Things To Consider Before You Start To Learn Mandarin

When it comes to learning a second language, many schools seem to stick to Spanish and French. While there is nothing wrong with either of these language, it would be just as sensible for schools to try to teach students how to speak Mandarin. Mandarin is the first language of both China and Taiwan. It is the secondary language of many other countries in Asia. Currently, more than one billion people list Mandarin as their very first, and in many cases, only language. People who don't learn Mandarin now will find that not knowing the language could cause them jobs and promotions.

Mandarin is technically a portion of the language called Sino-Tibetan. When it comes time to learn how to speak Mandarin, you need to consider which part of Asia you will be visiting. While both China and Taiwan consider Mandarin their first language, the countries have separate dialects. Knowing which country you will be spending time in will help you learn which dialect you should focus on learning.

One of the things that you need to consider when you start taking Mandarin lessons is that most often you will be learning a formal or official version of the language. The problem is that many of the native speakers do not speak a formal version of the language They have created their own dialect of the language. While your formal training will not make you sound like a native speaker, you will find that your language lessons will provide you with the ability to understand and be understood by others.

People with a natural ability to hear tone or who have a musical background will find that they have an easier time learning the Mandarin language than people who have no musical training. The reason for this is because Mandarin is a language that relies largely on tone. Taking singing lessons will help you pick up the language quicker and will also help you form the words more accurately.

The type of language lesson you take can have a huge impact on both how quickly you learn the language and how naturally you speak. People who learn the language at a young age usually speak it more naturally. If you are older, you will probably have a more difficult time picking up the language and it will always be obvious that it is your second language.

If at all possible, try to learn Mandarin Chinese from someone who is actually from China. This will help ensure that your accent is more accurate than if you learn the language from someone of a different ethnicity. No one is a better teacher than a person native to the language.

If you are going to be traveling in Asia, you should spend some time teaching yourself to at least recognize the Mandarin alphabet. This knowledge will make it possible for you to translate the writing on signs and could save you a great deal of embarrassment.

When you consider the number of people who speak Mandarin, you really can not afford not to learn Mandarin. Even if you do not know that you will ever need to use the language, there is a chance that your children will and if you have already learned to speak Mandarin, you will have an easier time convincing your children that the language training is important.

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Learning Mandarin - Real Life Learning

Why do some people succeed at learning a language and some people don't? As a person involved with running a mandarin language school it is my job to spend a lot of time to ponder this question. I have studied 4 foreign languages in my life. English (which you can see that I know), Spanish (which I still remember a few choice phrases from), German (which I have completely expunged from all memory banks) and Mandarin (which I am getting pretty good at). Why is that I failed miserably with German, did rather poorly with Spanish and succeeded with Mandarin and English? To me the answer is really clear. It fits in perfectly with data collected elsewhere. In fact I have never met anyone that has succeeded in learning a foreign language that did it in another way than I.

The fact about language studies that determine if you are going to succeed or not is with out a doubt the proportion of time you spend learning the language you spend with books as opposed to actually trying to speak it. Learning a language takes a lot a lot a lot of time. The complicated aspect of it - such as grammar and conjugation and what not, probably makes up no more than a percentage of the whole task. The main thing is to learn a lot of new word. Learning a language by sitting down with a book is so dreadfully boring that most people's brain give out when they try. I suspect that brain implosion is actually the most common cause of death of foreigners in China. When I think about trying to learn Mandarin by only using a textbook my thoughts immediately go off into the first book of the Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy series. The Vorlons, or whatever they are called, are about to read some poetry to the unsuspecting main character and his partner in crime. The author then jumps into the narrative and explains what usually happens when people are subjugated to Vorlon poetry. The most benign outcome of a reading is when the persons intestines actually jump out of the body of the readee and strangles them to death.

I cannot think of anything more soul destroying, that is not banned by the Geneva convention, than sitting down for like 3 years and learning Mandarin by studying it only. If ways to bore people was somehow weaponised by evil scientists (like the worlds funniest joke is in Monty Python's world) Mandarin language studies mainly pursued with books would be banned by several international treaties overnight.

