Many international students choose to study their programs in Chinese universities fully in English. Studying the program of your interest in English gives a great opportunity for international students as it saves time because students don’t have to spend 1-2 years learning Chinese and classes in English are easy to comprehend. However, we advise all the students to take at least some Chinese classes, but Why?

1. You need Chinese in your daily life in China

The official language in China is Chinese and only a small portion of the population speaks English.  This means that you will not find people who work in restaurants, shops or subway speaking English. For example, all the road signs, restaurant menus, online shopping applications such as Taobao, JD, Tmall are all in Chinese only. To navigate in the city, you will need to use a Baidu map, for instance, to check the bus or subway line, as Google map doesn’t work in China, but guess what? Baidu map is also only in Chinese. Therefore, learning Chinese is useful for your daily life in China and to experience the most out of it.

2. The Chinese language gives you an insight into the culture

In any culture, language is the key to understand the culture. Many international students choose to study in China not only because China is the second-largest economy in the world, but also Chinese culture has a history of more than 5,000 years and very different from western cultures. It’s the experience that matters in your life. Speaking Chinese will give you an opportunity to speak to locals, make Chinese friends which in return will give you an insight into the culture, mindset of people, business etiquettes and to understand why they do things that way.

3. Speaking Chinese will greatly increase your chances of getting a job

The Chinese language will help you to get a job after your graduation not only in China but in your home country. Even though there are many international corporations in China where the corporate language is English, most of them require at least HSK level 4 for you to get hired. Why? Because the company is in China for a reason and their customers and partners are probably Chinese, so you will need to have a communicational Chinese. On the other hand, more than 90% of companies in China are Chinese companies, so if you only target multinational corporations, you are greatly decreasing your chances of getting a job in China. How about your home country? When you apply for a job from your home country and you tell them you have graduated from a Chinese university, they automatically assume that you speak Chinese, which increases your chances of getting hired. However, if you tell them you have studied in China for 4 years and cannot speak Chinese, this makes your CV look less competitive.