With the Chinese language becoming popular, the UK government plans to invest 10 million pounds to help more kids learn Mandarin (普通话). Do you think it is necessary for the UK pupils to learn Mandarin? Some people share their opinions online.
Jack (UK): The learning of any language can be valuable and useful, but it is not suitable for everyone. Chinese is a difficult language to learn and the UK is said to be bad at learning foreign languages. Why should they learn Chinese when most people in the world speak English?
Mark (US): I studied French for 2 years in high school and German for 4 years in college. I studied Mandarin informally for about 4 months before moving to China. Now I speak Mandarin every day as my wife doesn't speak English. But it is far from being fluent. Learning additional languages is a great thing, which offers a different view on the world around us. Nowadays, it's almost necessary to be able to speak more than just your mother tongue.
