Chinese A-level has overtaken German for the first time, as it becomes the UK’s third most popular language.

This year 3,334 students took Chinese A-level, compared to 3,058 taking German. While entries for Chinese have increased by 8.6 per cent since last year, German entries have declined by 16.5 per cent.

Derek Richardson, the senior responsible officer at Pearson, said Chinese has “bucked the trend” of the fall in popularity of modern languages.

“In languages we are seeing some significant decreases in entries for the main modern languages: French, German and Spanish,” he said

"But what we are also seeing is an increase in entries across some of the other languages that people study.

“What this means is Chinese…is now more popular than German. So maybe young people are beginning to think about what languages will be useful to them in the future.”