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Mandarin
官話/官话
Spoken in	People's Republic of China
Region	Most of northern and southwestern China (and also overseas Singapore; Malaysia; United States (New York City, Los Angeles); Canada (Toronto, Vancouver); Australia (Sydney); France (Paris); United Kingdom (London); Suriname, Mauritius, and other overseas Chinese communities)
Total speakers	885 million (first language speakers) [1] Total Speakers: 1,365,053,177[1]
Ranking	1 (native speakers)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Mandarin
Language codes
ISO 639-1	zh
ISO 639-2	chi (B)	zho (T)
ISO 639-3	cmn
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 官话; traditional Chinese: 官話; pinyin: Guānhuà; literally "speech of officials" or simplified Chinese: 北方话; traditional Chinese: 北方話; pinyin: Běifānghuà; literally "northern dialect(s)"), is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and south-western China. When taken as a separate language, as is often done in academic literature, the Mandarin language has more native speakers than any other language. The "standard" in Standard Mandarin refers to the standard Beijing dialect of the Mandarin language.

Mandarin is also a general term describing any grade of nobility in the Chinese Imperial Court.

In English, Mandarin can refer to either of two distinct concepts:

• In everyday use Mandarin refers to Standard Chinese or Standard Mandarin (Putonghua / Guoyu / Huayu), which is based on the particular Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing. Standard Mandarin functions as the official spoken language of the People's Republic of China, the official language of the Republic of China (Taiwan), and one of the four official languages of Singapore. "Chinese"—in practice Standard Mandarin—is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
• In its broader sense, Mandarin is a diverse group of Mandarin dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China (Guanhua / Beifanghua / Beifang fangyan). This group of dialects is the focus of this article.

The latter grouping is defined and used mainly by linguists, and is not commonly used outside of academic circles as a self-description. Instead, when asked to describe the spoken form they are using, Chinese speaking a form of non-Standard Mandarin will describe the variant that they are speaking, for example Southwestern Mandarin or Northeastern Mandarin, and consider it distinct from "Standard Mandarin" (putonghua); they may not recognize that it is in fact classified by linguists as a form of "Mandarin" in a broader sense. Nor is there a common "Mandarin" identity based on language; rather, there are strong regional identities centred on individual dialects, because of the wide geographical distribution and cultural diversity of its speakers.

Like all other varieties of Chinese, there is significant dispute as to whether Mandarin is a language or a dialect. See Identification of the varieties of Chinese for more on this issue.

History

The present divisions of the Chinese language developed out of the different ways in which dialects of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese evolved.

Most Chinese living in northern and south-western China are native speakers of a dialect of Mandarin. The prevalence of this linguistic homogeneity in northern China is largely the result of geography: much of northern China is covered by plains and is flat. In contrast to this, the mountains and rivers of southern China have promoted linguistic diversity.

Chronologically, there is no clear line to mark where Middle Chinese ends and Mandarin begins; however, the Zhōngyuán Yīnyùn (中原音韵), a rhyme book from the Yuan Dynasty, is widely regarded as a milestone in the history of Mandarin. In this rhyme book we see many characteristic features of Mandarin, such as the reduction and disappearance of final stop consonants and the reorganization of the Middle Chinese tones.

Until the mid-20th century, most Chinese people living in southern China spoke only their local language. Beijing Mandarin became dominant during the Manchu-ruling Qing Dynasty, and from the 17th century onward, the empire established orthoepy academies (simplified Chinese: 正音书院; traditional Chinese: 正音書院; pinyin: Zhèngyīn Shūyuàn) in an attempt to make local pronunciations conform to the Beijing standard so that the Emperor could communicate with all officials directly^[2]. These attempts, however, had little success.

Zhongguo Guanhua (中國官話), or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by Étienne Fourmont (with Arcadio Huang) in 1742^[3]

This situation changed with the widespread introduction of Standard Mandarin as the national language, to be used in education, the media, and formal situations in both the PRC and the ROC (but not in Hong Kong). As a result, Standard Mandarin can now be spoken intelligibly as a second language by most younger people in Mainland China and Taiwan, with various regional accents. In Hong Kong and Macau, because of their colonial and linguistic history, the language of education, the media, formal speech and everyday life remains the local Cantonese, although Standard Mandarin is very influential now.

Name and classification

The English term comes from the Portuguese mandarim or Dutch mandarijn, from Indonesian/Malay məntəri, from Hindi mantri, from Sanskrit mantrin (meaning councilor or minister^[4]); it is a translation of the Chinese term Guānhuà (simplified Chinese: 官话; traditional Chinese: 官話), which literally means the language of the mandarins (imperial magistrates). The term Guānhuà is often considered archaic by Chinese speakers of today, though it is often used by linguists as a collective term to refer to all varieties and dialects of Mandarin, not just standard Mandarin. Another term commonly used to refer to all varieties of Mandarin is Běifānghuà (simplified Chinese: 北方话; traditional Chinese: 北方話), or the dialect(s) of the North, although this term is used less and less among Chinese linguists in favour of "Guānhuà".

Standard Mandarin

From an official point of view, there are two versions of Standard Mandarin, since the People's Republic of China government refers to that on the Mainland as Putonghua, whereas the Republic of China government refers to their official language as Kuo-yü (Guoyu in pinyin).

