Mandarin mania grips Mumbai

Soham Khandelwal, a third grader from Goregaon' Oberoi International School, has been learning Mandarin at a Jogeshwari centre since he was four years old. His brother Govind Narayan, a Class VI student, and mother Vidhi, are also enrolled at the centre.

The Khandelwals are not alone. An increasing number of children and their parents in the financial capital are learning Mandarin these days.

"Mandarin is the language of the future, considering the increasing Chinese share in trade and business. We just want our children to be prepared. I am learning with them for the same reason, though the kids are ahead of me," says Vidhi. The Khandelwals are distributors of Dell and have business links in Hong-Kong.

The growing interest in the language has resulted in several Mandarin centres mushrooming in Mumbai with focus on "pre-school" courses catering to 3-6-year-olds. A few of them have tie-ups with international schools and run classes in the school premises, to make it more convenient for the children. Most learners belong to families from the movie, TV or business world.

While there is a perception that Mandarin script is extremely difficult, teachers beg to differ. "Mandarin is not tough, especially for kids. Most of them start picking up the language within 15 days of training. The tiny tots learn faster than the adults," says Usha Sahoo, founder of Yeh China, a learning centre.

She adds, "We have customised courses in spoken language for yarn traders, real estate companies and diamond traders. We impart basic Mandarin skills and then give training in vocabulary and conversation related to their businesses."

Over 300 children are currently enrolled in the "pre-school" course of Yeh China at various standalone and school-based centres across the city. Inch-in-Closer, another Mandarin training institute, has over 400 students. Many businessmen with trade relations in China are also making a beeline for these institutes, whose number in the city has swollen to almost 10-fold in the past few years.

Vishal Rane, director of I to E Consulting firm, took a basic 10-session course early this year before attending the Mobile World Conference in China in July. "Me and my colleague enrolled in the crash course, so that we knew how to converse with the taxi drivers, shop-keepers and restaurant waiters, as we knew that most Chinese people understand only Mandarin."

Founder of Indo-China consultancy firm Inchin Closer, Nazia Vasi, says, "Diamond merchants, film-makers, CAs, import and export traders, lawyers and mobile phone traders are our major clients." The consultancy, which claims to have only native Chinese trainers, started operations in 2010 with only 100 students. Now, it has over 1,000 students and has grown to a dozen standalone centres, besides two in collaboration with DY Patil International School, Worli and Ascend International, BKC.

Mandarin is said to be the largest spoken language in the world, with over 960 million speakers. China is already the largest trading nation in the world. Apart from the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, it is spoken in Chinese communities of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines and Mongolia.

Till 1990s, India's trade with China was miniscule (0.2 per cent) but rose to 6.5 per cent in 2004-05 and 8.7 per cent in 2013-14. India's total trade volume with China has crossed $70 billion. Now China has surpassed the US as India's largest trading partner, among individual countries.

"People know that learning Mandarin can not only help in trade but also help in a lucrative career in educational institutions and MNCs as a counselor, translator, interpreter and trainer," said an official from the Confucius Institute, established by the Chinese government at Mumbai University. The institute offers basic Mandarin courses and currently all its batches are full.