I decided that I wanted to learn Chinese. Why, you may ask. Well, on my site (https://applinglanguageapps.com) I promote language training for hotel receptionists in several languages, Chinese being one of them. I think the commercial argument for training your front-desk personnel in Chinese is clear, your hotel will attract more Chinese tourists. By the way, another organisation which promotes Chinese friendliness for hotels and other tourism-related businesses is WelcomChinese (http://www.welcomechinese.com.cn/).

So, there’s a strong argument to start such a training. On the other hand, I can fully imagine a reluctance to have your personnel embark on a Chinese language training. After all, it is a difficult language to master. That’s why, on my site, I propose a very user-friendly method (with a teacher), more like training useful phrases rather than actually studying the language.

Which brings me back to my decision to start learning Chinese, by the way my teacher is the same person who will coach the students of the site. Beside the fact that I really like learning languages, I want to find out how one experiences learning Chinese. I’m fluent in English and French, plus I can understand quite a bit of Spanish, but Chinese is totally foreign to me, as it will be to the students of the site. 

Another argument is the fact that, on the site, I also offer English for Chinese speakers. If I want to be active on the Chinese market, it will be useful to speak and understand a bit of Chinese.

The course I’be taking is a standard one issued by the Confucius Institute called ‘Standard course HSK’. It is my understanding that I can take certain tests which will allow me to obtain a certificate of a certain level of proficiency. But I shouldn’t think about that yet, first I’ll have to do the learning. I’ll keep you posted!