Americans rush to learn Chinese as TikTok is about to be banned?

The foreign language learning platform has seen a surge in the number of American users learning Chinese in recent days, likely due to the need to use an alternative application to TikTok, which is about to be banned.

Faced with the scenario that the social network TikTok (owned by ByteDance Company in China) will be banned in the US after January 19, TikTok users in this country have recently introduced each other to switch to another Chinese social network called RedNote (or Xiao Hong Shu in Chinese).

However, the barrier for most Americans is that RedNote is designed for a Chinese audience, so the default language of this application is Chinese, requiring translation tools or a basic grasp of the language. In response to the above developments, the globally popular foreign language learning application Duolingo has recorded a sharp increase in the number of American users signing up to learn Chinese.

RedNote app (left) chosen by Americans as TikTok alternative

Accordingly, Duolingo recorded a 216% increase in registrations for learning Mandarin, or common Chinese, compared to the same period last year, especially in mid-January, when RedNote was switched to by many TikTok users, according to TechCrunch on January 15 .

“So now you guys are just starting to learn Chinese,” Duolingo, a company based in Pennsylvania, USA, wrote on social network X on January 14. In addition, in a survey the company conducted for new users, when asked “How did you hear about us?”, the number of users choosing “TikTok” also increased correspondingly.

Some users hope that the US government can agree to give TikTok an additional 270 days as prescribed, while others joke: "How can people learn Chinese in 24 hours?", Reuters reported on January 15.

The TikTok ban is expected to significantly impact the app’s estimated 170 million users in the US, many of whom make their living from the platform. Others have a lot of content and memories stored on TikTok and are rushing to download them.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/nguoi-my-do-xo-hoc-tieng-trung-khi-tiktok-sap-bi-cam-185250116202520539.htm