Foreign college students perform on the stage. [Photo/ paper.people.com.cn]

The 7th “Chinese Bridge”-Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students ended on Nov 1 at Yunnan Normal University. There were 390 students and teachers from 76 countries at the competition. In the final round, the German team, representative of Europe, won the championship by competing against other four teams representing the continents they came from.

The success of the German team denoted the importance of the Chinese language in Europe. Actually, learning Mandarin has gained popularity among German students. Many German colleges and universities have set up Mandarin courses and China-Germany exchanges are increasing.

Besides Germany, it is said that only in Andalucía, a provincial city of Spain, more than 3,000 students take Mandarin as their second foreign language. In France, more than 33,500 middle-school students and 4,500 pupils are learning Chinese. The figure is four times than that of 10 years ago. More and more people living in Britain, Austria, Belgium and Hungary are learning Chinese language and culture.

Liu Xuechun, a Chinese language teacher at the Beijing Language and Culture University, said learning Mandarin has become a “fever” because China is on the path of rapid progress and increasing in comprehensive national power. “Language is the main vehicle of communication. The spread of the Chinese language will promote Chinese culture across the world and broad cooperation and exchanges between China and other countries”, Liu said.

When it comes to the economy, the Chinese language promotion will serve the development of European companies. To attract more Chinese to visit Europe, many companies are in great need of employees who can speak Chinese, such as tour guides and sales assistants.