The thing about it that so agitates me is that some schools try to hammer the language into the minds of students using this way when there are so many much better options. Especially in the light of the fact that most people that try this way, never actually learn the language. The best way that a school can help a student learn a language is by helping them to a point where they can speak Mandarin outside of class as soon as possible. The success of the worlds largest language school franchise English First, now known as Education First, EF, is just can't be attributed to their learning material. From what I remember of it from my childhood as an EF student it was actually really boring. What they do do well is putting people in host families when they go abroad. Speaking to native speakers for an hour is probably worth a days worth of studies once you get past the basics.

The people that I know in China who speaks the best Mandarin has spent very little time in class rooms, they have learned Mandarin by pursuing the language outside of school. The way that schools helped them was combining personal content (the stuff they needed professionally and in hobbies) with the basic glue they needed to put the sentences together. The rest these students sorted out themselves.

Rui Ming works for a Chinese language school in China that is a great option for those that want to learn Mandarin. See the program overview page for more information about learning Mandarin.

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Learning Mandarin - Difficulties and Opportunities

Mandarin language studies are problematic. Mostly because Mandarin is very different from other languages that people in the west have tried to get to grips with before trying to learn Chinese, not because learning Mandarin is much harder. Mandarin is strange in many ways. The writing system is obviously completely different. There is no alphabet as the one that Germanic and Latin derivates have. Instead a picture defines every word; or rather a series of what is called strokes. For example, three stokes that together make a square means mouth, one combination of strokes that kind of depicts a woman holding a kid means mother and so on. But the differences don't end there. The grammar is largely made up of what is called particles. For example; adding a syllable pronounced ma after a sentence turns it into a question, adding guo after a sentence means that that it happens in the past. Combining these basic examples; you go shanghai guo ma? Communicates the question: have you gone to Shanghai? The differences are however much more explicit that this. Even the sounds of spoken Chinese are completely different from western counterparts.

Chinese spoken words are not only defined by syllables as western words are. The word for mother in English is just 6 different sounds noted by each character; M, O, T, H, E and R. In Chinese there is two syllables, not four characters, ma and ma. The twist is that "mama" can be pronounced in twenty-five different ways. Each of the two syllables, ma and ma, can be pronounced with 5 different tones, creating a total matrix of 5 times 5 possibilities, and only one means mother. The tones are called tones but they are not tones such as A minor or G, they are pitch modulation. The first tone is a slightly steady high pitch. The second is a rising pitch. The third tone goes down and then up. The fourth is a sharp decline in pitch from high to low. The fifth is called the neutral tone and does not actually have a modulation form.

All that sounds bloody difficult, and it is, at least at first. So how do you best go about coming to grips with it? Because of course it is possible. In fact I know one lovely French girl called Julie, her Chinese is better than her English. I also know a very talented German videographer that has lived in China for only three years; he often searches for the English word to describe something and ends up saying it Chinese. Basically, I would argue, that Chinese is not so much bloody difficult as it is bloody different.

Once you get past the hurdle of the fundamental concepts that are so perplexing there is a very clear and sensible structure to the language. When people start learning Chinese they cannot see this structure for all the structure, like that tired old simile of someone standing in the woods but can't see it cause the trees are in the way. The trees that make up Chinese are not like the trees you find in Europe or North America but they are most definitely present and once you begin to get to grips with their from, the rest will flow much much much easier. The way that I learned Mandarin, and the way the Julie and Kris, the German videographer, learn Mandarin has one clear thing in common. We learned it with a very precise purpose in mind.

For Julie it was to work in the Chinese art sector, for Kris it was to do his video stuff in Beijing, for me it was to work with a small start up company. Each of us had a focus with our studies and when we learned the words that pertained to our little corner of the language the structure of Mandarin was really easy to see and from there on, learning Mandarin was much more interesting and efficient than it would have been if we just sat down with a book.

Rui Ming works for a Mandarin language school that is a great option for those that want to learn Mandarin. The academy has intensive program tailored to individual needs, see the program description at: learn Mandarin in China.

