Why are young professionals and diamond merchants in Mumbai spending their Sundays learning how to say 'hello' in Mandarin? Supposedly one of the toughest languages to master, the dialect from China is being introduced in CBSE schools this term, is a hit at Delhi University that gets 800 applicants for 100 seats, and is being taught at suburban coaching classes using the Devanagari script
Why are young professionals and diamond merchants in Mumbai spending their Sundays learning how to say 'hello' in Mandarin? Supposedly one of the toughest languages to master, the dialect from China is being introduced in CBSE schools this term, is a hit at Delhi University that gets 800 applicants for 100 seats, and is being taught at suburban coaching classes using the Devanagari script
Class 5D at St Stanislaus School on Hill Road in Bandra is a cool air-conditioned cocoon on a blistering afternoon in May. Inside, 20 'students' sit on benches, scribbling notes into a printed booklet, matching intonations as their teacher asks them to repeat after her. 
"Ni Me Hau", she says. "Ni Me Hau", they repeat, with unexpected sincerity, given that the students are a group of salaried professionals and entrepreneurs who have sacrificed a weekend siesta that best follows a lazy lunch, to attend a Mandarin language class.
But then, this is no regular 'hobby' class. It's serious business, for some, quite literally, since all but two people are here to grab a slice of the economic profit pie of India-China trade.u00a0
"I want to import photography equipment and accessories from China. I am also into outdoor advertising, for which I am keen on importing LED displays and other products. Learning the language will allow me to do business easily," says Mulchand Dedhia.
The Byculla-based businessman is also a photography enthusiast who runs a club that calls itself Mumbai Weekend Shoot. Dedhia has been a regular at the beginner's Mandarin course at St Stanislaus for four weeks, and hopes he will be able to negotiate prices in Mandarin.
That's perhaps why Inchin Closer (IC), an India-China consultancy (that helps clients establish businesses in India and China) set up language classes in South Mumbai in January this year, and swiftly expanded to Bandra last month, when it got a whiff of the demand.u00a0
While Mandarin classes may not be a new development, the rise in enrollments is. IC CEO Nazia Vasi says she has had to direct at least six applicants to a batch on a later date, because the class could not accommodate anymore. She has done that twice in the past three months.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the International Baccalaureate (IB) board have decided to introduce Mandarin into their syllabi, indicating that Chinese business is now big business.
How big? Sample this. In 2010, the volume of imports from China to India grew by $38 million, while exports grew by $51.8 million, taking the total volume of trade to $42.4 million (figures provided by India China Chamber of Commerce & Industry).
Learn more, earn more
No wonder then, that students, with an eye on this emerging market, have begun to prepare themselves for a promising career in this direction.
Vikram Verma, an ex-Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi (JNU) student, says, "After Standard 12, I opted for a Masters in Chinese Language and Literature." Verma had read an article on increasing Indo-China trade and the demand for individuals who know Chinese. "Everyone in my family is an engineer or doctor, but I chose this career path because I knew it promised money."
And he was right. Verma now works with a private bank as a Chinese language system engineer and takes home a "great" annual package.
"Twenty per cent of my trade is conducted in China," admits Bandra resident Abhinav Thakur, whose firm manufactures medical diagnostic kits. "The value for money China offers is unbeatable. Europe can't compete with them in prices. In such a scenario, learning Mandarin adds value to my interaction with traders."
It's a world language
Value addition is why Nalini Pinto, principal of NSS Hill Springs International School in Tardeo, will offer the option of Mandarin in the creative component of the IB syllabus, starting this academic session. "Even students' parents are keen to learn Mandarin and we wish to extend this programme to them too," she says. "We have been considering classes for students for the last two years, but finding a native Mandarin speaker here, was difficult," she explains.
"Just by virtue of the number of people who speak it, Mandarin is as much a world language as Hindi or English. It will equip our students with the skills necessary to deal with a changing economic and social world order," Pinto feels.
From August 2011, NSS will offer Mandarin to students studying in Standard 11 and 12. "Later, if we see there is a demand, we may even introduce it at the primary level."
Recognising the growing economic influence of China, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) also announced its intention to introduce Mandarin in schools from class VI upwards from 2011-12.
"The Board has already written to affiliated schools giving them the option of introducing the course. China is the fastest growing economy in the world. We thought it would be beneficial for students to learn the language, as it opens up a world of opportunities,'' confirms CBSE chairperson Vineet Joshi.
The CBSE intends to first introduce Mandarin in class VI, and gradually, in higher classes. ''We are working on the course books, and CBSE plans to train teachers before initiating the course,'' he adds.
We love a challenge
The interesting thing though isu00a0 that Mandarin has the reputation of being a notoriously difficult language to learn.
The reputation is due in part to the tonality of the language -- as anyone who has ever taught or attempted to teach the language will tell you, each word can have multiple meanings that can be differentiated by the slightest, subtlest difference in pronunciation, and pitch. Usually, there are four oral tones for each word.
