BEIJING, July 8 (Xinhua) -- China launched a website,
www.linese.com, on Saturday to offer learning courses of Mandarin Chinese online
to meet the surging demand of Chinese learning around the world.
Sponsored by China's National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (NOCFL), the website aims to
offer online learning, training, volunteer help, search services and various
learning resources.
"The website features multimedia technologies
including online interactive courses, virtual communities, blogs and pod casts,"
said Zheng Zhongxiu who is in charge of the website.
If users log onto the website, they enter a virtual
community sets in a traditional Beijing residential courtyard where registered
users can communicate with each other and learn Chinese through the specially
designed games.
Statistics from the Ministry of Education show more
than 30 million people worldwide are learning Chinese and more than 2,500
universities in 100 countries and regions offer Chinese courses.
"With an increasing number of foreigners studying
Chinese in their own country, traditional classroom instructions alone cannot
cope with the huge demand," China's Education Minister Zhou Ji said at the
Confucius Institute Conference which concluded Friday.
"This requires modern information technology and
multimedia online instructions to be used more extensively to meet the learning
demand," he said.
The website also links to scores of overseas
Confucius institutes which specialize in promoting Chinese learning and Chinese
culture, according to Zheng.
"The website is currently available in Chinese and
English, but our staff are working on the Korean and Japanese versions," Zheng
said, adding that they will develop more varied versions to facilitate users
with different backgrounds.
Xu Jialu, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of
the National People's Congress, said the website is an important platform for
learning Mandarin and showcasing Chinese culture.
He said it should build itself to be the world's most
important Mandarin learning website and provide comprehensive services for
people all over the world who want to learn Mandarin. Enditem
