The rise in popularity of Mandarin A-level could be down to the high number of native speakers taking the subject – and not, as previously thought, the growing numbers of English students making choices based on the economic strength of China.

The number of candidates sitting Mandarin A-level this year rose by 8.6 per cent, and overtook the number of German candidates for the first time.

The figures prompted exam boards to say that the popularity of Chinese showed that the perceived difficulty of languages was not the “main driver” of entries .

But leading researcher Teresa Tinsley said the situation was being "misread" and that native speakers were a factor behind the boost in figures, as were “heritage speakers”, whose parents were native speakers.

Ms Tinsley, who is co-author of the British Council’s Language Trends 2018 survey, said: “It’s much more complicated than just looking at the raw data.

“For one thing, about 75 per cent of Mandarin A-level candidates come from the private sector, and we know that private schools take in a lot of Chinese national pupils in their sixth forms and they can easily get an A level.

“They’re not even heritage students, because it’s their native language, and then there are the heritage speakers on top of that who are learning it as a foreign language, but are supported by their families and have probably been studying it at Saturday schools since they were small children.”

Entries for Mandarin A level rose from 3,070 last year to 3,334 this year; this compares with the drop in German take-up, for which entries fell from 3,663 in 2017 to 3,058 this year – a decline of 16.5 per cent.

Mark Bedlow, director of regulation and business performance at the OCR board, had suggested that the increase in entries for Mandarin could be down to English students choosing the subject in view of the economic rise of China.

It has also been claimed that the government’s Mandarin Excellence Programme , which has promoted Mandarin in schools since 2016, could also be a factor.

But Ms Tinsley said the situation was "very complex". She added: "We should not to be drawing general conclusions from it about the state of language learning in schools."