As we mark New Zealand Chinese Language Week this week it’s time to confront the uncomfortable truth that interest in studying Chinese is declining.
Language study in New Zealand is always evolving. These days, for very compelling reasons, an increasing number of Māori and non-Māori New Zealanders are focused on Te Reo Māori acquisition. I hope we are seeing increased interest in learning New Zealand Sign Language too, as another of our official languages.
We are also an increasingly multicultural society. In many cases new kiwis have a mother tongue that is not one of New Zealand’s three recognised languages. They often wish to ensure their children maintain this linguistic heritage, so a wide range of languages are taught formally or informally, in local communities and at home. This of course includes many families with Chinese-speaking backgrounds.
But when it comes to formal foreign language study in schools and tertiary institutions, student numbers for many languages are in decline.
According to Ministry of Education data, since 2005 the number of our school students learning French, Japanese and Samoan have all decreased. Spanish has become more popular over that period. So has Mandarin. But Mandarin language class enrolments reached a peak in 2020 and are now down 20 per cent from that level. And university enrolments for the same subject dropped 48 per cent between 2013 and 2022.
In this we are not alone. Mandarin enrolments in US universities have fallen faster than those in all other foreign languages combined. A new UK report has pointed out the insufficient number of Chinese language speakers and overall lack of understanding of China in the UK, calling it a critical issue for effective bilateral engagement.
There are many reasons why we should focus on learning other languages, including Chinese.
In an increasingly diverse society like New Zealand, learning a language shows respect for culture and a commitment to inclusion. Whether it be Samoan, Cantonese or Punjabi, investing time and effort sends a powerful signal.
Speaking a foreign language also helps us to welcome our temporary visitors to New Zealand. Covid disruptions decimated our international tourism and education sectors and they are still struggling to recover. But as they do, being able to offer our guests hospitality in a way that makes a genuine connection is critical for an enjoyable and smooth visitor experience. We have lost some of those competencies across our workforce over the last few years and we need to recover them.
Personal partnerships form the basis of much successful international business in other ways too. Learning another language is not just about the words. It opens up new ways of thinking, new ways of understanding the world, and a recognition that despite language barriers we are much alike in our common humanity. The ability to converse in another person’s native language improves cultural competency and establishes respect, trust and friendship.
The UK report cited above argued that the country’s language competency gap cost it an estimated 2.5% of its GDP or 48 billion GBP annually due to language barriers in trade.
And of course, New Zealanders travel outwards too. We are welcome in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. But there are other worlds besides, where English is often not a native language. Learning Arabic, Persian, Russian, Japanese or Chinese opens up those worlds in ways that nothing else does. Such is the asymmetry of language learning that even a modest effort to master one of these or countless other languages receives an enthusiastic response.
So…what language to learn? There is a world of possibilities, from languages using our own Romanized alphabet like French, German and Spanish (the staple of high school curricula for generations), but also Italian, Polish, Turkish, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese and all the Pacific languages. Crossing the alphabet barrier are Russian and Greek, Arabic and Hebrew. And at the outer edge of familiarity are languages such as Chinese, Korean and Japanese. It is perhaps unfortunate that the countries with which New Zealand has the closest connections, outside those whose native language is English, are those which are most remote linguistically from English.
But in practice in New Zealand the above choice is not as wide as it seems because the prerequisite to learning a language is to have well trained teachers, and these are not as abundant as the languages themselves. It is in many instances thanks to the generosity of foreign governments – China, Japan, Germany, France – that foreign languages are taught in New Zealand to the degree they are. In effect the foreign taxpayer is relieving the New Zealand taxpayer of a responsibility.
I speak and write Chinese myself and am the chair of the New Zealand China Council, so it is not surprising that I am keen to see more people learning Chinese languages. But I would be very happy if there was more foreign language learning in this country overall.
What better way to mark New Zealand Chinese Language Week?
John McKinnon is Chair of the New Zealand China Council and former New Zealand Ambassador to China. The views expressed in the article are his own.
New Zealand Chinese Language Week runs 17-23 September.
30 Comments
I am learning Te Reo which is far more useful than learning Chinese in NZ and the world. I can see the current government has the ambition to let the whole world speak Te Reo. Go for it. Let's all speak and write in Te Reo!!! I cannot wait to develop ability to read some world renown and centuries-old Maori literatures, science and philosophies.
There are five big languages in use, being English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Portuguese. The remainder (excluding Italian, German, Russian, and Japanese), are on their way to extinction.
This includes Maori, regardless of the fact it is being pushed, it is in it's death throws. It will never become mainstream, and for that reason alone we should understand that it's extinction is assured.
The other thing that needs to be understood, is that over the last six years during the Labour government, they have had to pander to their Maori Caucus and that meant all this spending on things Maori. This was done otherwise there would have been defection from Labour, so it was done purely for political reasons.
Now we have a broken economy and a massive unsustainable debt. In one month, there will be a new government. The incoming government has no reason, and does not believe in spending money and funding will be cut for anything that is non-essential. All the funding that made all this noise about the Maori language and all sorts of other non-essential things will be gone.
People can still learn the language, just like any other. That is a personal choice that anyone can make. So yes, please do continue learning Maori as a hobby, but understand it will serve no useful purpose in the real world.
It absolutely should be economic, i.e. do we want proper public health, education and other public services that work, or do we waste time and money and trying to make people learn a language that no one cares about (except for very few people). People are free to learn whatever languages they want, but not at the expense of things that are essential in the economy that lead to better outcomes for everyone.
I never said anyone should be forced to learn te reo (although I think there should be a minimum level of te reo instruction in primary school).
My point was around the intrinsic value of language.
If you reduce everything to utilitarian economic value then where will be the beauty, depth and value of life and human experience? What a horrid thought.
It's pretty much forced in schools right now. There is no requirement to actually teach anything useful and many schools are force-feeding kids the Maori language. The kids coming out of our schools right now are the dumbest they have ever been. So, yes, there should be a bit at school about it, but not like it is now. It is a relevant part of the history of NZ, thats all. Other than that, no real-life purpose, and so the core competencies of schooling and preparing children for real life after school should be the the things being pushed (and achieved, with proper oversight of the MOE to ensure that standards for the basics are being met).
Let's make this a non-confrontational question.
Your child (assuming you have one) is obliged to study a language at school. The beauty is the list of choices is limitless. What criteria would you select and in which order of priority would they be when picking the language? For example in my case: 1) Family requirements (wife speaks Spanish), 2) Utility (able to use when traveling). Everything else has no weighting i.e economic, cultural.
I completely understand the push for te reo from a cultural perspective for Maori. Unsure if I agree it should be mandated in schools or the need to rename Gov departments.
Any suggestions for your 2nd (or 3rd language)?
I agree. I was somewhat forced to learn some Maori at school. Complete waste of time. I could once count to one hundred. Since leaving school, never had to use it again, and what I did know is now forgotten. I resented having to sit through it even at that early age, and once I got to high school I opted out of learning any language whatsoever as a result. Now, looking back on that, it was a mistake, and I should have learned Spanish or French as I spent many years outside of NZ and it would have been incredibly useful.
I had a similar experience, with Maori a compulsory subject until Year 8. I didn't like it, and it put me off learning a second language at all for some time. I think learning a language is important, but I think student and parent preferences need to be considered.
Yep. Compulsion (or pseudo compulsion as we have here in NZ) leads to resentment, which is what we have in spades now. It also accelerates the outcome, which in this case is language extinction, which is par for the course of the current administration, where their objectives always seem to have unintended consequences, and it will be no different here.
lol - I got a scholarship in maths - never used it for anything other than rudimentary arithmetic. wish I'd learn't some Maori so I could chat with my mates down the pub when they start banging on in te reo. stop telling us "your" real world is everyone elses. you're coming across like a bigot.
Real world = reality for most people. It’s nice that you have a pub where you can speak a language that no one else does. Try doing it in almost any other place in New Zealand or anywhere else in the world…the real world that is. All you will get is blank stares.
PS: you wasted a talent that you did have and seem to have wasted your time at the pub.
What criteria would ‘I’ select? How about the student?
My daughter (currently year 11) chose Spanish. For no utilitarian reason. She likes football and Spanish culture. And she likes the language.That was fine by me.
She could have also chosen Mandarin or Te Reo.
I studied French and music the whole way through high school. My first degree was an arts degree which included music, literature and philosophy papers.