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Learning Mandarin Becoming Popular in America

According to News Weekly, in the past year there were 146 children aged four to fourteen participating in Mandarin language classes in New York. The Education Secretary of America declared that they are going to have 5% of middle school and college students learn Mandarin before 2010.

Due to the quick emergence of China and the of development of Confucius Institutes all over the world, it is expected that there will be about 1 billion people taking Mandarin as a foreign language by 2010. All countries are encouraging expansion in Mandarin education. Two American senators suggested that 13 billion dollars be invested in Mandarin education over the next 5 years.

While learning Mandarin is becoming more popular, many students of the language complain of its difficulty. There are approximately 2500 words that are regularly used, and Mandarin pronunciation is quite complex. Others are concerned that with more students pursuing Mandarin as a foreign language, other languages such as Russian and Japanese will be overlooked. However, these concerns have not proven to slow the increasing popularity of Mandarin. For many students, learning Mandarin will equate to better business trade with China as a growing number of people speak it worldwide.

Starting in May of 2007, an American Association of Community Colleges commission listed Mandarin in their Higher Employment Examination Project. The commission started their research in 2004, and results showed that there are 2400 instructors interested in teaching Mandarin in 14,000 colleges and universities.

There are many colleges interested in offering Mandarin to their students. However, the American Asian Association states that there are not enough instructors who are proficient enough in Mandarin to teach it, nor are there enough teaching materials to provide to students. The growing popularity of Mandarin education in America has increased the demand of Mandarin instructors, and caused the demand of teaching materials to exceed supply. Instructors who are experts in Mandarin are hard to find.

If interested in obtaining a fluent instructor in Mandarin, you can visit http://www.learnchinese1on1.com

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The Best Way to Learn Mandarin

What is the best way to learn Mandarin today? Everyone knows that you can learn Mandarin online - but is it effective? Is it indeed the best way? Well, aside from the fact that you can access your computer, for what amounts to be private lessons, at any time your daily schedule allows, around the clock, it is also surprisingly less expensive... conventional private lessons can be in the neighborhood of $40 per hour, while most fully equipped software packages are under $100.

Learning with such software is the best way to learn Mandarin because of the many multimedia resources available at the click of a mouse. There are multitudes of files; video for learning cultural points, audio for developing speech and pronunciation, and tons of vocabulary and conjugation exercises to fill your learning experience. There are even test and quiz games to compete against to raise your scoring, as well as writing programs to learn the Chinese ideographic script.

One of the reasons this is the best way to learn Mandarin, is the support you get from literally hundreds, even thousands of your language learning peers. At any time, 24 hours a day. 7 days a week, you can log into the online forums and chat with others in Mandarin, gaining valuable experience. On these forums, you will also find those who speak more fluently, and even native speakers eager to help guide and mentor you in areas where you may have difficulties.

The fact of the matter is, that even though you are in the comfort of your own home, at any time around the clock that you are free to expand your education, you are not alone and can gain the confidence you need in order to continue on your course to speak Mandarin fluently. Certainly, these software packages and learning with them online is the best way to learn Mandarin.

Want to learn to speak Mandarin in less than 8 weeks? not possible? see for yourself! check out www.squidoo.com/learn-mandarin-online

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Learning Mandarin - Outlining 3 Major Benefits

There are many reasons to study Mandarin. China is a fantastic country in a myriad of ways; it is huge (20% of mankind lives there), it has over 50 distinct cultural groupings and a rich plethora of culinary delights, to list the first few things that came to my mind, but I think I could continue writing all day. Mandarin holds the key to exploring all of this. But there are few people that would learn a language just so that they can enjoy a trip to a country more. Most people don't have that kind of luxury of time. Most people that learn a language with an objective in mind and that objective is more often than not somehow related to perceived future benefits to their careers that come with proficiency. Mandarin is very interesting in this way for mainly three reasons.

