Yes, learning characters and mastering tones is a major challenge. That said, it’s far too early to discount the future potential of Mandarin. Let’s explore three reasons why Mandarin may never overtake English, along with three reasons why Mandarin could surprise us to become the lingua franca of the 22nd century.

First we must ask ourselves: what constitutes “speaking” a language? Can we claim Lithuanian proficiency if we banter with a taxi driver in Vilnius? Is negotiating the purchase of a cow in Nairobi sufficient for us to say we’re speakers of Swahili? And is it enough if we crack a joke in Urdu and get a laugh? It’s more complex than that.

The term “mother tongue” derives from our most basic human connection, mother and child. In The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson tells the splendid tale of how English was the underdog of all language underdogs but overcame its humble Germanic origins to outlast Latin, Gaelic, French and other powerful champions of the past. Given its meteoric ascension, we would be foolhardy indeed to assume English will dominate the language landscape forever and a day. So without further ado, let’s have a look at three reasons…

Why Mandarin is unlikely to overtake English

1. More people worldwide are studying English than Chinese

A recent Reuters article comparing US & China exchange student enrollment reveals that the number of US students studying in China (2012-13) decreased by 3.2% to 14,413, while the number of Chinese students studying in the US (2013-14) jumped 16.5% to more than 274,000. While exchange students are only one small piece of a larger puzzle, most of the data online suggests that the unstoppable “let’s all study Chinese” trend of five years ago has cooled a bit, at least for the short term.

2. Learning Mandarin is still widely perceived as too difficult

In our book China Simplified: Language Empowerment we affectionately refer to Mandarin as the easiest (and hardest) language in the world: