Students at the Confucius Institute at the University of Pittsburgh greet visiting Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong on Friday afternoon. Liu is visiting the US for the 6th China-US High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange, which will officially kick off in Washington on June 23 by Liu and US Secretary of State John Kerry. Chen Weihua/China Daily

Vice-Premier Liu Yandong visited the Confucius Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, and stressed the importance of learning a new language to better understand a culture.

"Language plays a particular importance in culture. To master a foreign language is like you utilize a key to get to know your friends, understand the world, and encourage prospects for the future," Liu said in remarks on June 20. Her visit to Pittsburghwas part of a series of events leading up to her participation in the sixth China-US High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange in Washington..

Thereare over 487 Confucius Institutes and 894 Confucius classrooms in 133 countries globally, with a total of 3.5 million students, Liu said. In the United States, there are 180 Confucius institutes and 400 Confucius classrooms, with about 300,000 students.

Each institute and classroom, she said, deepens the friendship between the two countries and "also demonstrates the level of importance that US universities and the education sector attaches to closer cooperation between China and America."

Started in 2007, the Confucius Institute at the University of Pittsburgh (CI-Pitt) is one of 97 Confucius Institutes at US universities. The institute trains Mandarin-language teachers who then go on to teach students grades K to 12 in school districts across Pennsylvania and Ohio. The program today has 35 student teachers and over 4,000 students in 19 counties across the two states, representing 70 school districts where the CI-Pitt has programs.