Learn About Mandarin Chinese
普通话 • 918 million speakers worldwide
"你好，你好吗？"
Pronunciation: nǐ hǎo, nǐ hǎo ma?
Translation: Hello, how are you?
Speakers
918 million
Language Family
Sino-Tibetan (Chinese)
Writing System
Chinese characters (Hanzi)
Official Status
Official in China, Taiwan, Singapore
Regions (4 countries)
Mandarin is based on the Beijing dialect and became the standard language of China. It has thousands of years of written history, with characters evolving from ancient pictographs to modern simplified and traditional forms.
Tonal language with 4 main tones
Monosyllabic words
No verb conjugation or plural forms
Character-based writing system
Word order: Subject-Verb-Object
Beijing Mandarin
Taiwanese Mandarin
Singaporean Mandarin
Malaysian Mandarin
Master the four tones before learning vocabulary
Start with simplified characters before traditional
Use spaced repetition for character memorization
Practice stroke order for proper character writing
Focus on high-frequency characters first
Respect for elders and hierarchy is fundamental
Gift-giving has specific cultural protocols
Face-saving (mianzi) is an important social concept
Regional variations in culture are significant across China
Most spoken language in the world by native speakers
Over 50,000 Chinese characters exist, but only 3,000-4,000 are commonly used
Chinese is written without spaces between words
The same character can have different meanings based on tone