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Mandarin may refer to any of the following:
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Mandarin Chinese is the official language of 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 it Taiwan it is referred to as Guoyu (國語) - "the national language." It has been the main language of education in China (but not Hong Kong) since the 1950s. Standard Mandarin is close to, but not quite identical with, the dialect of the Beijing area. Note that while the spoken mandarin in the above places is the same, the written characters are different. In Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau traditional characters are used, whereas China and Singapore use a simplified derivative.
The word "dialect" means something different when applied to Chinese than it does for other languages. Chinese "dialects" are often mutually unintelligible, as different as, say, Spanish and French and even English, which we would call "related languages" rather than "dialects".
However, while there are different spoken dialects of Chinese, there is only one form of written Chinese, with one common set of characters - mostly. An exception arises where in some spoken dialects, for example Cantonese as used in Hong Kong, more informal phrasings are used in everyday speech than what would be written. Thus, there are some extra characters that are sometimes used in addition to the common characters to represent the spoken dialect and other colloquial words. One additional complication is that mainland China and Singapore use simplified characters, a long-debated change completed by the mainland Chinese government in 1956 to facilitate the standardization of language across China's broad minority groups and sub-dialects. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and many overseas Chinese use the traditional characters. In addition, the Dungan language, which is spoken in some parts of Russia, is considered to be a variant of Mandarin but uses the Cyrillic alphabet instead of Chinese characters.
About one fifth of the people in the world speak some form of Chinese as their native language, making it the most widely spoken language in the world. It is a tonal language that is related to Burmese and Tibetan. Although Japanese and Korean use Chinese written characters and a large number of Chinese loanwords, they are not in the same language family. Rather they are related in a manner that resembles English having a lot of Romance language-derived loanwords while being a Germanic language. Also, the unrelated Vietnamese language (which uses a distinctive version of the Latin alphabet) language has borrowed many words from Chinese.
Note that travellers headed for Hong Kong, Macau or Guangdong will almost certainly find Cantonese more useful than Mandarin.
Chinese, like most other Asian languages such as Arabic, is famous for being difficult to learn but it needn't be. While English speakers would initially have problems with the tones and recognizing many different characters (Chinese has no alphabet), the grammar is very simple and can be picked up very easily. Most notably, Chinese grammar does not have conjugation, tenses, gender, plurals or other grammatical rules which are found in other major languages such as English, French or Japanese.
The pronunciation guide below uses Hanyu pinyin, the official romanization of the People's Republic of China. Until recently, Taiwan used the Wade-Giles system, which is quite different, but has recently officially switched to Tongyong pinyin, which is only slightly different.
Pinyin allows very accurate pronunciation of Chinese if you understand how it works, but the way it uses letters like q, x, c, z and even i is not at all intuitive to the English speaker. Studying the pronunciation guide below carefully is thus essential.
Some pinyin vowels (esp. "e", "i", "ü") can be tricky, so it's best to get a native speaker to demonstrate. Also beware of the spelling rules listed in Exceptions below.
As in any language, there are diphthongs in Chinese, and they are listed below:
Chinese stops distinguish between aspirated and unaspirated, not voiceless and voiced as in English. Aspirated sounds are pronounced with a distinctive puff of air, the way they are in English when at the beginning of a word, while unaspirated sounds are pronounced without the puff, as in English when found in clusters. Place a hand in front of your mouth and compare pit (aspirated) with spit (unaspirated) to see the difference.
| Unaspirated | Aspirated | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| b | as in spot |
p | as in pit |
| d | as in do |
t | as in tongue |
| g | as in skin |
k | as in king |
| j | as in jeer |
q | as in cheap |
| zh | as in jungle |
ch | as in chore |
| z | as in zebra |
c | as in rats |
The other consonants in Chinese are:
If you think that's a fairly intimidating repertoire, rest assured that you're not alone, and many Chinese, particularly those who are not native Mandarin speakers, will merge many of the sounds above (eg. q with ch, j with zh).
