Learn about Spoken Chinese.
The Chinese language is called hanyu or Zhongwen. Over 1 billion people in the world speak some form of Chinese. The form of Chinese that has become the official dialect of the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan is Mandarin, also referred to as the Putonghua, meaning the common language. Besides being prominent in Mainland China and Taiwan, mandarin is also one of the official languages in Singapore and the United Nations. Some other variants (dialects) of the language are Min Dong, Jinyu, Pu Xian, Huizhou, Min Zhong, Gan, Hakka, Xiang, Min Bei, Min Nan, and Wu.
These different dialects are spoken by millions of people. Mandarin is spoken by 850 million people, Wu is spoken by 90 million people, Cantonese is spoken by 80 million people, min is spoken by 50 million people, Xiang is spoken by 35 million people, Hakka by 35 million people, and Gan by 20 million people. No one expects you to learn all the variants of the Chinese language that I have listed here, but the best thing to do is study the variation that is spoken by more people. Based on the numbers that are listed above, that would be Mandarin. Mandarin Chinese is not a difficult language to learn. Yes, you heard me correct. It is not a difficult language to learn. Spoken Chinese is based on tones, and if you don’t say a word correctly your sentence’s meaning or it will not make sense.
Pronunciation is extremely important. This became quite clear when I went on a term abroad my Junior year at Union College in Schenectady New York. When the other students and I explored Shanghai, where we lived, we would take a train, ?bus, or cab. When we got lost or were trying to get back to our dorm rooms in Fudan University we would have to ?repeatedly say the address, wu dong lu fudan da xue, in different tonal patterns until he understood. Eventually we learned how to say our address and speak Mandarin properly. That story was just to demonstrate the importance of learning how to pronounce the characters, but at the same time show the language can be learned if you are willing to try. Speak it with someone who knows Chinese. Ask anyone in your neighborhood, school, church, etc. if they are willing to speak to you in the Chinese language when they see you.
So when you learn to speak Chinese keep in mind that in Mandarin there are four tones. These tones affect the sound of a character, thus affecting its meaning. The four tones are high level (1st tone), high rising (2nd tone), low falling rising (3rd tone) and high falling (4th tone).To really get these down, I recommend immersing yourself in the language and getting the resources that will assist you to speak Chinese properly.
A great program that will help learn spoken Chinese is Rocket Chinese. This program caters to people who want to learn conversational Chinese as well as written. It is a great program that will put you on the right path or fine tune the skills that you already have. To learn more about Rocket Chinese click on the link below.
Learn Spoken Chinese Now! Get Rocket Chinese Here!
If you have any question feel free to email me at info@languagelyon.com