How many people around the world are currently learning Chinese? How many people are learning English?

First, let’s talk about mainland China’s official data. Counting since 2003, there have been such a group: 20 million, 25 million, 30 million, 40 million and 100 million.

2003: 20 million

On June 16, 2003, Guangdong Overseas Chinese Network reprinted an article excerpted from "China Today" magazine, titled "20 million foreigners learn Chinese." This is the earlier mainland official record that the author found online.

2004: 25 million

On August 3, 2004, China News Network published an article entitled "More than 25 million foreigners are learning Chinese, setting off a new round of Chinese craze" "Article. We noticed that after more than a year, this number has increased by 5 million.

2005: 30 million

On July 20, 2005, the first World Chinese Language Conference opened in Beijing. On that day, the data "30 million overseas Chinese learners" appeared with high profile on the websites of the authoritative Xinhua News Agency and China News Service. The official website of the Ministry of Education of China reprinted the same data from the China Education News the next day. . This data was then widely reproduced and cited by domestic and overseas media, becoming the most official data ever released by mainland China.

Compared with 2004, this data increased by 5 million.

There is this sentence on Xinhuanet on July 20: "The "People's Daily Overseas Edition" quoted the State Office of Chinese Language as a Foreign Language as disclosing that in addition to Chinese people, there are currently more than 100 people in the world who are learning Chinese through various methods. More than 30 million." It can be seen that the figure of 30 million was announced by the Han Office.

On February 7, 2006, Xinhuanet quoted information from the UNESCO High-Level Meeting on Education for All as saying that “the number of Chinese language learners abroad has reached 30 million.”

2006: 40 million

2010: 100 million

“100 million” is a forecast number.

There was an article on Xinhuanet on May 23, 2006 titled "In 2010, hundreds of millions of foreigners will learn Chinese and 5 million overseas Chinese teachers will be needed." The article introduced: "According to the National Leading Group for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language The office predicts that by 2010, the number of foreigners learning Chinese around the world will reach 100 million."

This data was confirmed from another source. An article on Xinhuanet commemorating the 50th anniversary of the promotion of Chinese Pinyin on October 26, 2008 stated, "According to the "China Language Life Situation Report" released in 2007, the number of people learning Chinese worldwide will reach 100 million by 2010." The report issued in 2007 actually talked about things in 2006. It can be seen that the predictions of the two platforms were roughly made in mid-2006.

If we use the figures of 20 million and 25 million in 2003 and 2004 respectively as a baseline, then this forecast implies an increase of 80 million (4 times) and 75 million (in 7 and 6 years), respectively. 3 times) the number of learners, this growth rate is quite amazing.

Assuming we take the 2005 figure of 40 million as a baseline, this forecast means that the number of learners will increase by 60 million within 5 years, an average annual growth of 12 million. By the way, let's make a small comparison. Looking back from 2003 to 2005, the annual growth rate during the two years was 5 million. There is still quite a gap between the two figures of 5 million and 12 million.

More than 400 million (native English speakers). English is the most widely used language in the world. Absolutely correct. There are approximately 4 billion people learning English.

Reference material: Geography book in the first volume of junior high school