Mandarin Chinese is the official language of People’s Republic China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. More than 1 billion of people speak Mandarin Chinese language all around the globe, and it has more native speakers than any other language. Mandarin Chinese is mostly spoken in China, Malaysia and Singapore and also used by various Chinese communities all around the world. Here are some interesting facts about Mandarin Chinese language that help you understand the language better.
Chinese: A Tonal Language
In Chinese, the meaning of word transforms according to its tone. It has four tones that mean one syllable or word has four different meaning. The names of four tones are namely rising, flat, falling and rising and falling.
Dialects
Mandarin is the main dialect of China concerning a number of speakers and political significance. The phrase Mandarin is an English translation of “guān-huà,” which is a dialect spoken in Beijing. Due to political and geographical considerations, the language is known by several names. In the People’s Republic of China, it is called “pŭtōnghuà” and used in everyday speech. In Singapore and Malaysia it is called, “huáyŭ” and in Taiwan, it is called “guóyŭ” and is used as a national language. In the Mandarin language, each syllable has pitch, which is a vital element of its pronunciation. Beijing dialect is the basis of pŭtōnghuà, guóyŭ and huáyŭ languages, but these languages are little different in pronunciation and vocabulary. The pitch discerns one syllable from another syllable that has same consonants and vowels.
Enunciation
The elocution of Mandarin varies with social and geographical lines, and people make use of elements of their native dialect when they speak it. The syllable structure in Mandarin comprises of initial discretionary consonants, vowels and optional final consonants. It has seven vowel phonemes that make disparity in word meaning.
One Grammatical Form
In Mandarin Chinese language, all words have unique grammatical form only, and there is no grammatical peculiarity between singular or plural form and no declination in consonance with tense, mood and aspect. Sentence structure attains the difference between singular and plural and tenses are signified by adverbs of time or particles.
Writing Style
A fascinating fact about Mandarin Chinese is that it does not have alphabets, and the language makes use of symbols that are known as Chinese characters. Chinese character denotes the oldest writing system in the world. There are two types of Chinese characters namely, traditional and simplified. Countries such Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas Chinese communities use traditional characters while China uses simplified Chinese characters. Chinese characters can be written either from top to bottom or from right to left and left to right.
A Popular Language
Standard Mandarin is the official language of mainland China and Taiwan and used for formal as well as informal communication. It is one of the six official languages used by the United Nations. There are over 960 million native speakers of Mandarin language worldwide. Mandarin spoken in mainland China is split into four major regional varieties such as Northwestern Mandarin (Xibei Guanhua), Southwestern Mandarin (Xinan Guanhua), Northern Mandarin (Huabei Guanhua) and Eastern Mandarin (Jinghuai Guanhua). There are also vast numbers of Mandarin speakers in countries such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mongolia, Russia, Thailand, United Kingdom, Philippines, USA and many more.
That is All Folks!
Many people find difficulty in enunciating, understanding and learning Mandarin Chinese language. So, it is crucial to contact the translator service when visiting nations on a business trip where Mandarin Chinese is the official language. Give a call at 888-670-3369 to know more about Chinese language translation service.