The first reason is that, as I have already written, China accounts for a fifth of humanity. This is really pretty darn impressive and would almost warrant a serious commitment to learning the language on its own. What makes this facet of the motivation behind mandarin language studies so salient is however not the sheer number of Chinese people, but rather number of them that don't speak a foreign language. Learning Mandarin will allow you, as an English speaker, to reach far more other people than learning any other language. Remember, at 1.2 billion people and counting China holds the same population as all of Europe and North America combined - that rules out all European languages, except of course English, but as you already know English, as you are reading this, Mandarin is a safe bet if you are looking to expand the horizons of you communicative potential.

The second reason is employability. The wage of a working person comes down to three main factors: how much that person can contribute to the overall production process he or she is involved with, how nasty or nice the job in question is and most importantly for the discussion of a language: how unique a person is on the labor market. If you are the only on that speaks a language you can pretty much ask for whatever you want in wage and still get the job, as long as you are not asking for more than you see yourself contributing. There is no one else to compete for the position. The more people on the labor market that has your own skills, the less an employer need you specifically. What does this tell us about Mandarin language studies? A lot. Compare Mandarin with another language, say French. Let us also say that you are European or American. If you are young, chances are that you also already speak English (70 percent of young European people speak good English). Now, if you were to sit down and work out which language, Mandarin or French, would make you more unique you would most likely do something like this; 12.5 percent of European speak French, 70% of them (not necessarily true, but lets roll with it) speaks English. That means that almost 9% of Europe, that is 36 million people, already know what you are about to set out knowing, not counting French Canadians. 0.00005% (5 in a hundred thousand) is probably a decent estimate of how many European speaks Mandarin. You are not unique, so you can't ask for whatever you want, but you are a very rare species and that means that you can ask for a lot.

The third reason is what China is today, and what it will be in the future. I wont write about this at great length. If you are considering learning Mandarin you already know that China is kicking economic buttocks at the moment. In 2010, for example, China accounted for about 25 percent of global growth. China is on the rise and with, the benefits of learning Mandarin.

Rui Ming works for a Mandarin Language School in China that is a great option for those that want to learn Mandarin, the lingua franca of Zhongguo. See the program overview page for more information about learning Mandarin in China.

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Learning Mandarin Is Learning How to Use a Tool

A language is a tool that we mean to be use. But before we can start practicing speaking, which is ultimately not only the aim of ones Mandarin studies, but also the best way to learn to speak Chinese, we need to at least be familiar with the basics. Therefore, if we are to discuss the optimal way to learn standard mandarin, or pu tong hua, as it is known as in China, we need to discuss what the optimal way to learn anything is. There are few things that are as important for learning as examples. Einstein once wrote that "examples are not only the best way to teach, it is the only way". In terms of how the human brain comes to understand new things, examples are not simply a way to put something into context; it is a way for the brain to link new facts to old facts. To cement the new raw input of data into the foundations of previously assimilated facts about the world. A book that simply lists properties of the world is very difficult to enjoy, to understand and to remember. If the book instead notes these properties in terms of their links to the rest of the world, this changes.

That is why no one attempts to learn Mandarin by simply reading a dictionary. The overall property that we are really discussing is relevance. The brain craves it. Hence, we use textbooks. Textbooks, in the context of mandarin studies, usually has dialogues in them which link new words that the student is required to learn to the context in which those words will be used.

The problem with textbooks, however, is that they are generally applicable, at the best of times. When I say problem, it may not really fit the bill for what is usually considered the norm for what an educational experience need to encompass. It is usually fine that a book is a way to impart knowledge to a great mass of people. However, that is hardly something that can be considered optimal. Relevance is personal and subjective and to make something that is meant to fit thousands will never be an exact fit to any of those students.

Einstein wrote that examples are the only way to teach something. By extension, relevance is the only way to teach something. Should we not then create a method for teaching Mandarin that is perfectly harnesses the power of relevance? The way to do this seems to me, to be to make the content come in two flavors.

Some content is truly relevant to everyone. That content should be imparted to everyone in bulk because it is most efficient to do this in that way. For this purpose, a textbook is an optimal vehicle.

