How has Chinese changed my life? Confucius Institute at AUTh’s students: Preliminary findings

Confucius Institutes, the main and most important carriers of the teaching of Chinese outside China, are growing in numbers and importance. As multilingualism is a reality across the world, students who study Chinese at the Confucius Institute of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece tap into multiple linguistic resources while building a relationship with Chinese as an additional language. In this paper we will present preliminary findings from a study carried out, through questionnaires, on the views about learning Chinese of students of Chinese at the Confucius Institute at AUTh, during 2020–2023. Our findings highlight the multilingual backgrounds of students and their language beliefs in relation to Chinese as a new, additional language. The students’ responses indicate that Chinese is a “magical” language that can affect and give positive “power” to them in multiple ways. From these findings, it appears that Greek students of Chinese appreciate the unique features of the language and are willing to make it their “language of the heart”.