools offering at least one foreign language, the proportion offering Chinese rose to 4 percent, from 1 percent, from 1997 to 2008, according to the survey, which was done by the Center for Applied Linguistics, a research group in Washington, and paid for by the federal Education Department.”  If your kids are attending the rest 96% of the middle and high schools which do not offer Chinese as foreign language, come to us.  Learning Chinese Online has proven to be the best way to learn the language.  If your kids are attending the 4% which offers Chinese as foreign lanuage, we can provide Chinese tutors for kids so they can truly master the language.

We offer College Board audited AP Chinese classes online in a small group setting also.  Yet,before your kid can enrolled in AP Chinese class, they need to have intermedia Chinese to be able to take the class and pass the AP Exam in May.  Start them in elementary school or middle school so they are ready to take AP Chinese class, which will surpass AP German to become the third foreign language learned by US K-12 students.

With the demand is growing in learning Chinese online and market is very local and fragmented, we have launched a sister site, www.languagesphere.com, which is for a different learning community and market place.  We added English and some other subjects lessons which we can offer online for life long learners.  Enjoy learning!

Get Ahead, Learn MANDARIN is an old article online from Time ASIA – http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501060626/story.html, read it and let me know your feedback.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574302052610981892.html?mod =WSJ_hps_MIDDLEForthNews#articleTabs%3Darticle

I think it is way pass the time to educate the companies about the basic of entering the Chinese market place, I was a consultant and taking large multinationals to China 15 years ago.  If any company still do not know all of those basic things before heading to China now, they might not be focusing on China, period!

It is time to learn Chinese, learn Chinese Culture, understand Chinese language and what China has done in the past three decades.

Learn Chinese Online is the way to do it since the web has provide equal opportunity to everyone with Internet access to learn and grow….

The restaurants are packed, I have visited more than 10 restaurants, none of them are empty in anyway.  Shopping malls are full, the high end, low end and mid range are packed with people.  Real estate prices are through the roof, I sold an apartment in September at 2007 Spring highest price range, and the price now is higher.  Car purchasing are back ordered for up to 6 months before delivery, my friend ordered a TOYOTA Highlander in September and it will be delivered March, 2010.

As a person living in sunny southern California, it is good to see Chinese domestic demand is picking up so much that they might be able to pull us out of the recession soon.

On wsj.com today (Nov. 13th, 2009), A Superpower Stirs, is one of the articles tittle since Obama is in Beijing now.  We can all debate about the pros and cons of China’s rise, and how it will shape the world in 21st century, one thing is for sure, learn to speak Chinese is definitely worth the trouble.  Personally, I have witness the demand for learning Chinese in the United States and globely.

Checkout the top US boarding schools like www.andover.edu and www.groton.org, you will know how many Chinese language and history classes they offer to their students.  Start learning Chinese online today, or give your kids a chance to learn……

There are many advantages of speaking Chinese, even better if you can read and write Chinese.  While the global economic crisis is continuing into its 3rd year soon, the Chinese market has been growing again since the second quarter of 2009.  One of our students just got an offer in Beijing after graduated from college in 2007, working in New York, and studied Chinese online with us for two years.

Keep up the good work of learning Chinese, your future is brighter because of it.

It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop

Learning Chinese or any other languages is a slow process, as long as you do not stop, you will achieve the results you envisioned for yourself.

www.chinesesphere.com has been in operation for 2 full school years.  We are in the process of getting our AP Chinese classes audited through College Board.  Our students age 5 – 75 years old have traveled an incredible learning journey with us, not even one of them has quit or stop learning.  Some of them can speak Chinese fluently, some can write Chinese characters, some practice calligraphy daily, some can read easy Chinese comic books, some traveled to China and being able to talk to ordinary Chinese on the street and in Hotel, and some are doing business with Chinese in Chinese.  It is the willingness to learn on our students part, makes schools like ours successful.

If you want to get to know more contemporary Chinese culture in the United States, we recommend you to watch Wong Fu Productions ( www.wongfuproductions.com ) short films on youtube.com.  It has stories of what everyday life is like in the United State for Asian youth.