Chinese phrasebook Mandarin Chinese is the official language of Mainland 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 and Macau) since the 1950s. Standard Mandarin is close to, but not quite identical with, 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. Understand[edit] Map of Chinese dialects Note that "dialect" has a different meaning when applied to Chinese from when it is applied to other languages. All Chinese dialects, in general, use the same set of characters in reading and writing. About one fifth of the people in the world speak some form of Chinese as their native language. a a in an e i o u ü ai ao m
English to Chinese dictionary Examples and Help Example queries: hello, nihao, ni3hao3, 你好, rest*, zei*, *zei*, *茶, 英*公司, chinese *文, "to rest", bill -gates Pinyin words should be entered without spaces, either with or without tone numbers: ni3hao3 or nihao. The character ü can be entered as v instead. The asterisk character * can be used as a wildcard to match zero or more characters: rest* will match any word starting with rest, such as restaurant or restrain*文 will match any word ending with 文, such as 中文 or 英文b*g will match any word starting with b and ending with g, such as big or boring*中国* will match any word containing 中国, such as 传统中国医药 or 中国人民 Double quotes " " can be used to group search terms together: "to rest" will only match entries where to and rest directly follow eachother The minus symbol - can be used to find entries without a certain search term: bill -gates will only match entries matching bill but without gates p:you will only match entries with Mandarin pinyin you
China Resources <p><span>If you can see this line, then JavaScript is turned off on your machine and you will not be able to use some features of this site. Please click <a href="../securitywarning.html">here</a> for more information.</span></p> The linked pages have been prepared for use in classes relating to China and may be assigned for direct use on-line if desired. Unless otherwise indicated, these materials were all written by me and may be freely used by teachers and students without additional permission. Click here for a technical note about displaying tone-marked letters and Chinese characters and test page to check your browser's present capabilities. Organization of This Page Other Pages of Links on this Site 1. Historical Texts for Class Discussion Sīmǎ Qiān: The First Emperor of Qín (Qín Shǐ Huángdì 司马迁秦始皇帝) (Anonymous Translation. 2. 3. Confucian & Philosophical Documents for Class Discussion The Great Learning (The shortest volume of the Confucian Canon.) 4. 5. 6. 7. Return to top
Mandarin Lessons Your browser does not support script. Enable Javascript for menu functionality.<br /><a href="/Chinese">About Chinese</a> || <a href="/Cantonese">Cantonese Lessons</a>||<a href="/Mandarin">Mandarin Lessons</a>||<a href="/communithy">Teachers/Tutors</a><a href="/about">About the Site</a>||<a href="/links.htm">Related Links</a>|| <a href="/download.htm">Downloads</a>||<a href="/index.htm">Home</a></p> Lessons contain many sound files and may take a long time to load. Why learn Mandarin? A Few Points on Learning Mandarin Difficulty: Mandarin vs. Additional lessons will be posted periodically. Last Update: September 02, 2007 Home Forums Friends Service Bookstore © copyright 2002-2006 all rights reserved Home About Chinese Cantonese Lessons Mandarin Lessons Other Services About the Site Chinese Language Chinese Culture Political Issues Chinese Characters Dialect Difficulty Dialect Conversion Religion & Philosophy Customs Lunar Calendar Holidays & Festivals Chinese Music General Pingyam/Romanization Sounds & Tones
Chinese Pronunciation Introduction The purpose of this section is to clarify some important issues regarding the pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese. I have noticed over the years that some sources are publishing incorrect information about Mandarin pronunciation. It is my intent to identify a few of the misconceptions and to make the reality of the pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese crystal clear, both in linguistic terms and in everyday language. Please note that the criticisms I make are based on linguistic science. I have a unique history with regards to my linguistic development (in English), but I have also successfully learned to produce all of these sounds myself as an adult. In short, a lot of the websites out there which offer instructions on the pronunciation of Mandarin are wrong. The different pages of this feature can be navigated via the links at the bottom of each page.
Chinese pronunciation Chinese Grammar Wiki Pinyin Introduction Welcome to the Web-based Chinese Reading Program! The purpose of this reading program is to provide various extra-curricular reading materials suitable for students at different learning levels. The reading materials are divided into three levels: beginning, intermediate, and advanced. The beginning level is prepared for students who have learned 500-1000 characters. The intermediate level is for students who have learned 1000-2000 characters. The program contains 900 lessons and 105 tests across the three learning levels. Flash Plug-in HTML —Every reading lesson in Flash plug-in HTML file covers a vocabulary pretest, a reading task with multiple-choice questions, and a vocabulary post-test. Macromedia Flash Player is required for the reading lessons. GB—The GB file provides the same reading text of the lesson. GB Open-Ended Questions—A set of open-ended reading comprehension questions is available in the GB files for further exercise. QuickTime and Windows Media Player .
Learn mandarin Chinese Navigation:Chinese Words and PhrasesChinese Video TutorialsChinese CultureChinese HistoryHow to Write Chinese Characters Overview of the Chinese Language The Chinese language was originally spoken by the Han Chinese and is spoken by about one-fifth of the total population of Earth. In addition to the many dialects currently classified, there are a number of regional dialects that have not been studied much. Regional dialects can differ from each other to the point that they are mutually unintelligible. The standard Mandarin dialect is based on that which is spoken in Beijing. Linguistics of Chinese While Chinese is actually more of a language family than one simply language (similar to the various Romance languages), the fact that all the different Chinese dialects use the same writing system ties them together. The Chinese writing system is known as Zhongwen, and the standard Mandarin language is referred to as Hanyu in Chinese. The Written Chinese Language History of the Language Pinyin