Mandarin Chinese is the official language of China and Taiwan, and is one of the official languages of Singapore. In English, it is often just called "Mandarin" or "Chinese". In China, it is called Putonghua (普通话), meaning "common speech", while in Taiwan it is referred to as Guoyu (國語), "the national language." It has been the main language of education in China (excluding Hong Kong) since the 1950s. Standard Mandarin is close to, but not quite identical to, the Mandarin dialect of the Beijing area. Note that while the spoken Mandarin in the above places is more or less the same, the written characters are different. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, traditional characters are used, whereas China and Singapore use a simplified derivative.
Note that "dialect" has a different meaning when applied to Chinese from when it is appied to other languages.
Chinese "dialects" are mutually unintelligible, as different as, say, Italian and French, which we would call "related languages" rather than "dialects".
All Chinese dialects, in general, use the same characters in reading and writing. A Cantonese speaker and a Mandarin speaker cannot talk to each other, but either can generally read what the other writes. Even a speaker of Japanese or Korean will recognise many characters.
An exception arises where in some spoken dialects, for example Cantonese as used in Hong Kong, more informal phrasings are used in everyday speech than what would be written. Thus, there are some extra characters that are sometimes used in addition to the common characters to represent the spoken dialect and other colloquial words.
One additional complication is that mainland China and Singapore use simplified characters, a long-debated change completed by the mainland Chinese government in 1956 to facilitate the standardization of language across China's broad minority groups and sub-dialects of Mandarin and other Chinese languages. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and many overseas Chinese still use the traditional characters. In addition, the Dungan language, which is spoken in some parts of Russia, is considered to be a variant of Mandarin but uses the Cyrillic alphabet instead of Chinese characters.
About one fifth of the people in the world speak some form of Chinese as their native language. It is a tonal language that is related to Burmese and Tibetan. Although Japanese and Korean use Chinese written characters the spoken languages are not related to Chinese. Also the unrelated Vietnamese language has borrowed many words from Chinese.
One additional complication is that mainland China and Singapore use simplified characters, a long-debated change completed by the mainland Chinese government in 1956 to facilitate the standardization of language across China's broad minority groups and sub-dialects of Mandarin and other Chinese languages. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and many overseas Chinese still use the traditional characters. In addition, the Dungan language, which is spoken in some parts of Russia, is considered to be a variant of Mandarin but uses the Cyrillic alphabet instead of Chinese characters.
About one fifth of the people in the world speak some form of Chinese as their native language, making it the most spoken language in the world. It is a tonal language that is related to Burmese and Tibetan. Although Japanese and Korean use Chinese written characters and a large number of Chinese loanwords, they are not even in the same language family. Rather they are related in a manner that resembles English having a lot of Romance language-derived loanwords while still being a Germanic language. Also, the unrelated Vietnamese language (which uses a distinctive version of the Latin alphabet) language has borrowed many words from Chinese and at one time used Chinese characters as well.
Chinese, like most other Asian languages such as Arabic, is famous for being difficult to learn. While English speakers would initially have problems with the tones and recognizing the many different characters (Chinese has no alphabet), the grammar is very simple and can be picked up very easily. Most notably, Chinese grammar does not have conjugation, tenses, gender, plurals or other grammatical rules found in other major languages such as English or French.
The pronunciation guide below uses Hanyu pinyin, the official romanization of the People's Republic of China. Until recently, Taiwan used the Wade-Giles system, which is quite different, then switched to Tongyong pinyin, only slightly different from Hanyu pinyin, and now officially uses Hanyu pinyin just like the People's Republic.
Pinyin allows very accurate pronunciation of Chinese if you understand how it works, but the way that it uses letters like q, x, c, z and even i is not at all intuitive to the English speaker. Studying the pronunciation guide below carefully is thus essential. After you master the pronunciation you still may not be understood, its time to move on to the next challenge, speaking the accurate tones.