Technically, both Putonghua and Guoyu base their phonology on the Beijing accent, though Putonghua also takes some elements from other sources. Comparison of dictionaries produced in the two areas will show that there are few substantial differences. However, both versions of "school" Standard Mandarin are often quite different from the Mandarin dialects that are spoken in accordance with regional habits, and neither is wholly identical to the Beijing dialect. Putonghua and Guoyu also differ from the Beijing dialect in vocabulary, grammar, and usage.

It is important to note that the terms "Putonghua (Common Language)" and "Guoyu (National Language)" refer to speech, and hence the difference in the use of simplified characters and traditional characters is not usually considered to be a difference between these two concepts.

Dialects

The eight main dialect areas of Mandarin in Mainland China.

There are regional variations in Mandarin. This is manifested in two ways:

1. The varieties of Mandarin cover a huge area containing nearly a billion people. As a result, there are pronounced regional variations in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. These regional differences are rather more pronounced than the differences in the varieties of English found in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.^{[citation needed]}
2. Standard Mandarin has been promoted very actively by the PRC, the ROC, and Singapore as a second language. As a result, those who are not native speakers of Standard Mandarin frequently flavour it with a strong infusion of the sounds of their native languages.

Dialects of Mandarin can be subdivided into eight categories: Beijing Mandarin, Northeastern Mandarin, Ji Lu Mandarin, Jiao Liao Mandarin, Zhongyuan Mandarin, Lan Yin Mandarin, Southwestern Mandarin, and Jianghuai Mandarin. Jin is sometimes considered the ninth category of Mandarin. (Others separate it from Mandarin altogether.)

Phonology

See Mandarin phonology for a description of Standard Mandarin phonology and dialects of Mandarin for an overview of the phonologies of Mandarin dialects.

Unlike Cantonese and Min Nan which are syllable timed languages, Mandarin is a stress timed language (Avery & Ehrlich 1992) like many western languages including English.

Syllables consist maximally of an initial consonant, a glide, a vowel, a final, and tone. Not every syllable that is possible according to this rule actually exists in Mandarin, as there are rules prohibiting certain phonemes from appearing with others, and in practice there are only a few hundred distinct syllables.

Phonological features that are generally shared by the Mandarin dialects include:

• the palatalization of velars and alveolar sibilants when they occur before palatal glides;
• the disappearance of final stops and /-m/ (although in many Jianghuai Mandarin and Jin dialects, the glottal stop has been preserved as a final);
• the disappearance of the entering tone (although it has been preserved in many Jianghuai Mandarin and Jin dialects) and the presence of four tonal categories;
• the presence of retroflex consonants (although these are absent in many dialects of Southwestern and Northeastern Mandarin);
• the historical devoicing of plosives and sibilants.

Vocabulary

There are more polysyllabic words in Mandarin than in all other major varieties of Chinese except Shanghainese. This is partly because Mandarin has undergone many more sound changes than have southern varieties of Chinese, and has needed to deal with many more homophones—usually by forming new words via compounding, or by adding affixes such as lao- (老), -zi (子), -(e)r (兒/儿), and -tou (頭/头). There are also a small number of words that have been polysyllabic since Old Chinese, such as húdié (蝴蝶, butterfly). (Please refer to Matteo Ricci's China in the Sixteenth Century, "All Chinese words, without exception, are monosyllabic." )

The singular pronouns in Mandarin are wǒ (我) "I", nǐ (你/妳) "you", nín (您) "you (formal)", and tā (他/她/它) "he/she/it", with -men (們/们) added for the plural. Further, there is a distinction between the plural first-person pronoun zánmen (咱們/咱们), which is inclusive of the listener, and wǒmen (我們/我们), which may be exclusive of the listener. Dialects of Mandarin agree with each other quite consistently on these pronouns, but not with other varieties of Chinese (e.g., Shanghainese has 侬 non "you" and 伊 yi "he/she").

Other morphemes that Mandarin dialects tend to share are aspect and mood particles, such as -le (了), -zhe (著/着), and -guo (過/过). Other Chinese varieties tend to use different words in some of these contexts (e.g., Cantonese 咗 and 緊). Because of contact with Mongolian and Manchurian peoples, Mandarin has some loanwords from Altaic languages not present in other varieties of Chinese, such as hútong (胡同) "alley". Southern Chinese varieties have borrowed from Tai^[5], Austro-Asiatic^[6], and Austronesian^{[citation needed]} languages.

Word formation

The most common way used to form polysyllabic words in Mandarin is to aggregate words according to their meaning. For instance, the word for "typewriter" is 打字機 dǎ zì jī. The first word means "to strike," used because in typing one's fingers strike the keys. The second word means "character" (and, by extension, "letter"). The third word means "machine." So the combination means "machine for knocking out characters."

Another possibility is to combine two words of similar meaning such as 匆忙 cōng máng, the first meaning "hurried" and the second meaning "busy."

Borrowed words are at times written with a combination of Chinese characters that attempt to approximate the pronunciation of the foreign term. For example, "laser" can be written as 雷射 léi shè. Literally the two Chinese characters mean "thunder" and "to shoot [arrows]" and, by extension, "to radiate."

Syntax

Chinese is similar to English in many of its syntactic characteristics. It frequently forms sentences by stating a subject and following it by a predicate. The predicate can be an intransitive verb, a transitive verb followed by a direct object, a linking verb followed by a predicate nominative, etc.

