Why Learn Chinese Alongside English?

Language shapes our mindset. Unlike phonetic alphabetic English language, Chinese language is tonal with pictorial written symbols, which results in distinct brain functions. Brain functioning differs not only when distinguishing between spoken Chinese and spoken English, but also when distinguishing between written Chinese and written English. The English alphabetic language, which is characteristically left brain oriented, the logographic nature of Chinese characters conduces to thinking in images which are oriented to the right brain. Learning Mandarin Chinese involves both right and left hemispheres of the brain, which collaborate together in responding to the written pictorial Chinese characters and their corresponding pronunciation and tones. More importantly, the brain learns Chinese as music and reads Chinese as image.

Thus, learning Mandarin Chinese alongside English, especially in early life, can bring maximum amount of stimulations to both the right (creative) and left (rational) sides of the brain, which results in quick, balanced whole brain development, leading to greater mental capacity.