It's silly for the Chinese to spend money on Americans, even if it's only $685,000, and even if it's to help us learn Chinese. Still, as we see from College Placement Program Expands Language Offerings By TAMAR LEWIN

Spanish is the most commonly taught language in American high schools, with about four million students. It is followed by French, German, Italian, Russian and Japanese, according to the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages.

While most Chinese high school students study English, fewer than 50,000 American high school students study Chinese, a language spoken by 1.5 billion people worldwide.