How to teach your kids Mandarin

Never mind Chinese whispers. Phoebe Luckhurst looks at learning the language of the future
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Across the capital, tots are hanging up their cellos and closing the lids on the baby grands (watch those fingers!). Violin tutors are finding themselves at a loose end and French classes are — zut alors! — losing numbers. After-school clubs are looking east, further even than Dalston. London’s little ones are learning Mandarin in their droves.

About a fifth of the world’s population speaks some form of Chinese, and Mandarin is the most widely spoken language — with an estimated 960 million speakers and counting. And as the UK begins to build some kind of tentative “special relationship” with China (“I don’t want us to resent your economic progress,” said the Mayor to a group of Beijing University students earlier this week. “I want Britain to share in it”), learning Mandarin is good training for a future business career.

The Mayor practises what he preaches: Boris’s daughter is learning, as is George Osborne’s. The CfBT Education Trust’s Language Trends Survey says that Mandarin is one of the seven languages in which the Government wants pupils to make substantial progress at Key Stage 2.

Kate Atkins, headteacher of Rosendale Primary School in Lambeth, said: “There is a great deal of support for schools from the Chinese government, via various Confucius Institutes such as the one at the Institute of Education. The children get a great deal of pleasure from learning Mandarin and a fantastic insight into how a different culture works.”

Want to send your little ones on the Orient Express? Here’s our guide.

INFANTS

THE CLASSES: Mandarin Chinese Education (mandarinchinese.co.uk, £149/term for one- to three-year-olds, £219 for three- to-five-year-olds) runs “immensely enjoyable Mandarin classes for children aged one to five”.

It has four London training centres.

If you want them talking Mandarin before they can walk, Yu-Hua Chinese School (yuhuachineseschol.org.uk) offers a Mandarin playgroup for ages six months and up.

THE APPS: Kids Learn Mandarin (free, iTunes) offers eight games that combine listening, reading and writing. Mandarin Educational Baby Flash Cards (free, iTunes) has more than 450 bright, high-quality images accompanied by text and voiceovers.

CHILDREN

THE CLASSES: Panda Mandarin (pandamandarin.co.uk, £15/lesson) runs two classes a week for children aged from three to GCSE level.

Link Chinese Academy (linkchinese.co.uk) runs themed lessons to equip children with practical language skills. If you introduce a LinkChinese Mandarin club to your child’s school, their tuition will be free.

THE APPS: Learn Chinese (free, iTunes — though you’ll have to upgrade to unlock features) was named one by Apple as of the top educational apps of the year, based on games that teach the Pinyin writing system and help little ones master intonation as well as vocabulary. The interface avoids the sterility of most educational software.

PS — EAGER ADULTS

THE CLASSES: The School of Oriental and African Studies (soas.ac.uk, £295/term for a beginners class) offers classes for varying competency levels, and you’ll have access to the university’s language resources, too.

City Lit (citylit.ac.uk) offers intensive classes (£131/term) for those who don’t want to get left behind, and there are also modules with a more pedestrian pace. Check out your closest university or college for classes.

THE APPS: Chinese Writer (free, iTunes) teaches you the script using a game: characters drop from the screen and you have to catch and draw them.

Learn Chinese (free, Android) is a dictionary of useful phrases. You hear the words spoken aloud by a native speaker and can store frequently used phrases.

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