Chinese differs from English in distinguishing between names of things, which can stand as predicate nominatives, and names of characteristics. Names of characteristics (e.g., green) cannot follow linking verbs. There is no equivalent of the English predicate adjective. Instead, abstract characterizations such as "green," "angry," "hot," etc., stand as complete predicates in their own right. So one says, e.g., 我不累. Wǒ bú lèi. The word-for-word version in English would be, "I not tired."

Chinese differs from English in that it forms another kind of sentence by stating a topic and following it by a comment. In English, speakers generally flag the topic of a sentence by prefacing it with "as for." For instance, one might say, "As for the money that Mama gave us, I have already bought candy with it." Note that the comment in this case is itself a complete sentence with subject, verb, and object. The Chinese version is simply, 媽媽給我們的錢,我已經買了糖了. Māma géi wǒmende qián, wó yǐjīng mǎile táng le. This is translated somewhat directly as, "The money Mom gave us, I already bought candy," lacking a preface as in English.

Chinese does not have tense. Instead it uses a combination of aspect markers and markers of modality. In other words, it employs single syllables that indicate such things as (1) that the subject of the sentence did something that was expected or anticipated, (2) that the subject of the sentence has gone through some experience within a stated or implicit time period, (3) that a statement that was formerly not the case has now become true, i.e., that there has been a change of status, (4) that there still has not been a change in a condition previously noted, etc.

The time that something happened can be given by an explicit term such as "yesterday," by relative terms such as "formerly," etc.

Another major difference between the syntax of Chinese and languages like English lies in the stacking order of modifying clauses. 昨天發脾氣的外交警察取消了沒有交錢的那些人的入境証. Zuó tiān fā pí qìde wài jiāo jǐng chá qǔ xiāole méi yǒu jiāo qiánde nà xiē rénde rù jīng zhèng. Using the Chinese order in English, that sentence would be:

"[Yesterday got angry] --> foreign affairs policeman canceled [did not pay] --> [those people]'s visas.

In more ordinary English order, that would be:

The foreign affairs policeman who got angry yesterday canceled the visas of those people who did not pay.

There are a few other features of the Mandarin language that would be unfamiliar to speakers of English, but the features mentioned above are generally the most noticeable.

Writing system

The writing system for almost all the varieties of Chinese is based on a set of written symbols that has been passed down with little change for more than two thousand years. Each of these varieties of Chinese has developed some new words during this time, words for which there are no matching characters in the original set. While it is of course possible to invent new characters (as was done to represent many elements in the periodic table), a more common course of development has been to borrow old characters that have fallen into disuse on the basis of their pronunciations. Chinese Characters were traditionally read top to bottom, right to left, but in modern usage it is more common to read from left to right.

In the original set of characters and definitions (containing more than 40,000 items) there were the demonstrative pronouns "this" (此, cǐ) and "that" (彼, bǐ). But these terms were rare in spoken Mandarin, where "zhè" and "nà" (or regional variants of them) were used instead. There are no components in the original set that have those meanings associated with those pronunciations, so a word pronounced "zhè" (这／這) was borrowed to write "this", and a word pronounced "nà" (那) was borrowed to write "that". Originally, 這 meant "to go forward to meet someone", and 那 was the name of a country (and later became a rare surname).

As with other varieties of Chinese, the government of the People's Republic of China (as well as some other governments and institutions) has put a set of simplified forms into operation. Under this system, the forms of the words "here" (zhèlǐ) and "there" (nàlǐ) changed from 這裡 and 那裡 to 这里 and 那里. (See Simplified Chinese for more.)

Mandarin literature

Originally, written Chinese was learned and composed as a special language. It may originally have rather closely represented the way people spoke, but with time the spoken and written languages diverged rather strongly. The written language, called "classical Chinese" or "literary Chinese", is much more concise than spoken Chinese, the main reason being that a single written character is often just what one wants to communicate yet its single syllable would communicate an ambiguous meaning if spoken because of the huge number of homonyms. For instance, 翼 (yì, wing) is unambiguous in written Chinese but would be lost among its more than 75 homonyms in spoken Chinese.

For writing formal histories, for writing government documents, and even for writing poetry and fiction, the written language was adequate and economical of both printing resources and the human effort of writing things down. But to record materials that were meant to be reproduced in oral presentations, materials such as plays and grist for the professional story-teller's mill, the classical written language was not appropriate. Even written records of the words of a famous teacher like Zhu Xi (朱熹；1130-1200) tend strongly to reflect his spoken language. From at least the Yuan dynasty, plays that recounted the subversive tales of China's Robin Hoods to the Ming dynasty novels, such as Shuihu Zhuan (《水浒传》; Outlaws of the marsh), on down to the Qing dynasty novel Honglou Meng (《红楼梦》; usually translated as "Dream of the Red Chamber") and beyond, there developed a vernacular Chinese literature (白话文学; báihuà wénxué). In many cases this written language reflected the Mandarin spoken language, and, since pronunciation differences were not conveyed in this written form, this tradition had a unifying force across all the Mandarin speaking regions and beyond.

A pivotal character during the first half of the twentieth century, Hu Shi (胡适), wrote an influential and perceptive study of this literary tradition, entitled Báihuà Wénxuéshǐ (A history of vernacular literature).