Some pinyin vowels (especially "e", "i", "ü") can be tricky, so it is best to get a native speaker to demonstrate. Also, beware of the spelling rules listed in the exceptions below.
a
as in father; otherwise, pronounced as in "awesome"
a in an
as "a" in "cat" or "back" (just the English short "a" sound)
e
unrounded back vowel (IPA [ɤ]), similar to duh; in unstressed syllables becames a schwa (IPA [ə]), like idea
i
as in see or key; after sh, zh, s, z or r, not really a vowel at all but just a stretched-out consonant sound
Chinese stops distinguish between aspirated and unaspirated, not voiceless and voiced as in English. Aspirated sounds are pronounced with a distinctive puff of air as they are pronounced in English when at the beginning of a word, while unaspirated sounds are pronounced without the puff, as in English when found in clusters.
Place a hand in front of your mouth and compare pit (aspirated) with spit (unaspirated) to see the difference.
Unaspirated
Aspirated
b
as in spot
p
as in pit
d
as in do
t
as in tongue
g
as in skin
k
as in king
j
as in jeer
q
as in cheap
zh
as in jungle
ch
as in chore
z
as in zebra
c
as in rats
Here are the other consonants in Chinese:
m
as in mow
f
as in fun
n
as in none or none
l
as in lease but pronounced like a Spanish "r" in "rojo"
h
as in her
x
as in sheep
sh
as in shoot
r
as in fair, but can be "zh" as in "pleasure"
s
as in sag
ng
as in sing
w
as in wing but silent in wu. Before a, ai, ang, eng, and/or o, this may sound like the English v/ German w.
y
as in yet but silent in yi, yu
If you think that is a fairly intimidating repertoire, rest assured that many Chinese people, particularly those who are not native Mandarin speakers, will merge many of the sounds above (especially q with ch and j with zh).
How do I put my tone marks?
If you are confused by how to put tone marks above the Hanyu Pinyin, follow the steps below:
Always insert tone marks above the vowels. If there is more than one vowel letter, follow the steps below:
(1) Insert it above the 'a' if that letter is present. For example, it is rǎo and not raǒ
(2) If not, insert it above 'o'. For example, guó and not gúo
(3) Insert it above the letter 'e' if the letters 'a' and 'o' are not present. For example, jué and not júe
(4) If only 'i', 'u' and 'ü' are the only present letters, insert it in the letter that occurs last. For example, jiù and not jìu, chuí and not chúi. Note, if the vowel present is ü, the tone mark is put in addition to the umlaut. For example, lǜ
There are four tones in Mandarin that must be followed for proper pronunciation. If you are not used to tonal languages, never underestimate the importance of these tones. Consider a vowel with a different tone as simply a different vowel altogether, and you will realize why Chinese will not understand you if you use the wrong tone — mǎ is to mā as "I want a cake" is to "I want a coke". Be especially wary of questions that have a falling tone, or conversely exclamations that have an "asking" tone (eg jǐngchá, police). In other words, pronounced like does not imply meaning. While Mandarin speakers also vary their tone just like English speakers do to differentiate a statement from a question and convey emotion, this is much more subtle than in English. Do not try it until you have mastered the basic tones.
1. first tone ( ā )
flat, high pitch that is more sung instead of spoken.
2. second tone ( á )
low to middle, rising pitch that is pronounced like the end of a question phrase (Whát?).
3. third tone ( ǎ )
middle to low to high, dipping pitch: for two consecutive words in the third tone, the first word is pronounced as if it is in the second tone. For example, 打扰 dǎrǎo is pronounced as dárǎo.
4. fourth tone ( à )
high to low, rapidly falling pitch that is pronounced like a command (Stop!).
5. fifth tone
neutral pitc that is rarely used by itself (except for phrase particles) but frequently occurring as the second part of a phrase.
To be or not to be?
Chinese does not have words for "yes" and "no" as such; instead, questions are typically answered by repeating the verb. Here are common examples:
Chinese numbers are very regular. While Western numerals have become more common, the Chinese numerals shown below are still used, particularly in informal contexts like markets. The characters in parentheses are generally used in financial contexts, such as writing cheques and printing banknotes.
