Astronaut spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps. The European Space Agency similarly uses the term astronaut for members of its Astronaut Corps. By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a "cosmonaut" in English texts. The word is an anglicisation of the Russian word "kosmonavt" (, ), one who works in space outside the Earth's atmosphere, a space traveler, which derives from the Greek words "kosmos" (κόσμος), meaning "universe", and "nautes" (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". Other
Chinese as a foreign language were studying the language in US colleges and universities. While far behind the more than 800,000 students who study Spanish, the number is more than three times higher than in 1986. The Institute's report includes graphs and details on the popularity of other languages. As of 2008, China had helped 60,000 teachers promote its language internationally, and an estimated 40 million people were studying Chinese as a second language around the world. Other than Standard Mandarin, Cantonese is the only other variant of Chinese that is widely taught as a foreign language. It is the official language of Hong Kong