Studying these things have increased the richness of my life, and also helped me think in ways that one could characterise as ‘outside the square’.
Learning a language is great for brain development. All around the concept of neuro plasticity and forming new neuronal networks. Learn a language for fun, assisting with travel, better understanding of a culture or change in country. Hell, might even improve employment prospects.
Personally, I've found Spanish invaluable. South America, Spain (obviously) and makes reading French and Italian a little easier. It's also a common 2nd or 3rd language for many people. Most recently it helped with some Brazilians who couldn't speak English but transitioned to espanol.
In my supermarket I hear Hindi, Mandarin, occasionally a pacific language, very, very rarely Spanish. Never te reo. Your choice.
Seems like a duplication of effort at this point. If you're interested and enjoy it then sure, but there are so many local native speakers it's hardly going to be an 'in demand' skill except for employers that want to justify a visa application to INZ.
Meanwhile, in China they are learning English a lot faster than we'll ever learn Chinese.
With regards to international business, I remember in my day learning Japanese was all the rage as many predicted the ascendance of Japan as our key economic partner.
For my kids, forget Chinese, that time has come and gone.
Luckily India and Nigeria don't really have a predominant native language, so English is pretty prevalent.
No language should be forced on the kids, none.
They should freely select one language to learn.
If you force it, all you end up with kids who hate that language that they are forced to learn.
My kids at school selected Japanese and French, guess why not another language that was compulsory before.
It is like sand, the harder you squeeze the less control you have on it.
I learnt Latin for two years at highschool. I have never found it particularly useful in a working lifetime. But a little Latin does give you a better insight into the meanings of English vocabulary, especially multi-syllabic words made up of Latin (and Greek) roots. The thing about Latin is you don't have to worry about what order you place the words in a sentence whereas in English word order is everything.
I took French for three years and if I had a basic French-English dictionary to hand, I could probably still read say a French newspaper. The only occasion I used French in earnest was when I thought I could get away with lighting up a cigarette in the London underground because there was only one other person in the carriage, a young lady several seats in front of me. On smelling the smoke from my cigarette she turned around and indignantly pointed to a no-smoking sign. I shrugged my shoulders and looked quizzically at her giving the false impression that I couldn't understand her or the sign she was pointing at because I couldn't understand English. She then decided that I might be French and so repeated the sign's message in French. I looked at the sign as if I hadn't noticed it before and replied to her in perfect French: "oui" (yes). I then stubbed out my cigarette on the floor feeling that I had saved face by resorting to my three year tuition in French, albeit by using just one French word. The lady seemed satisfied with the result of her admonition.
To better assimilate Maori (people) into society I think we do have to introduce the Maori language into our education basic curriculum. But this could only be done successfully if it begins from the day a child enters primary school. It would obviously be an insurmountable burden expecting adults or even highschool students to master Maori language with the exception of the few words and phrases that the media seem to be pushing now.
Most Maori don't speak or understand Maori, so why/how can we assimilate Maori into society using a language that they do not understand either? About 4% of people of Maori descent actually know the language and they are mostly over 60 years old. This 'society' has also been here for about 200 years too, and I would have thought we already consider Maori part of society already.
streetwise said:
"To better assimilate Maori (people) into society I think we do have to introduce the Maori language into our education basic curriculum. But this could only be done successfully if it begins from the day a child enters primary school."
Unfortunately that does not work, and I know from first hand experience. All it would achieve is people who are forced to learn the language would hate it even more.
I have seen this first hand, trust me on this, it would backfire and would be a monumental mistake !
On the other hand if someone wants to learn Te Reo as a hobby, by all means, let them have fun and let them learn it.
Given the alarming decline in literacy and numeracy in New Zealand against our international peers I'm hesitant to thrust the burden of teaching foreign languages onto schools already struggling with the core curriculum. Ideally every child would learn three or more languages, as is typical in many international schools, but we must address The Three Rs as a matter of urgency.
If we are going to take the considerable time and effort to learn a different language, isn't it the pragmatic choice to pick the language most useful to the individual?
And is the fall in numbers of those learning languages useful overseas a symptom of our growing inward-looking mind-set? That really is a concern, as we don't really figure in the world's consciousness, and need to adapt to that position.
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