See also

• Chinese grammar
• Confucius Institute

References

Further reading

• Chao, Yuen Ren (1968). A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-00219-9. 
• Norman, Jerry (1988). Chinese. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29653-6. 
• Ramsey, S. Robert (1987). The Languages of China. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01468-X. 
• Novotná, Z., "Contributions to the Study of Loan-Words and Hybrid Words in Modern Chinese", Archiv Orientalni, (Prague), No.35 (1967), (In English: examples of loan words and calques in Chinese)

External links

• Arch Chinese - Learn To Read And Write Chinese Characters - Online Chinese character stroke order animations for all the simplified and 7,000 traditional characters, along with native speaker pronunciations, character decomposition, writing worksheet generation, example words and sentences, Pinyin table, radical table and character learning flashcards.
• BBC, BBC (this specifically refers to Mandarin Chinese)
• Mandarin - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
• A keyboard for typing Chinese characters for Firefox

From Wikitravel

Chinese script in Chinatown, Singapore

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.

Map of Chinese dialects

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.

Pronunciation guide

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.

Vowels

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.

a 

as in father

e 

unrounded back vowel (IPA [ɤ]), similar to duh; in unstressed syllables becames a schwa (IPA [ə]), like idea

i 

as in see or key;
after sh, zh, s, z or r, not really a vowel at all but just a stretched-out consonant sound

o 

as in saw

u 

as in soon; but read ü in ju, qu, yu and xu

ü 

as in French lune or German grün

Diphthongs

As in any language, there are diphthongs in Chinese, and they are listed below:

ai 

as in pie

ao

as in pouch

ei 

as in pay

ia

as in ya

ia in ' ian'

as in 'yes

iao

as in meow

ie

as in yes

iong

as in Pyongyang

ou

as in mow

ua

as in what

uo

as in war

Consonants

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.

The other consonants in Chinese are:

m 

as in mow

f 

as in fun

n 

as in none or none

l 

as in lease

h 

as in her

x 

as in sheep

sh 

as in shoot

r 

as in fair

s 

as in sag

ng 

as in sing

w 

as in wing, but silent in wu

y 

as in yet, but silent in yi, yu

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).

Exceptions

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:

wu- 

as u-, so 五百 wubai is pronounced "ubai"

yi- 

as i-, so 一个 yige is pronounced "ige"

yü- 

as ü-, so 豫园 Yuyuan is pronounced "ü-üan"

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.

1. first tone ( ā ) 

flat, high pitch — more sung instead of spoken

2. second tone ( á ) 

low to middle, rising — pronounced like the end of a question phrase (Whát?)

3. third tone ( ǎ ) 

middle to low to high, dipping — Note: For two consecutive words in the 3rd tone, the first word is pronounced as if it is in the 2nd tone. For example, 打扰 dǎrǎo is pronounced as dárǎo.

4. fourth tone ( à ) 

high to low, rapidly falling — pronounced like a command (Stop!)

5. a fifth tone 

this is a neutral tone, which is rarely used by itself (mostly for phrase particles), but frequently occurs as the second part of a phrase.

Phrase list

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.

Hello. 

你好。 Nǐ hǎo.

How are you? 

你好吗？ Nǐ hǎo ma? 身体好吗? Shēntǐ hǎo ma?

Fine, thank you. 

很好, 谢谢。 Hěn hǎo, xièxie.

May I please ask, what is your name? 

请问你叫什么名? Qǐngwèn nǐjiào shěnme míng?

Who are you? 

你叫什么名字？ Nǐ jiào shénme míngzi?

My name is ______ . 

我叫 _____ 。 Wǒ jiào ______ .

Nice to meet you. 

很高兴认识你。 Hěn gāoxìng rènshì nǐ.

Please. 

请。 Qǐng.

Thank you. 

谢谢。 Xièxiè.

You're welcome. 

不客气。 Bú kèqi.

Excuse me. (getting attention) 

请问 qǐng wèn

Excuse me. (begging pardon) 

打扰一下。 Dǎrǎo yixià ; 麻烦您了, Máfán nín le.

I'm sorry. 

对不起。 Duìbùqǐ.

It's okay. (polite response to "I'm sorry")

没关系 (méiguānxi).

Goodbye 

再见。 Zàijiàn

Goodbye (informal) 

拜拜。 Bai-bai (Byebye)

I can't speak Chinese. 

我不会说中文。 Wǒ bú huì shuō zhōngwén.

Do you speak English? 

你会说英语吗？ Nǐ huì shuō Yīngyǔ ma?

Is there someone here who speaks English? 

这里有人会说英语吗？ Zhèlĭ yǒu rén hùi shuō Yīngyǔ ma?

Help! (in emergencies)

救命！ Jiùmìng!

Good morning. 

早安。 Zǎo'ān.

Good evening. 

晚上好。 Wǎnshàng hǎo.

Good night. 

晚安。 Wǎn'ān.

I don't understand. 

我听不懂。 Wǒ tīng bù dǒng.

Where is the toilet? 

厕所在哪里？ Cèsuǒ zài nǎli?

Leave me alone. 

不要打扰我。 (búyào dǎrǎo wǒ)

I don't want it! (useful for people who come up trying to sell you something) 

我不要 (wǒ búyào!)

Don't touch me! 

不要碰我！ (búyào pèng wǒ!)

I'll call the police. 

我要叫警察了。 (wǒ yào jiào jǐngchá le)

Police! 

警察！ (jǐngchá!)

Stop! Thief! 

住手！小偷！ (zhùshǒu! xiǎotōu!)

I need your help. 

我需要你的帮助。 (wǒ xūyào nǐde bāngzhù)

It's an emergency. 

这是紧急情况。 (zhèshì jǐnjí qíngkuàng)

I'm lost. 

我迷路了。 (wǒ mílù le)

I lost my bag. 

我丟了手提包。 (wǒ diūle shǒutíbāo)

I lost my wallet. 

我丟了钱包。 (wǒ diūle qiánbāo)

I'm sick. 

我生病了。 (wǒ shēngbìng le)

I've been injured. 

我受伤了。 (wǒ shòushāng le)

I need a doctor. 

我需要医生。 (wǒ xūyào yīshēng)

Can I use your phone? 

我可以打个电话吗？ (wǒ kěyǐ dǎ ge diànhuà ma?)

I am sick. 

我生病了。 (wǒ shēngbìng le)

Painful. 

痛。 (tòng)

Uncomfortable. 

不舒服。 (bù shūfú)

Itchy/ticklish. 

痒。(yǎng)

Sore (In muscle strains). 

酸。(suān)

Fever. 

发烧。 (fāshāo)

Cough. 

咳嗽。 (késòu)

Sneeze. 

打喷嚏 (dǎ pēntì)

Diarrhoea. 

泻肚子/拉肚子 (xiè dùzi/lā dùzi)

Running nose. 

流鼻涕 (liú bítì)

Phlegm. 

痰。 (tán)

Hands/Arms. 

手。 (shǒu)

Fingers. 

手指。(shǒuzhǐ)

Wrist. 

手腕。 (shǒuwàn)

Shoulder. 

肩膀。 (jiānbǎng)

Feet. 

脚。 (jiǎo)

Toes. 

脚指。 (jiǎozhǐ)

Legs. 

腿。 (tuǐ)

Nails. 

指甲。 (zhǐjiǎ)

Body. 

身体。 (shēntǐ)

Eyes. 

眼睛。 (yǎnjīng)

Ears. 

耳朵。 (ěrduo)

Nose. 

鼻子。 (bízi)

Face. 

脸。 (liǎn)

Hair. 

头发。 (tóufǎ)

Head. 

头。 (tóu)

Neck. 

颈项/脖子。 (jǐngxiàng/bózi)

Throat. 

喉咙。 (hóulóng)

Chest. 

胸。 (xiōng)

Abdomen. 

肚子。 (dùzi)

Hip/Waist. 

腰。 (yāo)

Buttocks. 

屁股。 (pìgǔ)

Back. 

背。 (bèi)

Numbers

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.

0 〇, 零 

líng

1 一 (壹) 

yī

2 二 (贰) 

èr (两 liǎng is used when specifying quantities)

3 三 (叁) 

sān

4 四 (肆) 

sì

5 五 (伍) 

wǔ

6 六 (陆) 

liù

7 七 (柒) 

qī

8 八 (捌) 

bā

9 九 (玖) 

jiǔ

10 十 (拾) 

shí

11 十一 

shí-yī

12 十二 

shí-èr

13 十三 

shí-sān

14 十四 

shí-sì

15 十五 

shí-wǔ

16 十六 

shí-liù

17 十七 

shí-qī

18 十八 

shí-bā

19 十九 

shí-jiǔ

20 二十 

èr-shí

21 二十一 

èr-shí-yī

22 二十二 

èr-shí-èr

23 二十三 

èr-shí-sān

30 三十 

sān-shí

40 四十 

sì-shí

50 五十 

wǔ-shí

60 六十 

liù-shí

70 七十 

qī-shí

80 八十 

bā-shí

90 九十 

jiǔ-shí

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.

100 一百 (壹佰)

yī-bǎi

101 一百〇一 

yī-bǎi-líng-yī

110 一百一十 

yī-bǎi-yī-shí

111 一百一十一 

yī-bǎi-yī-shí-yī

200 二百 

èr-bǎi or 两百：liǎng-bǎi

300 三百 

sān-bǎi

500 五百 

wǔ-bǎi

1000 一千 (壹仟)

yī-qiān

2000 二千 

èr-qiān or 两千：liǎng-qiān

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).

10,000 一万 (壹萬)

yī-wàn

10,001 一万〇一 

yī-wàn-líng-yī

10,002 一万〇二 

yī-wàn-líng-èr

20,000 二万 

èr-wàn

50,000 五万 

wǔ-wàn

100,000 十万 

shí-wàn

200,000 二十万 

èr-shí-wàn

1,000,000 一百万 

yī-bǎi-wàn

10,000,000 一千万 

yī-qiān-wàn

100,000,000 一亿 (壹億) 

yī-yì

1,000,000,000,000 一兆 

yī-zhào

number _____ (train, bus, etc.) 

number measure word (路 lù, 号 hào, ...) _____ (huǒ chē, gōng gòng qì chē, etc.)

