Mastering Mandarin proves an asset for doing business

Geography and generation shape the learning experience

Karen Leotoing, diplomatic sales manager for BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd in Beijing, took Chinese classes in 1989, when she was 14.

"It was the first high school in France to start teaching Chinese," she says of Montgeron in suburban Paris.

"At the age of 14 I decided I wanted a third foreign language; it was either Russian or Chinese. There are more Chinese speakers, so I thought why not."

Her Chinese teachers were French and she was the only student who stayed the distance out of the six who started. Leotoing, who has lived in China since 2003, continued her studies at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales. There were few people learning Chinese at that level at the time.

"In 1989 there was nothing, there was no Internet. There were no Chinese people around, even in Paris. All the students were French so we didn't have the chance to practice. The Chinatowns in Paris, they didn't speak Mandarin. It was either a dialect or the 'Chinese' people were actually from Vietnam or South Korea.

"There were only two universities in Paris that taught Chinese. Paris is not some village, it is the capital of my country and there were only two places that taught Chinese. If I wanted materials in Chinese I had to go to SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies) in London. Its library was the best in Europe."

China was also something of an unknown for Tom Pattinson, who knew nothing about the country before he went to volunteer in rural Shandong province in 1997, except for what he had seen on television.

There was a massive country out there that he knew nothing about "historically, culturally and economically".

"Why did no one I knew know anything about this big old place?" says the 36-year-old, who went on to launch Time Out magazine in Beijing and Shanghai.

Pattinson picked up the basics in Shandong and spent six months at a university in Qingdao in 1998. There followed a four-year degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 1999 that was split between studying Chinese in China and the UK and studying social anthropology.

He admits he did not understand what he was saying or why he was saying it during his time in Qingdao - "it was typical rote learning, Chinese style" - and it was only when he returned to the UK and started at the School of Oriental and African Studies that the learning came much faster.

"Back when I studied at degree level there were only about 400 students per year in the UK studying it. There were only a handful of universities that offered a degree in Mandarin and therefore the choice (of university courses) was quite straightforward, albeit limited."

He says the School of Oriental and African Studies was a great place to study, with excellent professors from China and the UK. "Plus the helpful Chinese students also studying there made it easy to cheat on your homework," he quipped

British students were in a minority for this course, and most of these were mature students.

"Chinese wasn't a language or subject that your average 18-year-old British student would choose to study. I don't think it has changed that much either."

His commitment to the language and to the country has proved invaluable, as has the ability to communicate with people in their own language. Pattinson started his own media company and has done consultancy work for Saatchi & Saatchi, Ogilvy and Y&R.

"I don't have to rely on interpreters who are invariably mistranslating to save face or say what they 'think you mean' rather than what you actually mean. There is also a huge level of trust. Having invested the time and energy to learn the language, people take me more seriously. They don't think I am just going to jump in and jump out of China."

He also has advice for students considering Chinese as a study program. "Learn law, medicine, engineering, computer science, graphic design, video editing - something useful - with Chinese on the side, then spend a year or two in China learning the language properly. In 20 years time, everyone will speak Chinese so you won't be special. Plus don't forget a billion Chinese people speak better English than you will ever speak Chinese. So learn a skill, too, so you stand out from the crowd."

China's Ministry of Education says that last year there were 377,054 foreign students in China. There is no information on how many of these were studying Chinese language on a full-time or part-time basis or how many were on a Chinese-medium study program. Of the 377,054 students, 225,490 were from Asia, 67,475 were from Europe, 41,677 from Africa, 36,140 from North America and 6,272 from Australia and New Zealand. The figures mark a 2.58 percent increase for Asia (6,682 more), a 9.64 increase for Europe (5,933), a 24.93 percent increase for Africa (8,318), a 2.45 percent drop for North America (907 fewer) and a jump of 32.24 percent for Australia and New Zealand (1,529).

"People take China for what it is now," Leotoing says. "We had to study 15 centuries of Chinese history. We know everything they went through."

For China Daily