(汉语/漢語, 华语/華語 or 中文)
is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Mandarin is a tonal language, meaning that pitch is used to distinguish words. About one-fifth of the world speaks some form of Mandarin as its native language, making it the most common language in the world.
The Chinese language (spoken in its Standard Mandarin form) is the official language of the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan , one of four official languages of Singapore, and one of six official languages of the United Nations.
Mandarin is considered by many to be a language that is difficult to learn, mainly because its grammar operates along very different principles compared to European languages (for example, you will see no tenses, plurals, or subject-verb agreement, but you will see counter words, reduplication rules, and verb completion/direction suffixes).
In addition, Chinese is one of the few languages in the world that does not use an alphabet or a syllabary; instead, thousands of characters are used, each representing a word or a part of a word. The government of China has developed a system of writing Chinese in the Roman alphabet, known as Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音/漢語拼音, “spelling according to sounds”). Hanyu Pinyin is used to write out Chinese names in English (for example, “Beijing”, “Shanghai”, etc.) and helps learners of Chinese with their pronunciation.
This Mandarin Course will teach you Hanyu Pinyin first, before any actual sentences. All examples and new vocabulary will always be given together with Hanyu Pinyin.
Mandarin is a Chinese dialect, the largest of the seven Chinese dialect groups, also referred to as standard Chinese. It is the official language of the People’s Republic of China and one of the four official languages of Singapore. One fifth of the planet speaks Chinese. Mandarin Chinese is the mother tongue of over 873 million people, making it the most widely spoken first language in the world.
In addition mandarin is also spoken in important and influential Chinese communities of Singapore, Malaysia among many others. Due to the widespread of mandarin usage in Singapore, it has replaced Singaporean Hokkien as the language of the Chinese community in Singapore today.
Mandarin proficiency has been viewed with greater importance and has risen in terms of prominence in Singapore. Learning mandarin has many benefits. It exposes one to another culture. By learning mandarin, one becomes exposed to the way and manners the Chinese think and reacts to society.
This aids in giving a different view as to how different culture interpret and view the world, and overall understanding and beliefs as well. It develops one’s critical and creative thinking skills. If you learn the Chinese language you get to travel around and meet with the locals in China, understand their news on lifestyle.
Also doing business in China without knowing the language and making connections will be very difficult and therefore knowing the language is a bare minimum in most cases. Regardless of what the reason may be for learning another language is useful but learning mandarin will be particularly useful since China is expected to be one of the main super economic powers in the 21st century.
International business prefer to hire people who speak more than one language, that which ives room to pure excellence especially in Singapore as it is now a regular language in the community. Travelers tends to enjoy themselves in the communities they find themselves if they are conversant with the mandarin language, as it will give easy access to social interactions, interpersonal relationship, and also the ability to express themselves in an understanding manner.
The study of the Chinese language opens the way to different important fields such as Chinese politics, economy, history or archaeology. But to study Chinese finally means to study a culture, a people. At the heart of Chinese civilization is its rich heritage of novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and, more recently, film. They reflect the values, the struggles, the sensibility, the joys and the sorrows of this great people and often offer insights even into the most intimate feelings of people.
To be at ease and effective in a Chinese environment learning the language is half the battle, but knowing about the culture behind the language is the other. Each year more and more students around the world whose mother tongue is not Mandarin are studying it with enthusiasm and success.
The study of Chinese literature (mandarin) and culture will help you bridge the cultural gap, better understand your Chinese counterparts, and create a platform of knowledge and understanding with them that is crucial for effective communication.