*In Mandarin Chinese, there is no distinction between the verbs “was” and “am” and “will be.” Take these two sentences: “I will be a teacher next year” and “I was a teacher last year.” In Mandarin, the sentences translate roughly as follows: “I am a teacher in two years” and “I am a teacher last year.”
* There also is no such thing as a plural word. It isn't, “I bought three eggs.” Instead, it is, “I bought three egg.”
*In 1956, to boost its literacy rate, the Chinese government devised a simplified version of its written language. To this day, both versions are widely used.
*The number of people who speak English in China outstrips the number of people who speak English in the United States.
ABOUT GERMAN
* Quote from German philosopherFranz Rosenzweig: “As many languages one speaks, as many times one is a human being.”
* Having taken some German is a requirement for 56 majors in the UC system – more than any other language
* German is the most widely used language in the European Union
* German is the second-most prominent language on the Internet
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY
* Level of difficulty -- as labeled by the Defense Language Institute in Monterrey -- for French, Spanish and Italian: 1
* For German: 2
* For Mandarin Chinese and Arabic: 4
Sources: Teachers Sufen Yen, Isabel Downs, and Rolf Richter, as well as Elisabeth Weber, chair of the Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Languages at UCSB
