Introduction to Chinese Language

• Mandarin, also known as Putonghua or

Standard Mandarin, is a dialect of Chinese
and the official language of China. It's the
most commonly spoken dialect of Chinese,
and is used in government, education,
media, and everyday communication.
• More than 70% of the Chinese
population speaks Mandarin, but there
are also several other major dialects in
use in China: Yue (Cantonese), Xiang
(Hunanese), Min dialect, Gan dialect, Wu
dialect, and Kejia or Hakka dialect.
Is Mandarin and Chinese same language?
Many people think Chinese and Mandarin are the
same language. But the fact is: they are
technically NOT the same thing
• Mandarin is a specific variety or dialect of
Chinese, or it is a form of the Chinese language,
while the term "Chinese" refers to a family of
languages with many different dialects, some of
which are mutually unintelligible from each other.
Mandarin, also known as Standard Mandarin or
Putonghua, is the official language of China.
Who speaks Mandarin language?
• First, you should know that Mandarin is by
far the most common Chinese dialect.
That's because it's the official language of
mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore, and
serves as an official or recognized language
in Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, and even
the United Nations!
What is the Mandarin alphabet?
• In essence, there is no Chinese alphabet.
Unlike languages like English, Spanish, and
even Korean, Chinese does not have a
phonetic or syllabic writing system. Instead,
the Chinese writing system is logographic,
meaning that it uses symbols (Chinese
characters) to represent meanings rather
than sounds.
How to learn Mandarin quickly
10 TIPS
• Start with Pinyin. Unlike many Western languages,
Mandarin doesn't use an alphabet. ...
• Head to a bookstore. ...
• Try manga, or manhua (漫画 - màn huà) ...
• YouTube. ...
• Study abroad. ...
• Practice, practice, practice. ...
• Ask for help. ...
• Watch Chinese TV shows.
• Make notes
• Label Things
CHARACTERISTIC OF CHINESE
CHARACTER
• Analytic language: Chinese is an analytic language, which means
it uses syntax to indicate a word's function in a sentence.
• Tonal: Chinese is tonal, meaning the tone of a word can change
its meaning.
• Monosyllabic: Many Chinese words are monosyllabic, meaning
they have one syllable.
• Subject–verb–object word order: Chinese has a subject–verb–
object word order.
• Grammatical particles: Chinese uses grammatical particles to
indicate aspect and mood.
• Extensive system of classifiers and measure words: Chinese has
an extensive system of classifiers and measure words.
• Few grammatical inflections: Chinese has very few grammatical
inflections, such as tenses, voices, and grammatical number.
• No definite article: Chinese has no definite article, meaning there
is no word that means "the".
• Written with thousands of characters: Chinese is written with
thousands of characters, which are used to represent morphemes.
• Oldest written language in the world: Chinese is the oldest written
language in the world, with at least six thousand years of history.
History of Chinese Language
• With 1.3 billion speakers, the Chinese language is
the most spoken language globally. It’s also one
of the oldest languages, with written Chinese
dating back 6,000 years. Several regional dialects
of spoken Chinese have also emerged, but
people predominantly speak Mandarin in China.
Mandarin Chinese is also one of the six official
languages of the UN, and the Chinese language
has official status in China, Taiwan, and
Singapore.
Native Chinese speakers continue spreading the
Chinese language worldwide through travel,
international education, technology, and migration.
Today, there are large numbers of Chinese speakers
in Southeast Asia and the US. Because of the
popularity of Mandarin in China and globally, it is
also becoming a common second-learned
language. In fact, more than 100 million students
are learning the Chinese language worldwide.
With around 6,000 years of history, it is easy to
see people’s fascination with the Chinese
language. From the first evidence of the
pictorial Chinese written language to the
prominence of Chinese Mandarin as a global
language, it has a rich history. The Chinese
written language in particular has deep ties
with Chinese culture.
Its intricate symbols are timeless and are still
seen when writing Mandarin in China today.
According to predictions, Chinese Mandarin
will maintain its prominent position in the
future. It will continue to be the most spoken
native language, with a predicted increase of
27% in the number of speakers by 2050.
The need to translate Mandarin Chinese is
undoubtedly growing, too. But for now, let’s look at
the history of the Chinese language and how it
gained this prominent world status.
• Chinese writing is first
attested during the late
Shang dynasty ( c. 1250 –
c. 1050 BCE), but the
process of creating
characters is thought to
have begun centuries
earlier during the Late
Neolithic and early Bronze
Age ( c. 2500–2000 BCE).
 INFLUENCES
The Chinese language has influenced the Filipino language and
culture in many ways, including loanwords, farming techniques, and
education.
Loanwords
• Kapé: Coffee
• Pansit: Noodles
• Siomai: Dumpling
• Ampaw: Puffed rice
• Kiamoy: Salty dried fruit
• Tikoy: Sticky rice cake
• Lithaw: Plough
• Puthaw: Axe
Chinese writing is one of the world's oldest writing
systems, with a history of at least 3,500 years. It
began as pictographs on bones and turtle shells
used for divination during the Shang dynasty
(18th–12th century BC.
The Chinese orthography centers on Chinese
characters, Hanzi, which are written within
imaginary rectangular blocks, traditionally
arranged in vertical columns, read from top to
bottom down a column, and right to left across
columns.
• Chinese characters are morphemes independent
of phonetic change.
Thus, the number “one” yi in Mandarin, jat in
Cantonese and chit in Hokkien all share are
identical “-”.
ROMANIZATION
• Today the most common romanization standard
for Standard Chinese is Hanyu Pinyin, often
known simply as pinyin, introduced in 1956 by
the People’s Republic of China, and later adopted
Singapore and Taiwan. Pinyin is almost
universally employed now for teaching standard
spoken Chinese in schools and universities
across America, Australia, and Europe. Chinese
parents also used Pinyin to teach their children
the sounds and tones of new words.