Forget Paris. Today’s kids increasingly want to speak the languages of Beijing and Baghdad.
In Wisconsin and nationwide, the study of Chinese and Arabic remains dwarfed by long-taught counterparts like French, German and Spanish. But they are gaining a toehold.
While some dismiss the trend as short-lived, akin to the Sputnik-era rush to learn Russian, and some media reports suggest a post-September 11 wave of interest in Arabic has already waned, others foresee a long-term shift.