If that's not difficult enough, the language also has 6,000 written characters. Compare that to English, which encompasses an entire range of emotions, experiences and what-not in a meagre list of 26 letters, and Hindi, which is made up of 40 consonants and 10 vowels, and you get a clearer picture of how intimidating the language can be.
We're not done. There is also the small matter of no spaces between words in a sentence. Each character is adjacent to the other in a sentence. So, for beginners to make any sense of words on a page, they first need to understand which characters group together to form a word, to be able to comprehend the sentence.
Too few seats
JNU, which is the only university in Delhi to offer bachelor, post-graduation, M Phil and PhD degrees in Mandarin, saw interest peak in the late eighties. Professor BR Deepak, who has been teaching Mandarin here for 25 years,u00a0 explains, "The popularity of the language peaked when trade and investment between India and China grew. Today, each class has about 35 students. Over 150 companies in India have invested in China. The movement of trade and commodities has opened a plethora of opportunities for learning Mandarin." Indians learn French for fashion, laughs the professor, while Mandarin is being taken up for purely professional progress.
At Delhi University, you can take up a certificate course in the language. Dr Sreemati Chakrabarti, an expert on China and professor in the department of East Asian Studies here attests to the popularity of Mandarin. "Of late, we have been getting 800 applications for just 100 seats we have available."
It's a similar scenario at a modest language coaching class at Grant Road in Mumbai. Approximately six out of every 10 enquiries that Kumar Classes receives for language learning, are for Mandarin and Cantonese. "The demand has gone up by about 50 per cent in the last year," says D Kumar, director, Private Tutor's Bureau & Kumar Classes. Affiliated to Cactus Language Centre, a language training company that provides courses in 30 languages worldwide, Kumar Classes conducts sessions on a one-student-for-one-tutor basis, at an hourly rate of Rs 450. Although students are offered everything from Arabic and French to Russian, by virtue of increasing business opportunities, Mandarin has come out on top.
With inputs by Anurag Jadli
Mandarin, Cantonese clash on streets
This photograph shows a man holding a sign professing his love for Cantonese, the main language used in Hong Kong, as he attends a rally to protest Mandarin from being promoted at the expense of Cantonese in mainland China. In August last year, hundreds of protesters rallied in Hong Kong against China's bid to champion its national language Mandarin over Cantonese, a week after a similar campaign was staged in the neighbouring mainland city of Guangzhou. pic/afp photo
The Handbook
Your guide to how different tones give the same word different meanings
(Extracted with permission from Inchin Closer's textbook for the Beginner syllabus)
The word for mother and horse is the same!
Mandarin is a tonal language, and each word has a variety of meanings depending on how it's pronounced. The falling and rising third tone transforms the word for 'mother' into 'horse', and the same word, 'ma' is also appended to statements to turn them into questions, like a spoken piece of punctuation.
'More people in the world today speak Chinese than any other language'
Why are Indians suddenly realising it's important to learn Chinese?
More people in the world today speak Chinese than English or any other language. Chinese is one of the six official languages for the United Nations. And the ability to speak and write Chinese helps in understanding 5,000 years of Chinese civilisation.
Students sign up for Chinese classes for different reasons -- some are looking for a tool to gain an in-depth understanding of Chinese culture and society, while others want to communicate with their Chinese friends and business partners.
Interestingly, some do it for the thrill of taking up an academic challenge by learning a language that's drastically different from English.
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Can you tell us about Mandarin?
The term 'Hanyu', which is widely used in China, refers to the Chinese language. It literally means 'the language of the Han'. Mandarin is not a language but a vocal representation of Chinese, i.e a dialect. As one of the seven major dialect groups in China, Mandarin is spoken by over 900 million or 70 per cent of Chinese people and is understood by 94 per cent of the population.
The standard Mandarin, called Guoyu or Putonghua, means the language of the people or national language. For this reason, Zhongwen, meaning the language of the Chinese people, would be a better term to describe it. This is the official language of the People's Republic of China.
How has trade grown between India and China?
As the economic weight of the world shifts towards Asia, the relationship between India and China has expanded into a strategic and global partnership. In the meantime, the heads of the two states are engaging in regular visits. In 2011, China and India have pledged to further expand mutual investment and cooperation in fields such as high tech energy resources, mining, environmental protection, green technology and finance.
The two sides have also decided to establish a strategic economic dialogue mechanism and an ecoforum,u00a0 and jointly set the target of bilateral trade volume in 2015 to $100 billion.
What about the Chinese language courses offered by ICCCI?
The chamber started Chinese language courses in 2000. ICCCI conducts short-term courses for spoken Chinese and long-term courses for the language. Due to the language barrier, the chamber saw a communication problem in daily activities of staff. Requests started coming in from different people, including corporate offices and management institutes. That's when ICCCI decided to launch the Chinese language courses.
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