But a great deal of content is only relevant to individuals. For example, an economist like myself, need the jargon and terminology of economics to do my work. I should be taught the jargon and terminology of economics, but unless you also are an economist, you should not have to endure the terrible boredom of macro and micro economic models. The business cycle should not be put in a textbook for general mandarin studies but for me it is the perfect vehicle to practice mandarin. I am able to practice mandarin in natural conversation only if I have access to the terminology in need. Which aside from relevance is the second most important property that we are looking for when it comes language studies.

A language, including Standard Mandarin, is inherently a tool, and a tool is inherently something you need to use for it to be useful. A mere knowledge of Mandarin is not helpful in the same way that knowledge of most other topics are. It is a method of communication.

So in summary, relevance and practice, is without a doubt, the best way forward.

Rui Ming works for a Mandarin language Academy in Beijing that is a great option for those that want to learn mandarin in China. If you are interested in more information about the Academy's program, please the course page: learn mandarin in China.

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Learning Mandarin Chinese - It's Much Easier Than You Think

My son's high school recently announced it was going to offer evening classes for adult beginners, who wanted to learn the Mandarin Chinese language. My first reaction was, "That's impossible! How could a native English speaker like me, really expect to learn a language as difficult as Chinese?".

I was going to dismiss the idea, but being curious and also very interested in China's growing importance in the World, I thought I should find out more.

So I enquired and shortly afterwards, I enrolled into the 12 week course. Now after nine lessons, I have found to my huge surprise that learning to speak Chinese Mandarin is actually a lot easier than you might think...

There are three big factors I have found, that make learning Mandarin so much easier than I imagined. These are alphabet, grammar and sentence construction.

1. Alphabet

When most people think of Chinese, they think of those intricate pictogram characters used for writing the Chinese language. I certainly did. And my first reaction was that I just would not be able to get to grips with an alphabet that was so different from English. The problem is that the pictograms give no indication as to how the Chinese words should sound.

Well, my breakthrough discovery was that you don't have to learn the pictograms, if you mainly just want to speak Chinese in conversation. Instead, you can use the phonetic system called "Pinyin".

This was invented in the 1950's by the Chinese themselves and has now been adopted as a standard. It is based on the Western a,b,c alphabet, just like English. This makes it much easier to learn to speak Mandarin words. You can just say the words as they are written phonetically in Pinyin - you don't have to learn and read the pictograms.

2. Grammar

Then there is the grammar - this is also much easier than you might imagine. There are no tenses to struggle with. No past tense and no future tense, just the present tense!

Anyone who has struggled with a European language like French or Italian, will realise immediately how much this simplifies the learning. In order to refer to events in the past or the future, in Mandarin you have to put a reference to time into the sentence, for example "yesterday" or "next week".

Also, spoken words are not masculine or feminine, so you don't have to learn this complexity either.

3. Sentence Construction

Thirdly, there is the sentence construction in Mandarin. This is must simpler than English. Mandarin is almost spoken in "keywords".

It is concise and to the point, with very few words inserted for "padding". For example, in English we might say, "Would you like something to eat?". In Mandarin the equivalent is literally, "You eat what?".

Mandarin sentences are usually very direct. If you said the equivalent in English, it would often be considered as very rude. But it sure makes Mandarin Chinese easier to learn!

So in conclusion, if you are thinking about learning to speak Mandarin Chinese but are hesitating, then I would suggest you just give it a go. You might be as surprised as I am, by how fast you can pick it up.

Nick Radford's writing has been published extensively on the internet and in hardcopy print. He is now writing for [http://www.countrylandowner.com] and [http://www.InternetMarketingArticleDirectory.com]

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You Can Learn Mandarin In Less Time Than You Think

There are thousands of people who travel all over the world and still do not learn other languages, so why not try to learn Mandarin? If you plan on or ever wanted to travel to China and understand other people when they speak to you, learning Mandarin will help you to be able to do so. This is a language that is used in multiple areas and various dialects exist.

A specific dialect used in China, Mandarin is spoken in Southwestern and Northern China. Standard Mandarin is considered the language used by Beijing. Northern dialects are commonly called Mandarin Chinese. If you would like to visit these places, learning the language could be helpful.

