In 1980s America, students were offered language courses as young as 12 years old. Move on to the year 2000, and this decade’s children are way ahead of the game. Schools across America have made foreign language a requirement to graduate and also start the students as young as 5 years old. Beyond that, they aren’t just offering the usual French, Spanish, Italian and German – they’re offering the language of the present, and certainly the future – Mandarin Chinese.Learning Mandarin Chinese at an early age has shown that children grasp the language more readily. This is because at a young age, the brain has the ability to compartmentalize various languages correctly. This allows the child a greater chance to attain the native pronunciation and grammar. Not only has research shown that learning a foreign language enhances cognitive development, but overall basic skills performance in elementary school children as well. There’s an overall lack of self-consciousness when learning a language at an earlier age. Children are more apt to try out new words and phrases then when they are older, when there is the tendency to be afraid of pronouncing the words incorrectly. The spontaneity leads to learning to speak Chinese with a quicker fluency.If you’re looking for additional ways to assist your child in learning Chinese, new types of technology which weren’t available in the past can help students outside the classroom. The Nintendo DS, for example, has a product which guides you through a Chinese language tutorial. And with the innovation of the web, it’s become easier to learn Mandarin online.