Mandarin Chinese Course available to general public!!

By Melissa Bryant
Reporter-SKNVibes.com

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE Department of Information and Technology will be conducting a training course in the fundamentals of Mandarin Chinese at the National Information and Communication Technology (NICT) Centre from Tuesday, October 14 to Thursday, November 13.

Participants on the course, which will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., will be instructed by Taiwanese volunteer student Pei Ying Hong in the areas of conversational Mandarin including Emotions, Weather, Family, Ordering, and Phonics and Tones.

Registration for the course can be done at the NICT Centre and the fee is EC$20, but those interested must hurry to sign up as only 20 spaces are available.

SKNVibes spoke to Colin Frank, Training Coordinator at the Centre, who explained the reason behind the initiative.

“We recognise that there are quite a number of Chinese persons living in St. Kitts and, not only that, many of our residents do business with Taiwan or China. The courses will enable these persons to communicate more effectively and to become more exposed to the language.”

Frank noted that this is the third time the NICT Centre has conducted courses of this nature and the previous two were well-attended. He pointed out that the possibility of future courses would depend on the response and interest of the general public.