0 〇, 零
líng
1 一 (壹)
yī
2 二 (貳)
èr
3 三 (叄)
sān
4 四 (肆)
sì
5 五 (伍)
wǔ
6 六 (陸)
liù
7 七 (柒)
qī
8 八 (捌)
bā
9 九 (玖)
jiǔ
10 十 (拾)
shí
11 十一
shí-yī
12 十二
shí-èr
13 十三
shí-sān
14 十四
shí-sì
15 十五
shí-wǔ
16 十六
shí-liù
17 十七
shí-qī
18 十八
shí-bā
19 十九
shí-jiǔ
20 二十
èr-shí
21 二十一
èr-shí-yī
22 二十二
èr-shí-èr
23 二十三
èr-shí-sān
30 三十
sān-shí
40 四十
sì-shí
50 五十
wǔ-shí
60 六十
liù-shí
70 七十
qī-shí
80 八十
bā-shí
90 九十
jiǔ-shí
For numbers above 100, any "gaps" must be filled in with 〇 líng, as eg. 一百一 yībǎiyī would otherwise be taken as shorthand for "110". A single unit of tens may be written and pronounced either 一十 yīshí or just 十 shí.
100 一百 (壹佰)
yī-bǎi
101 一百〇一
yī-bǎi-líng-yī
110 一百一十
yī-bǎi-yī-shí
111 一百一十一
yī-bǎi-yī-shí-yī
200 二百
èr-bǎi
300 三百
sān-bǎi
500 五百
wǔ-bǎi
1000 一千 (壹仟)
yī-qiān
2000 二千
èr-qiān
Numbers starting from 10,000 are grouped by in units of four digits, starting with 萬 wàn (ten thousand). "One million" in Chinese is thus "hundred ten thousands" (一百萬).
10,000 一萬
yī-wàn
10,001 一萬〇一
yī-wàn-líng-yī
10,002 一萬〇二
yī-wàn-líng-èr
20,000 二萬
èr-wàn
50,000 五萬
wǔ-wàn
100,000 十萬
shí-wàn
200,0000 二十萬
èr-shí-wàn
1,000,000 一百萬
yī-bǎi-wàn
10,000,000 一千萬
yī-qiān-wàn
100,000,000 一億
yīyì
1,000,000,000,000 一兆
yīzhào
number _____ (train, bus, etc.)
number measure word (路 lù or 號 hào etc.) _____ (火車 huǒchē, 公共汽車 gōnggòng qìchē, etc. Measure words are used in combination with a number to indicate the count of mass nouns.[1]
In most Chinese cities, there are no telephone booths. Instead, small street shops have telephones which can usually be used for national calls. Look for signs like this:
公用電話 Public Telephone
Most cafes are cheaper than in hotels. Many mid-range hotels and chains now offer free wireless or plug-in internet. Those cafes are quite hidden sometimes and you should look for the following Chinese characters:
網咖 Internet Cafe
Can I make international calls here?
可以打國際電話嗎? (kěyǐ dǎ guójì diànhuà ma?)
How much is it to America/Australia/Britain/Canada?
Chinese is the most spoken language of the world, with more speakers than the next two, Hindi and Spanish, combined. However, there are still few learners of Chinese in the Western world and you might get weird looks if you say you want to start learning it: "Instead of anger of frustration, the student should instead feel a smug superiority of being ahead of everyone else!"
The first step is to learn to read the romanization with tones. Avoid any phrasebook that does not mark the tones.
For simple sentences, one may be able to get away without tones, but this can cause confusion in more complex situations, so tones are very important. A classic example is the difference between the Chinese characters for "four" (四, sì) and "death" (死, sǐ), different only by tones. A good idea for practicing is to make Chinese friends online since millions of young people in China also look for somebody to practice English with.
A good idea for practicing is to make Chinese friends online since millions of young people in China also look for somebody to practice English with.
Chinese (Wikibooks.org): Free lessons providing detailed grammar explanations, audio samples and stroke order animations.
Day Day Up Chinese: Online textbook with dialogues, example sentences, grammar, vocabulary and cultural notes, and some practice exercises
Digital Dialects Chinese: Interactive games for learning Chinese in both Pinyin and simplified characters.
ZhongWen Red: Free basic online Mandarin tutorials with audio.
This is a guide phrasebook. It covers all the major topics for traveling without resorting to English. But please Plunge forward and help us make it a star!