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).

half 

半 bàn

less than 

少於 shǎoyú

more than 

多於 duōyú

more 

更 gèng

now 

现在 xiànzài

later 

以后， yǐhòu or shāohòu

before 

以前, yǐqián

morning 

早上, zǎoshàng

noon

中午, zhōngwǔ

afternoon 

下午, xiàwǔ

evening/night 

晚上, wǎnshàng

midnight

半夜 bànyè or 午夜 (wǔyè)

Clock time

What time is it? 

现在几点？ Xiànzài jǐ diǎn?

It is nine in the morning. 

早上9点钟。 Zǎoshàng jǐu diǎn zhōng.

Three-thirty PM. 

下午3点半. Xiàwǔ sān diǎn bàn.

3

38 PM. : 下午3点38分 (xiàwǔ sāndiǎn sānshíbā fēn).

Duration

_____ minute(s) 

_____ 分钟 fēnzhōng

_____ hour(s) 

_____ 小时 xiǎoshí

_____ day(s) 

_____ 天 tiān

_____ week(s) 

_____ 星期 xīngqī

_____ month(s) 

_____ 月 yùe

_____ year(s) 

_____ 年 nián

Days

today 

今天 jīntiān

yesterday 

昨天 zuótiān

the day before yesterday

前天qiăntiān

tomorrow 

明天 míngtiān

the day after tomorrow

后天 hòutiān

this week 

这个星期 zhège xīngqī

last week 

上个星期 shàngge xīngqī

next week 

下个星期 xiàge xīngqī

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).

Sunday 

星期天 xīngqītiān or xīngqīrì (星期日)

Monday 

星期一 xīngqīyī

Tuesday 

星期二 xīngqīèr

Wednesday 

星期三 xīngqīsān

Thursday 

星期四 xīngqīsì

Friday 

星期五 xīngqīwǔ

Saturday 

星期六 xīngqīliù

星期 can also be replaced with 礼拜 lǐbài and occasionally 周 zhōu.

Months

Months in Chinese are also easy: starting with 1 for January, just add the number before 月 yuè.

January 

一月, yī yuè

February 

二月, èr yuè

March 

三月, sān yuè

April 

四月, sì yuè

May 

五月, wŭ yuè

June 

六月, liù yuè

July 

七月, qī yuè

August 

八月, bā yuè

September 

九月, jiŭ yuè

October 

十月, shí yuè

November 

十一月, shí yī yuè

December 

十二月, shí èr yuè

13th month：十三月, shí-sān yuè (occasionally added as a leap month in the Lunar Calendar)

Tips: From January to December, you just need to use this pattern: number (1-12) + yuè

Writing Dates

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.

6th January

一月六号 (yī yuè liù hào) or 一月六日 (yī yuè liù rì)

25th December

十二月二十五号 (shí-èr yuè èr-shí-wǔ hào)

black 

黑色 hēi sè

white 

白色 bái sè

grey 

灰色 huī sè

red 

红色 hóng sè

blue 

蓝色 lán sè

yellow 

黄色 huáng sè

green 

绿色 lǜ sè

orange 

橙色 chéng sè

purple 

紫色 zǐ sè

brown 

褐色 he sè, 棕色 zōng sè,

Do you have it in another colour?  

你们有没有另外颜色? nǐmen yǒu méiyǒu lìngwài yánsè ?

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

Transportation

Bus and Train

How much is a ticket to _____? 

去______的票多少钱 qù _____ de piào duō shǎo qián?

Do you go to... (the central station)? 

去不去... (火车站) qù bù qù... (huǒ chē zhàn)

Directions

How do I get to _____ ? 

怎么去_____ zěnme qù _____?

...the train station? 

...火车站? ...huǒchē zhàn?

...the bus station? 

...汽车总站? ...qìchē zǒngzhàn?

...the airport? 

...机场? ...jī chǎng?

street 

街 jiē; 路 lù

Turn left. 

左边转弯 zuǒbiān zhuǎnwān/左拐zuǒguǎi

Turn right. 

右边转弯 yòubiān zhuǎnwān/右拐yòuguăi

Go straight

一直走 yìzhízŏu

I've reached my destination

到了dàole

U-turn

掉 头 diàotóu

Taxi driver

师傅 shīfu

Please use the meter machine

请打表 qǐng dǎbiǎo

Please turn up the aircon/heater

请空调开大点儿。 qǐng kōngtiáo kāi dàdiǎn(r)

left 

左边 zuǒbiān

right 

右边 yòubiān

straight ahead 

往前走 wǎngqián zǒu

north 

北 bĕi

south 

南 nán

east 

东 dōng

west 

西 xī

Taxi

Taxi 出租车 chū zū chē

Take me to _____, please. 

请开到_____。 qǐng kāidào _____。

Do you have any rooms available? 

你们有房间吗？ Nǐmen yǒu fángjiān ma?

Does the room come with... 

有没有... Yǒu méiyǒu...

...bedsheets? 

...床单？ ...chuángdān?

...a bathroom? 

...浴室？ ...yùshì?

...a telephone? 

...电话？ ...diànhuà?

...a TV? 

...电视？ ...diànshì ?

I will stay for _____ night(s). 

我打算住_____夜。 Wǒ dǎsuàn zhù _____ yè.

Do you have a safe? 

你们有没有保险箱？ Nǐmen yǒu méiyǒu bǎoxiǎn xiāng?

Can you wake me at _____? 

请明天早上_____叫醒我。 Qǐng míngtiān zǎoshàng _____ jiàoxǐng wǒ.

