St. Olaf Chinese Language Program
China is one of the oldest civilizations in the world and has many valuable things for us to explore and learn from, especially in the information era when people and nations are linked so close that every person becomes a citizen of the global village and that something happens in one country will have immediate impacts on the others.
After our former President Nixson visited China in 1972, a door opened and a new era of communication and cooperation between the two countries began. Since then both the U.S. and China have benefited from the good relationship, despite occasional ups and down. In the past three decades, China has developed from an under-developed country to a developing country and has had an economic growth of double digits in every year. In the coming decade China will become the largest trade partner of the U.S. and continue to play an important role in the international community as China has been and still is one of the five standing council members of the United Nations.
As China becomes more and more economically powerful along the
course of accomplishing its Four Modernizations, China will eventually
cast away its “closed door” mentality and become more
active in the world’s political arena. In the coming century,
the destination of the two countries is in the hands of the present
and the next generation. To reach further understanding of the
two countries, we need to know people and their culture; and to
know people and their culture, we need to communicate to each other;
and in order to communicate to each other, we have to know their
language. The only way for one to learn the language is to take
Chinese and go China to reach the people and experience the culture.
That is what we can offer to you and help you reach your goal.
Please check out our program on the website or come to talk to
one of our professors in the department. If you are thinking of
taking Chinese, you should come to give a try right from your first
year at St. Olaf College.
