Astronaut which describes it as "a hybrid of the Chinese term "taikong" (space) and the Greek "naut" (sailor)"; the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the "Shenzhou 5" spacecraft. This is the term used by Xinhua News Agency in the English version of the Chinese "People's Daily" since the advent of the Chinese space program. The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih () from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups. With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency
Chinese as a foreign language Chinese language proficiency exam program, which tests has been taken around 100 million times (including by domestic ethnic minority candidates). Within China's Guangdong Province, Cantonese is also offered in some schools as optional or extra-curricular courses in select Chinese as a foreign language programs, although many require students to be proficient in the Mandarin first. Chinese is rated as one of the most difficult languages to learn for people whose native language is English, together with Arabic, Japanese and Korean. According to the Foreign Service Institute, a native English speaker needs over 2,200 hours of intensive study, taking 88 weeks