I want to check out. 

我现在要走。 Wǒ xiànzài yào zǒu.

pay

付 fù

cash

现钱 xiàn qián

credit card

信用卡 xìn yòng kǎ

cheque

支票　zhīpiào

Can I look at the menu, please? 

请给我看看菜单. qĭng gĕi wŏ kànkan càidān.

Do you have an English menu? 

你有没有英文菜单？ nĭ yŏu méi yŏu yīngwén càidān?

(Listen for... Yes, we have one. : 有 yŏu - No, we don't. : 没有 méi yŏu)

I'm a vegetarian 

我吃素的 wŏ chī sù de

breakfast 

早饭 zǎofàn or 早餐 zǎocān

lunch 

午饭 wǔfàn or zhōngfàn or 午餐 wǔcān

supper 

晚饭 wǎnfàn or 晚餐 wǎncān

beef 

牛肉 niúròu

pork

猪肉 zhūròu，or sometimes simply '肉' ròu.

mutton

羊肉 yángròu

chicken

鸡 jī

fish

鱼 yú

cheese 

奶酪 nǎilào

eggs 

鸡蛋 jīdàn

bread 

面包 miànbāo

noodles 

面条 miàntiáo

fried rice

炒饭 chǎofàn

dumpling

饺子 jiǎozi

rice 

米饭 mĭfàn

coffee 

咖啡 kāfēi

black coffee: 黑咖啡 hēi kāfēi

milk

牛奶 niúnǎi

sugar

糖 táng

tea (drink) 

茶 chá

green tea

绿茶 lǜ chá

scented tea

花茶 huāchá

black tea

红茶 hóngchá

juice 

(水)果汁 (shuǐ)guǒzhī, literally 'fruit juice'.

water 

水 shuĭ

natural mineral water

矿泉水 kuàngquán shuǐ

beer 

啤酒 píjiŭ

red/white wine 

红/白 葡萄 酒 hóng/bái pútáo jiŭ

It was delicious. 

好吃极了。 hǎochī jí le

The check, please. 

请结帐。 qǐng jiézhàng

Do you serve alcohol? 

卖不卖酒？ ( màibú màijiǔ?)

Is there table service? 

有没有餐桌服务？ (yǒu méiyǒu cānzhuō fúwù?)

A beer/two beers, please. 

请给我一杯/两杯啤酒。 (qǐng gěiwǒ yìbēi/liǎngbēi píjiǔ)

A glass of red/white wine, please. 

请给我一杯红/白葡萄酒。 (qǐng gěi wǒ yìbēi hóng/bái pútáojiǔ)

A pint, please. 

请给我一品脱。 (qǐng gěi wǒ yìpǐntuō)

A bottle, please. 

请给我一瓶。 (qǐng gěi wǒ yìpíng)

_____ (hard liquor) and _____ (mixer), please. 

请给我_____和_____。 (qǐng gěi wǒ _____ hé _____)

whiskey 

威士忌 (wēishìjì)

vodka 

伏特加 (fútèjiā)

rum 

兰姆酒 (lánmǔjiǔ)

water 

水 (shuǐ)

mineral spring (i.e. bottled) water 

矿泉水 (kuàngquánshuǐ)

boiled water

开水 (kāishuǐ)

club soda 

苏打水 (sūdǎshuǐ)

tonic water 

通宁水 (tōngníngshuǐ)

orange juice 

柳橙汁 （liǔchéngzhī)

Coke (soda) 

可乐 (kělè)

Do you have any bar snacks? 

有没有吧臺点心？ (yǒu méiyǒu bātái diǎnxīn?)

One more, please. 

请再给我一个。 (qǐng zài gěi wǒ yígè')

Another round, please. 

请再来一轮。 (qǐng zàilái yìlún)

When is closing time? 

几点打烊、关门？ (jǐdiǎn dǎyáng/guānmén?)

Where is the toilet? 

厕所在哪里 (cèsuǒ zài nǎli?)

Where is the washingroom? 

洗手间在哪儿？（xǐshǒujiānzàinǎr?）

Do you have this in my size? 

有没有我的尺寸？ (yǒu méiyǒu wǒde chǐcùn?)

How much is this? 

这个多少钱？ (zhège duōshǎo qián?)

That's too expensive. 

太贵了。 (tài guì le)

Would you take _____? 

_____元可以吗？ (_____ yuán kěyǐ ma?)

expensive 

贵 (guì)

cheap 

便宜 (piányi)

I can't afford it. 

我带的钱不够。 (wǒ dài de qián búgòu)

I don't want it. 

我不要。 (wǒ bù yào)

You're cheating me. 

你欺骗我。 (nǐ qīpiàn wǒ) Use with caution!

I'm not interested. 

我没有兴趣。 (wǒ méiyǒu xìngqù)

OK, I'll take it. 

我要买这个。 (wǒ yào mǎi zhège)

Please provide me with a carrier-bag. 

请给我袋子。 (qǐng gěi wǒ dàizi)

Do you ship (overseas)? 

可以邮寄到海外吗？ (kěyǐ yóujì dào hǎiwài ma?)

I need... 

我要_____ (wǒ yào _____)

...toothpaste. 

牙膏 (yágāo)

...a toothbrush. 

牙刷 (yáshuā)

...tampons. 

