Armenian Courses Offered in China

• 09.17.2015, 09:18
•  Asia,  World,  Armenia,  No-politics

Representative of the Armenian community of China, Head of the Armenian Students' Union Mher Sahakyan reports that Armenian language is now being offered to Chinese university students in another example of the strengthening links between Armenia and China. The courses in Armenian language and culture classes will be offered for a second consecutive year at the prestigious Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) after a very successful launch year with many of the enrolled Chinese students expressing the desire to continue their Armenian studies in Armenia.

Teaching Armenian in China is now the responsibility of Mary Knyazyan, a BFSU PhD student originally from Armenia who has been living in China for the past 2 years.

Mr. Henri Arslanian, President of the Armenian Community of China, affirmed the group’s commitment to support such intercultural educational initiatives.

“It is an honor and great pleasure to share with our Chinese friends our Armenian language, culture and history,” he said. “We are touched to see that they enjoy learning Armenian and about Armenian culture as much as we enjoy learning Mandarin and about Chinese culture.”

The Chinese students have been very successful in their Armenian studies so far. “To my surprise, Armenian is not so difficult for Chinese students. They often find that Armenian letters look like Chinese characters and are able to pronounce the difficult Armenian pronunciations sounds like ձ [dz], ծ [tʼs], ց [ts] surprisingly smoothly. They also study culture and history of Armenia,” said Knyazyan.

The Armenian community of China and Hong Kong continues to strengthen Sino-Armenian friendship by the help of Public diplomacy.

Anyone interested in learning more about the Armenian Community in China can do so by visiting the community’s website at www.chinahay.com