Chinese A-level has overtaken German for the first time, as it becomes the UK's third most popular language.
This year 3,334 students took Chinese, A-level, compared to 3,058 taking German. While entries (参加者) for Chinese have increased by 8.6 percent since last year, German entries have declined by 16.5 percent.
Derek Richardson, the senior responsible officer at Pearson, said Chinese has changed the situation of the drop in popularity of modern languages.
"In languages we are seeing a drop in entries for the main modern languages: French, German and Spanish," he said. "But what we are also seeing is an increase in entries across some of the other languages that people study. What this means is that Chinese is now more popular than German. So maybe young people are beginning to think about what languages will be useful to them in the future."
In the 1060s,70s and even the 80s,Germany was the economic powerhouse(经济强国) of Europe. Pupils were strongly encouraged to study German because of the importance of the German economy. Now China has become well known in the last 25 years as the fastest growing economy in the world.
French remains the most popular modern language A-level followed by Spanish, but both have seen a drop in entries compared to last year by eight and four percent. Russian has also increased in popularity since last year by 3.4 percent, from 1,122 to 1,160.
