The effort of the Chinese university, Beijing Foreign Studies University, to highlight the importance of foreign languages, seems to help by promoting the indigenous languages and promoting their beauty and importance in different countries of the world.
This was said by one of the Zulu teachers at this university, Ms Nonjabulo Ximba, who narrated It’s on the weekend for the beauty of this university’s program that started in 2018. He joined it in 2024 when he was hired to work in it.
Ms Ximba from KwaSwayimane said that this program continues to bear good and visible results as in the middle of this month at this university – 10 students who have completed their Zulu studies have graduated.
“IsiZulu is one of the 20 courses from different countries of the world studied at this university, which I think will be very useful for the countries where those languages are spoken because the people here in China are very concerned about information, and to help that if there are gaps they see, they have solutions that will help many people,” he said.
Continuing, he said that due to the way this program is being taken care of, there is currently a dictionary being prepared in the university with the aim of translating it to Heaven, which will help to improve the way its students learn so that it is not difficult for them.
“This is very surprising, especially because it is rare that there are people who care about native languages like this, especially here in China. It is a well-known fact that they do not care much about foreign languages as they tend to do many things on their own in their own way,” said Ms. Ximba.
He said this year, this program is continuing which takes three to four years for those who are about to start learning this field of different native languages. He said that one of the things that makes it difficult to teach is that there is a large number of students admitted every year as it rarely exceeds 10.
“I think this will encourage us personally to pay attention to our languages, when people from other countries show interest and love in understanding the nature of our native languages,” said Ms. Ximba.