We did a short survey on German beginners of Mandarin where we asked 30 people what problems they face, what they use for learning, and what they think is missing. Most of the 30 people are students and none of them have a family background in China. On average they already studied 7 months of Chinese while learning 1.8 days a week.

It is interesting to see that for most of them gaining a special qualification for a later job is of some importance, and at least 19 have interest in Chinese history, culture or philosophy.

Though only 12 can actually write Chinese on their computers, 20 frequently use an online dictionary. Amongst those sites named are LEO Chinesisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch, Chinesisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch HanDeDict and MDBG Chinese-English dictionary with frequency in this order.

Of those asked 7 have regular contact with people from China, nobody has a language partner. Only 3 are planning to do a internship or language curse soon, but 8 have already been in China before they started their language course.

The evaluation is still under way.