Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that young members of his family speak fluent Mandarin, though he told schoolchildren they should not forget the importance of English too, despite the growing popularity of Chinese.
Putin has two daughters with his ex-wife Lyudmila, and they speak Russian, English, German, and French. Putin, who divorced his wife in 2014, rarely speaks about his family but has at least three grandchildren, according to Russian media.
“Some of my family members, the little ones, speak Chinese too – they speak it fluently,” Putin told pupils of Secondary School No. 20 in Kyzyl, Tuva, about 4,500km (2,800 miles) east of Moscow.
Amid a growing partnership between China and Russia, Mandarin has been growing in popularity across Russia as a foreign language of choice, a trend Putin said was due to developing contacts across economics, politics and society.
Putin, who speaks fluent German but has also taken lessons to improve his English, said that pupils should not forget the importance of English.