卫生棉条 (wèishēng miántiáo)

...soap. 

肥皂 (féizào)

...shampoo. 

洗发精 (xǐfàjīng)

...pain reliever. (e.g., aspirin or ibuprofen) 

镇痛剂 (zhèntòngjì)

...cold medicine. 

感冒药 (gǎnmào yào)

...stomach medicine. 

胃肠药 (wèicháng yào)

...a razor. 

剃刀 (tìdāo)

...an umbrella. 

雨伞 (yǔsǎn)

...sunblock lotion. 

防晒油 (fángshàiyóu)

...a postcard. 

明信片 (míngxìnpiàn)

...postage stamps. 

邮票 (yóupiào)

...batteries. 

电池 (diànchí)

...writing paper. 

纸 (zhǐ)

...a pen. 

笔 (bǐ)

...a pencil. 

铅笔 (qiānbǐ)

...glasses. 

眼镜 (yǎnjìng)

...English-language books. 

英文书 (Yīngwén shū)

...English-language magazines. 

英文杂志 (Yīngwén zázhì)

...an English-language newspaper. 

英文报纸 (Yīngwén bàozhǐ)

...a Chinese-English dictionary. 

汉英词典 (Hàn-Yīng cídiǎn)

...an English-Chinese dictionary. 

英汉词典 (Yīng-Hàn cídiǎn)

I want to rent a car. 

我想要租车。 (wǒ xiǎngyào zūchē)

Can I get insurance? 

我可以买保险吗？ (wǒ kěyǐ mǎi bǎoxiǎn ma?)

stop (on a street sign) 

停 (tíng)

one way 

单行道 (dānxíngdào)

yield 

让路 (rànglù)

no parking 

禁止停车 (jìnzhǐ tíngchē)

speed limit 

速度限制 (sùdù xiànzhì)

gas (petrol) station 

加油站 (jiāyóuzhàn)

petrol 

汽油 (qìyóu)

diesel 

柴油 (cháiyóu)

I haven't done anything wrong. 

我没有做错事。 (wǒ méiyǒu zuòcuò shì)

It was a misunderstanding. 

这是误会。 (zhè shì wùhuì)

Where are you taking me? 

你带我去哪里？ (nǐ dài wǒ qù nǎlǐ?)

Am I under arrest? 

我被捕了吗？ (wǒ bèibǔle ma?)

I am an American/Australian/British/Canadian citizen. 

我是 美国/澳洲/英国/加拿大 公民。 (wǒ shì měiguó/àozhōu/yīngguó/jiānádà gōngmín)

I want to talk to the American/Australian/British/Canadian embassy/consulate. 

我希望跟 美国/澳洲/英国/加拿大 的 大使馆/领事馆 联系。 (wǒ xīwàng gēn měiguó/àozhōu/yīngguó/jiānádà de dàshǐguǎn/lǐngshìguǎn liánxì)

I want to talk to a lawyer. 

我希望跟律师联系。 (wǒ xīwàng gēn lǜshī liánxì)

Can I just pay a fine now? 

我可以支付罚款吗？ (wǒ kěyǐ zhī fù fákuǎn ma?)

Can I make international calls here? 

可以打国际电话吗? (kěyǐ dǎ guójì diànhuà ma?)

How much is it to America/Australia/Britain/Canada? 

打给 美国/澳洲/英国/加拿大 是多少钱? (dǎgěi měiguó/àozhōu/yīngguó/jiānádà shì duōshǎo qián?)

Where can I find an Internet cafe? 

哪里有网吧? (nǎlǐ yǒu wǎng ba?)

How much is it per hour? 

一小时是多少钱? (yī xiǎoshí shì duōshǎo qián?)

Learning more

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.

• Chinese (Wikibooks.org): Free lessons providing detailed grammar explanations, audio samples and stroke order animations.
• Day Day Up Chinese: Online textbook with dialogues, example sentences, grammar, vocabulary and cultural notes, and some practice exercises
• Digital Dialects Chinese: Interactive games for learning Chinese in both Pinyin and simplified characters.
• ZhongWen Red: Free basic online Mandarin tutorials with audio.
• Chinese Flashcards: Annotated Texts, Flashcards, Multiple choice tests
• Mandarin Toplist: List of the major Mandarin instructional websites with short reviews
• a keyboard for typing chinese characters for firefox

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Mandarin Chinese edition of Wiktionary

English

Noun

Mandarin Chinese

1. A category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and southwestern China.
2. Standard Mandarin.

Synonyms

• Mandarin

References

• "Mandarin Chinese" in WordNet 3.0, Princeton University, 2006.

See also

• Mandarin Chinese on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

This book is a part of the "Made EZ" series of wikibooks. These books are dedicated to beautifully simplifying assorted subjects. For listings of our books look at Easy Languages Easy Math and Easy Science

This is an alternate Wikibooks to Chinese (Mandarin)

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.

This book is incomplete, and still under construction

Chapter One: Pinyin

1. Consonants
2. A, O, and E
3. I and N
4. Quiz One
5. U, Ü and NG
6. Pronouns
7. Numbers
8. Quiz Two

第一课→

Chapter Two: Sentences

1. 你好。 我是...
2. 你好吗？
3. 他是学生。
4. 她的名字是什么？
5. 我四十二岁。
6. 你呢？

你好。 我是...→