A hard but sweet journey to learn Chinese language

KABUL — Despite learning the Chinese language being difficult for many elsewhere in the world, learning the language has become more common among Afghan youths recently.

Unlike other languages, while learning Chinese, the learner needs to draw characters rather than use an alphabet But an Afghan teacher, Farzana Khashie said despite being a little hard to learn, she found Chinese language too sweet to speak and now too easy to teach.

Farzana, who teaches Chinese language at the Avicenna University, in a recent interview, narrated how she could learn the bewilderingly complex language well and how she can easily teach it now.

“I have found that the Chinese language is a very interesting language,” she said. “After I started learning it at the university, I was not interested in it but gradually it became my daily habit to learn Chinese even at the cost of my eye-surgery”.

Recalling her hard study, she said that one of her eyes even got problem due to hard study of the language and she had to have eye surgery.

The unexpected blow took Farzana at least one month to decide whether she should attend Chinese Language Department, but, she eventually decided to carry on.

Farzana was proud of not only being a Chinese language educated girl, but also a teacher at the university.

Three of her students have succeeded in gaining scholarship eligibility, after successfully passing an exam held at Kabul University.

“I am proud of being a Chinese language teacher, as three of my students — one in economics and the other two in Chinese language, managed to gain scholarship eligibility provided by Confucius Institute.”

Close relations

Farzana has not been to China, but she is glad to see in her own country that learning Chinese has become more popular as the two countries’ relations are getting closer.

“Globalization of China’s economy, is not only what the Chinese people hoped for, but it has also turned into a worldwide undeniable fact,” Farzana said. She also believes that the Chinese language would become more popular to learn in the near future in her country and in the world at large.

“I think the 21st century is the era of China, so learning the Chinese language is very important nowadays,” she said.

With the rapid expansion of business and cultural relations between Afghanistan and China, many Afghan youths believe that learning the Chinese language is very important.

Unlike Farzana who believed the language is, a little difficult to learn, Mohammad Reza, a student of the Chinese Language Department at Kabul University, said that it was too easy to learn the language.

“I am really interested in learning it,” said Reza.

China is currently, training about 1,000 professionals and provides 150 scholarships for Afghanistan annually, with the aim of strengthening mutual understanding and trust between the two nations.