"Then I started working for the Canadian government, and I was sent to Hong Kong to learn Mandarin Chinese," says Kaufmann, co-founder of LingQ, a community of language learners and tutors.

While romance languages like French and Spanish used to be the norm, Mandarin is exploding in popularity among students and families.

As "TikTok refugees" flood to Chinese site RedNote, language learning app Duolingo has reported an over 200% spike in people learning Mandarin.

The language-learning app Duolingo has seen a surprising trend emerge, the closer we get to the TikTok ban -- there's been a 216% spike in US users learning Mandarin compared to this time last year.

Here are some reasons I believe – as a Mandarin speaker of nearly 30 years – you should consider learning the language as well: Chinese matters more than ever before.

Plymouth Elementary created a Mandarin language dual-immersion program in the fall, in which kindergarten students, including those in transitional kindergarten, learn in English for half the day ...