Some miscellaneous statistics (and facts) I was able to dig up on the Chinese language…  and some good reasons why it’s not a bad idea to pick up the language…  shazam!

• Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world
• More people in the world speak Chinese natively than English and Spanish combined
• Chinese Mandarin is one of six official languages of the United Nations
• Chinese Mandarin is one of four official languages of Singapore
• Mandarin is the most widely spoken form of Chinese
• Mandarin is spoken by approximately 70% of mainland China’s population
• Chinese Mandarin is the official language of China and Taiwan
• Chinese is the third-most spoken language in the U.S. (behind English and Spanish and in front of French and German) according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2000)
• Chinese is the third-most spoken language in Canada, behind English and French (according to the latest census conducted by the Canadian government)
• Learning Chinese is becoming more and more of an asset along with China’s emergence as an economic and technological superpower