Spain has a particular liking for Chinese

Friday, November 16, 2012

From here in Spanish, an article with only about two citeworthy sentences:

According to data from the latest Eurobarometer, 24% of respondents in Spain (compared to the European average of 14%) believe Chinese should be the second language their children choose to learn. The survey shows that 13% of those in Spain believe Chinese to be a useful language for personal development, compared to 6% for Europeans in general.

Now where is that latest Europeans and their Languages from Eurobarometer? A quick search turns up one for 2006....ah, here's the one the article references (pdf) and it's actually from June. The bit about Spain liking Chinese in particular is not just because it's a Spanish article, as the paper itself references Spain here a number of times:
Respondents in all Member States are at least as likely, if not more likely than they were in 2005, to think that Chinese is useful for personal development. The most notable increases in the share of those mentioning it as an important language are in Spain (+11 percentage points) and the UK (+9 points).

Respondents in EU15, compared with those in NMS12, are particularly more likely than those in NMS12 to think that Spanish (17% vs. 3% respectively), French (18% vs. 8%), Chinese (7% vs. 1%) and Italian (5% vs. 3%) are important.

Those countries with the greatest likelihood of respondents thinking Chinese useful are Spain (13%), the UK (11%) and Ireland (9%).

...in some Member States, the perception that it (Chinese) is useful for children has increased much more than the perception that it useful for personal development. Countries with the most notable increases in the proportion holding such a view are Denmark (+25 percentage points), Spain and France (+23 points in each) and Ireland and the UK (+18 points).

Member States where the view that Chinese is a useful language for children to learn is most widespread include France (28%), Denmark (26%), Spain (24%) and the UK (23%).

and so on.



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