Nowadays, in the globalized world, Standard Chinese has become an influential and universal language, being the second most important language in the world after English. It is not surprising that the number of people wanting to start learning Chinese is growing so rapidly. Since the end of the last century, there have been departments for training Chinese language teachers in Russian universities, where you can study the language in combination with a second subject in order to obtain the profession of a Chinese language teacher. A wide range of courses have also been developed, covering all aspects of Chinese life, from modern and ancient Chinese language to modern writing, history and culture. The purpose of this article is to analyze the specifics of the Chinese language, describe the difficulties students encounter in the process of initial study of the Chinese language, and also highlight the main reasons why students chose this area of study at the university. During the research process, we analyzed scientific and educational literature. A survey of students was also conducted to find out the main reasons for the desire to learn Chinese in order to become a Chinese teacher in the future. The article describes the main features of Chinese as a foreign language, analyzes it from the point of view of its study by Russian students, and puts emphasis on the methodological aspect of this problem. The article presents the results of a survey of students in the field of preparation Pedagogical education profile English and Chinese languages in order to find out what motives for studying the Chinese language and the reasons for choosing this direction of training do students have. 35 1st and 2nd year students took part in the survey. In conclusion, it is concluded that it is necessary to reconsider the methodology of teaching Chinese from the perspective of future professional activities of students, to prepare them to overcome difficulties in the process of learning Chinese as a foreign language by their future students.

Keywords: cooperation, Russian-Chinese relations, Chinese language, difficulties, features, motivation