More Chinese in Love with Italy and its Language

| Sat, 01/11/2014 - 03:00

There is a growing interest in foreign languages in China, with more and more people wishing to learn other languages, and Italian is one of them. 

According to Il Corriere della Sera, the demand for mother tongue teachers populates the main recruitment sites in China. Federica Milani, who studied Eastern Languages in Newcastle (England ), is one of many young people now living and working in Beijing; she currently teaches Italian to both children and university students.

"In China there is a real hunt for foreign teachers,” she explains. “Over the past two years I have taught in private schools and at the university for Chinese students headed to study in Italy.”

And the market for foreign languages including Italian is only expected to get bigger as estimates predict that by 2015 China will have a population of nearly 200 million people.

A foreign teacher, therefore, can get a lot of work besides normal schooling, as the demand for private lessons is also on the rise, due to the desire of the Chinese to get up to speed with Western culture. And how could Italy and its Bella Lingua not be of interest?