Insights | Culture and education have no borders: Italian scholar

Federico Masini, Italian director of the Confucius Institute at Sapienza University of Rome, said in an exclusive interview with China News Service on Friday in Beijing that culture and education have no borders and youth exchanges should continue. 

He said that helping young Italians experience China firsthand is key to bringing the Chinese language into Italian society. "Seeing is better than hearing," he noted, encouraging more Italian students to study in China and welcoming more Chinese students to visit Italy.

Masini said Sapienza University founded one of Europe’s earliest Confucius Institutes twenty years ago, which has since become an ideal platform for China–Italy youth engagement and mutual understanding.

On artificial intelligence, he said AI can support language teaching but cannot convey emotion; real emotional communication still relies on people learning languages themselves.