There are a fairly large number of niggling exceptions to the basic rules above, based on the position of the sound. Some of the more notable ones include:
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How do I put my tone marks? If you're confused by how to put tone marks above the Hanyu Pinyin, follow the steps below: Always insert tone marks above the vowels. If there is more than 1 vowel letter, follow the steps below: (1) Insert it above the 'a' if that letter is present. For example, it is rǎo and not raǒ (2) If not, insert it above 'o'. eg. guó and not gúo (3) Insert it above the letter 'e' if the letters 'a' and 'o' are not present. eg. jué and not júe (4) If only 'i', 'u' and 'ü' are the only present letters, insert it in the letter than occurs last. eg. jiù and not jìu, chuí and not chúi. Note, if the vowel present is ü, the tone mark is put in addition to the umlaut. eg. lǜ |
There are four tones in Mandarin that must be followed for proper pronunciation. If you are not used to tonal languages then never underestimate the importance of these tones. Consider a vowel with a different tone as simply a different vowel altogether, and you will realize why Chinese will not understand you if mess this up — mǎ is to mā as "I want a cake" is to "I want a coke". Be especially wary of questions that have a falling tone, or conversely exclamations that have an "asking" tone (eg jǐngchá, police!). In other words, pronounced like does not imply meaning. While Mandarin speakers also vary their tone just like English speakers do to differentiate a statement from a question and convey emotion, this is much more subtle than in English so it is best not to try it until you have mastered the basic tones.
All phrases shown in here use the simplified characters used in mainland China and Singapore. See Chinese phrasebook - Traditional for a version using the traditional characters still used on Taiwan.
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To be or not to be? Chinese does not have words for "yes" and "no" as such; instead, questions are typically answered by repeating the verb. Common ones include:
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Asking a question in Chinese There are many ways to ask a question in Chinese. Here are two easy ones for travelers...
Exception - yŏu méi yŏu? - Do you have? (literally - have not have?)
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Chinese numbers are very regular. While Indo-Arabic (Western) numerals have become more common, the Chinese numerals shown below are still used, particularly in informal contexts like markets. The characters in parentheses are generally used in financial contexts, such as writing cheques and printing banknotes.
For numbers above 100, any "gaps" must be filled in with 〇 líng, as eg. 一百一 yībǎiyī would otherwise be taken as shorthand for "110". A single unit of tens may be written and pronounced either 一十 yīshí or just 十 shí.
Numbers above 10,000 are grouped by in units of four digits, starting with 万 wàn (ten thousand). "One million" in Chinese is thus "hundred tenthousands" (一百万).
Measure words are used in combination with a number to indicate an amount of mass nouns, similar to how English requires "two pieces of paper" rather than just "two paper". Read this for full details. When in doubt, use 个 (ge); even though it may not be correct you will probably be understood because it is the most common measure word. (One person: 一个人 yīgè rén; two apples: 两个苹果 liǎnggè píngguǒ; note that two of something always uses 两 liǎng rather than 二 èr).
Weekdays in Chinese are easy: starting with 1 for Monday, just add the number after 星期 xīngqī. In Taiwan, 星期 is pronounced xīngqí (second tone on the second syllable).
星期 can also be replaced with 礼拜 lǐbài and occasionally 周 zhōu.
Months in Chinese are also easy: starting with 1 for January, just add the number before 月 yuè.
Tips: From January to December, you just need to use this pattern: number (1-12) + yuè
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Writing dates in the Lunar Calendar If you are attempting to name a date in the Chinese Lunar Calendar, add the words ‘农历’ before the name of the month to distinguish it from the months of the solar calendar, although it is not strictly necessary. There are some differences: The words 日(rì)/ 号(hào) are generally not required when stating dates in the lunar calendar; it is assumed. Besides that, the 1st Month is called 正月 (zhèngyuè). If the number of the day is less than 11, the word 初 is used before the value of the day. Besides that, if the value of the day is more than 20, the word 廿 (niàn) is used, so the 23rd day is 廿三 for example.
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When writing the date, you name the month (number (1-12) + yuè), before inserting the day (number (1-31) + 日(rì)/ 号(hào) ). Note that the usage of 号(hào), which is more often used in spoken language, is more colloquial than that of 日(rì), which is more often used in written documents.
Tips: sè means 'colour', therefore, 'hóng sè' is 'red colour'(literally). More common for brown and easier to remmember is 'coffee colour': 咖啡色 kā fēi sè
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Common signs
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Reading a Chinese Menu Look for these characters to get an idea of what you're ordering. With help from The Eater's Guide to Chinese Characters (J. McCawley) and using Simplified Chinese.
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(Listen for... Yes, we have one. : 有 yŏu - No, we don't. : 没有 méi yŏu)
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Telephone & Internet In most Chinese cities telephone booths don't exist. Instead, small street shops have telephones which can usually be used for national calls and cost around 0.6RMB for a city-call. Look for signs like
Don't pay to go online in hotels since most common cafes are cheaper. Many mid-range hotels and chains now offer free wireless or plug-in internet. In cafes, usually you pay 10RMB in advance for a card. Prices per hour from 1RMB to 4RMB. Those cafes are quite hidden sometimes and you should look for the following Chinese characters:
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Chinese is the most spoken language of the world, in the sense that it has the most native speakers of any language, more than the next two, Hindi and Spanish, combined. Due to China's economic growth and globalisation, more and more students in the western world are quickly taking up language to open opportunities to working in China. Be part of the new 'cultural wave' sweeping across the world!
Advice: The first step is to learn to properly read the romanization or 'hànyǔ pīnyīn' with tones! There are still many sites with small Chinese phrase chapters which do not indicate the Mandarin tones needed. For simple sentences, one may be able to get away without tones, but this can cause confusion in more complex situations, so tones are very important. A classic example is the difference between the Chinese characters for "four" (四, sì) and "death" (死, sǐ), different only by tones. A good idea for practicing is to make Chinese friends online since millions of young people in China also look for somebody to practice English with.
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For people fluent in English wanting to communicate in Standard Mandarin, to get credit by examination for their first two years of study, or to study for the HSK test.
An introduction to Mandarin: Parallel to first-year college courses
Parallel to second-year college courses
Practical and informative classes for the casual tourist and their families offered in a fun "non-credit" style
For native English speakers fluent in written Chinese, and another Chinese dialect (e.g. Cantonese), wanting to also become fluent in Standard Mandarin, and those wanting to focus exclusively on the spoken language
To be made for Chinese children adopted by parents with no assumed knowledge of Mandarin Chinese and for other Children who will be traveling to China in the future. Language, culture, and identity will be explained in parallel with a multimedia approach.
For people fluent in English wanting to become fluent in Standard Mandarin or basic Classical Chinese
Parallel to third-year college courses
For native English speakers fluent in Mandarin and also wanting to master Classical Chinese or other advanced Chinese topics at the "graduate" course level (links have Wikimedia references)
Parallel to fourth-year and graduate level college courses
(There is currently no text in this page)
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Singular |
Plural |
Mandarin
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Mandarin m.
This German entry was created from the translations listed at mandarin. It may be less reliable than other entries, and may be missing parts of speech or additional senses. Please also see Mandarin in the German Wiktionary. This notice will be removed when the entry is checked. (more information) January 2009
Welcome to the Chinese wikibook, a free Chinese textbook on the Standard Mandarin dialect. This page links to lessons using simplified characters (used in mainland China, Singapore and Malayasia). There is also a Traditional Character Version available (used in Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong).
Note: To use this book, your web browser must first be configured to display Chinese characters . If the characters in the grey box below appear as blank boxes or garbage such as �?�?, it is not properly configured.
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