Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

(click on the link below and you can hear the story)

Emily Feng March 25, 2025

STEVE INSKEEP: When you travel in China – as our team has been doing – you meet a fair number of people who know English. Millions of Chinese citizens have been educated in the United States. They include the top executives of companies, economists, government officials. The president’s daughter attended Harvard University. The flow in the other direction is much smaller, but there is some, even in this time of rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies. So what is it like for Americans who learn the language of a trading partner and rival? NPR’s Emily Feng visited an American elementary school that teaches it.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Anybody want breakfast?

EMILY FENG, BYLINE: It’s Monday morning at the Yu Ying Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Speaking Mandarin).

FENG: I hear Mandarin Chinese floating through the hallways of this 700-person school.

Do you want to speak in English or Chinese?

Lukas Wouhib is a 10-year-old student here, and he really wants to speak in Chinese.

(Speaking Mandarin)?

“Why do you like learning Chinese?” I ask him.

LUKAS WOUHIB: (Speaking Mandarin).

FENG: “I like learning Chinese very much because it’s hard,” Wouhib says.

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