increasing economic importance of china leads aberdeen man to set up online tuition site
Move to teach children how to speak and write Mandarin
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The prospect of learning Mandarin, with 6,000 written characters and several oral tones, may seem daunting, but with China’s political and economic clout increasing, it has never been so important.
Now an Aberdeen man hopes to play a part in bringing the language to a new generation of youngsters. In terms of the volume of characters to be learned, Arabic, Hebrew and Russian are a comparative doddle. To read a Chinese newspaper, people need to know 2,000 pictograms.
Jim Raffan believes his programme to get people speaking the language of mainland China can help overcome the hurdles.
The website he has created claims it can have students reading, writing and holding a conversation in Mandarin by the time the 24-lesson course has been completed. The lessons have been formulated by language graduates and Chinese nationals.
The members-only site www.kidschineseclub.com offers an online teaching tool, accessible via a lesson-by-lesson subscription.
The majority of the learning is done through a number of video clips, which are hosted by Mr Raffan’s daughter Daisy, 17, who has been learning Chinese since the age of five.
“Even back when Daisy was a toddler, I identified that for her to learn Chinese would help her in her career and safeguard her future,” said Mr Raffan, 53, who is originally from Aberdeen’s Mastrick area.
Mr Raffan, a father-of-three who now lives in Dubai, said the idea came to him around 20 years ago.
Mr Raffan’s venture has been backed by Scottish entrepreneur and chief executive officer of Aberdeen Asset Management, Martin Gilbert.
