but as china hasec economic power, interest in its language has grown dramatically. [ speaking chinesei think their ability to converse fluently in mandarin will serve them incredibly well, in a variety of ways going forward. >> i knew that when i grew up, like, um, chinese would be, like, a good thing to just have in, like, my tool belt, i guess, for when, like, applying for jobs and stuff like that. [ speaking chinese ] >> learning mandarin not only prepares you for the future, it proves you can take on a big challenge. all languages require you to pronounce words correctly, but mandarin goes further. you also need to pronounce them with the correct tone. >> there's first tone, second tone, third tone, and fourth tone, and those are all unique ways to pronounce a word. so you can put together a sentence that's, like, ma, ma, ma, ma, and that means, "mom scolded the numb horse." it's the same word. >> if you don't pronounce the tone correctly, the meaning will be wrong. it will cause a lot of misunderstanding. >> so, do you have to be a language genius to learn chinese? >> definitely