I arrived in New York two weeks ago. There aren’t many Chinese students here, so I have to use English most of the time. Now I am writing my diary in English because my English teacher Rachel says it is a good way to practice English.

My English is hopeless! I was on the bus this morning and a man spoke to me, but I hardly understood him. I was so embarrassed （尴尬的）. Why is my English so poor? I want to make lots of American friends, but it’s hard for me to communicate with others.

I went to a school party last Friday. I talked with a Japanese boy named Kenji and an Italian girl named Carla. We talked about our countries’ customs and our experiences in America. We are going to walk around New York this weekend. Kenji asked me to play basketball after school with him from now on. Maybe things are getting better!

Languages open up new doors

Which foreign language(s) would you like to learn? Why do you want to learn it\them?

I grew up in a family of 12 (10 children and parents) and a large family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They married freely — that is, to people from any country. So it was common to hear people talking but not sure what they were speaking. There were Italian and French mixed with English, Eastern European accents(口音) with Asian English.

I later learned Spanish while living in New York City and married a Japanese man who could speak English. One day, my husband received a letter from a dear friend from Japan who he hadn’t seen for many years. This friend was visiting our city and we planned to meet. When we finally met, we discovered that his friend had been in South America for many years and spoke only Japanese and Spanish. So he spoke to me in Spanish and to my husband in Japanese; I spoke to him in Spanish and to my husband in English; and my husband spoke to me in English and to his friend in Japanese. We did this for about an hour! It was fun.

These experiences taught me the importance of learning other types of language. I can understand other people who speak a different language — language of someone whose experience has taken them down a road very different from mine.

As China’s influence grows, many students in the US are working hard to learn Chinese. Parents and education experts（专家）in the US think Chinese speakers may have greater chances.

The number of schools that teach Chinese has grown. Ten years ago, only about 300 schools in the US had Chinese lessons. Today, about 1, 600 schools teach Chinese.

Lomond Elementary School in Ohio is one of them. Each week, all students in grades one to five have a one-hour Chinese class. They learn the language through songs, games and lots of talking.

“We’re trying to make students interested in the language,” teacher James told Times for Kids. “We think it’s really important that all children receive these lessons,” he says. “We’d like to do even more.”

“Schools are looking to the future,” says Nancy, a US education expert. “China is becoming a really powerful country. Young people should not only know the language, but also understand the culture. Students may not be thinking about the future, but they think learning Chinese language and culture is fun.”

“We wish we could go to China one day,” said Karl and his classmate, Walt, from Miami.

More than 40 million foreigners around the world are studying Chinese. About 50,000 people in the US are learning the language. Chinese has become the second most spoken foreign language in the US after Spanish.