一大波外国王室萌娃开始学习中文

国际政商界的大佬精英也兴起了汉语学习热

“我的中文专业虽然学得辛劳，但它绝对值啊”

Chinese has overtaken French, Spanish and German to become one of the most lucrative foreign languages for jobseekers in the UK. Research shows graduates in Chinese earn an average yearly salary of £31,000 or more. 

“I had a lot of friends on other courses who didn’t do much in first or second year. You can’t blag Chinese. You literally have to spend hours and hours writing characters,” says Hannah Jackson, who graduated in Chinese Studies from Sheffield University in 2009.

Hannah describes her course as “majorly intense”. “The first year was really difficult. Most of my friends admitted at one point to crying in the first week because of the intensity. I was almost told at one point that I might want to reconsider and drop out.”

Liberty Timewell, who graduated in Chinese from Cambridge University in 2012, spent at least eight hours a day studying during her degree, which increased to 18 hours a day at times during her finals.

“I found studying Chinese an incredibly hard slog throughout every year. It was a challenge – there is no way you can bullshit your way through it. If you don’t put the hours in then you will fail. That’s it,” she says. Although she did not have the pressure of writing an essay a week as some of her peers did, she was expected to learn 20 characters a day in her first year.

Chinese degrees are typically four years including a year out in China. But even after an intensive first year or two studying the language at university, students often arrive in China unable to converse with native Mandarin speakers.

‘When I got to China I couldn’t speak anything’ For Zak Clements, who achieved firsts in his first two years studying Chinese and Global Studies at Nottingham Trent University, this came as a shock. “You get to China and think you can speak quite well, but when I got to China I couldn’t speak anything. You learn how to get by in class, but when thrown into the deep end it was a struggle. When I got there I couldn’t even order some food. It’s difficult to get used to at first,” he says.

Hannah had similar problems during her year abroad. “I remember we arrived in Shanghai and we couldn’t even say the number 100 – the taxi driver didn’t understand it. We had to point to characters. The pronunciation doesn’t sound like anything you know – you can’t compare it to English, French or Spanish. You use your mouth or tongue in a different way.”

Although Liberty chose to study Chinese because of her interest in the language rather than the likelihood of securing a stable job afterwards, she now works for the civil service in Beijing. She earned a place on the Department for International Development graduate scheme a month after finishing her degree, and was earning a salary of over £30,000 within two years.

“The degree was absolutely worth it. The slog has paid off. I like that I can live and work and operate with relative ease in China now. Looking around at people I know who have studied French or Spanish at university, there’s not such a chance to use it in the workplace,” she says.

Thanks to his ability to speak Chinese, Zak helped to create a role for himself in a company selling health supplements to the Chinese market soon after graduating. Starting as a research assistant at Simply Supplements in Peterborough, he was able to prove there was enough commercial interest from China, earning him a promotion to online operations executive within six months.

He earned £26,000 in the role, with the potential to earn as much as £50,000 as an account manager if he stayed at the company. “Studying Chinese definitely makes you more marketable in the workplace. People I studied Chinese with have found it easier to find a job,” he says.

Chinese has overtaken French, Spanish and German to become one of the most lucrative foreign languages for jobseekers in the UK. Research shows graduates in Chinese earn an average yearly salary of £31,000 or more. 

Hannah graduated at the height of the recession and went to look for a job in Shanghai, where she found more employment opportunities. After working as a project manager for Intralink Group for four years, she set up her own independent consultancy earning £500 a day. She has now returned to the UK and works in business development for the Body Shop.