THIS is apropos of Abdul Wahab Arain’s letter ‘Teaching Chinese’ (Oct 10). The Sindh government has recently announced that it will make Chinese a part of the curriculum in Sindh from Class VI.

I wish to share my personal experience regarding the Chinese language. I took four months of compulsory Chinese language course as part of my PhD from a university in Beijing. I learnt all the three aspects of a language, namely speaking, listening and grammar.

However, I felt great difficulty in adapting to this unusual language because it has no basic set of alphabet found in other languages. Every word in Mandarin has its own character that makes it extremely difficult to memorise all the words.

Pinyen is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into Roman alphabets and is the way non-natives start to have some understanding of the world’s toughest language.

However, every Pinyen could be pronounced in four different ways, utilising four different tones to describe four words, thus the slightest slip of the tongue could spell out another word that is not meant to be.

I am not against the decision by the Sindh government to introduce Mandarin as part of the syllabus for China has emerged as a great economic hub.

Pakistan could benefit from it by providing opportunities to our youth to learn Chinese that may not only be helpful in getting higher education but also effectively engaging in trade with China.

However, it should be optional and should not be offered before the secondary school level.

Furthermore, I learnt Arabic from grade six to grade eight during my schooling but lately the government withdrew this important language as part of our curriculum due to unknown reasons. The government is requested to reintroduce Arabic as a compulsory language up to the higher secondary level to give our youth a better understanding of our religion.

AYAZ AHMED Beijing University of Technology China