Due to so many dialects being used, you should probably choose one that best suits the places you will travel to. Mandarin Chinese is spoken in Singapore, Taiwan and the People's Republic of China. If you were to ask someone what kind of Chinese they speak, it would be referred to by the area they are from like Sichuan Mandarin. You might think many months or even years are required to learn the language, but this does not have to be certain.

When starting, some learners will find a way of making associations between Mandarin words and their first language. This could be the easiest way to learn quickly. However the most popular seems to be by hearing a word spoken and repeating it many times.

Hearing and speaking lessons can be found on a DVD or CD, and many companies offer them online and in local book stores. To only learn how to speak a language, it could only take a month by practicing every day but writing or reading it could take a whole lot longer for fluency to come. Becoming fluent takes practice, and everyone learns at different paces.

The time it takes you to learn a language could be more or less based on how you learn. Speaking after hearing a language could be done in a month, by taking on whole sentences with good grammar in only a few days. Your results will depend on the method of your lessons and the quickness with which you learn.

Most people try to sound as though they are native speakers, but this can take a while longer than if you only learn the language. As an example, someone who speaks English as a secondary language would still present an accent of their own language, and would not sound like a native. This is normal and could take many months or even years to perfect and sound native.

Decide the easiest way for you to learn Mandarin. If you learn better by reading books and then listening to words being said, this is an ideal situation for you to learn from. To find out about any business that offers these types of language lessons in your area, talk to your librarian. There are other home programs and some local businesses that offer take home lessons and private tutoring to help you learn faster.

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The Practical Value of Learning Mandarin

Language is the most important communicative tool. Chinese is the world's most populous language, while Mandarin is the standard form of Chinese language, which is also the world's most populous nation common language. Now, with the development of China, more and more people around the world are learning Mandarin. To promote the use of Mandarin in the worldwide has many-sided significances.

In terms of safeguarding the motherland's reunification and enhancing national cohesion, promoting Mandarin is conducive to enhance the communication between all ethnic, all regions and all countries. Hong Kong and Macao compatriots have shown unprecedented enthusiasm to learn Mandarin, they take learning and using of Mandarin as an identification with the motherland. Taiwan has been popularized in Mandarin for a long period, which makes a barrier-free communication between Taiwan compatriots and mainland people. What's more, many foreigners are keen to learn Mandarin.

With the rapid economic development of China, Chinese language becomes very urgently in foreign trade. Most foreign people come to China to do business. The unity of language and language unhindered development is one of the most important conditions to ensure the trade turnover, which must adapt to a wide range of modern capitalism and a truly free development. The developed countries had popularity of national common language as early as the period of the industrial revolution. Now China has developed very quickly, so China should take the popularity of Mandarin as a social development project.

The high-tech development needs to the popularization of national common language too. In today's information age, the computer and networking applications are the basic requirements for the information. Language proficiency is one of the basic abilities of a person's social practice, and also an important aspect to constitute a person's overall quality. At the same time, people's thinking, morality, sentiments, culture, knowledge, accomplishments and other potential qualities should be expressed or acted through language and the methods of expression.

For any people, no matter Chinese or foreigners, who can speak fluent national common language, with proficient language ability and combined with one or two foreign languages and basic computer ability is excellent. These are the most useful skills. People with these skills will have a dominant position in school and career competition. People can benefit a lot from these in their lifetime.

Mandarin, as the standard form of modern Chinese language, is one of the six working languages in the United Nations. It is not only an important tool in the foreign economic, political, and cultural exchanges, but also an important tool for foreigners to learn Mandarin and understand China. Now more and more foreigners are learning Mandarin, Mandarin is widely used in the world. In other words, the practical value of Mandarin will be improved with the constantly improvement of China's overall national strength and international status.

More and more foreigners are learning Chinese, especially Mandarin around the world. If you are interested in learning Mandarin, you can visit http://www.learnchinese1on1.com. It is a website for people who want to learn Chinese or Mandarin. There are a lot of qualified teachers with rich teaching experience. You will sure make progress and enjoy your lessons on the website.

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What About Learning Mandarin?

In the last 10 years the interest for Standard Mandarin has increased many times over. The language remains a difficult objective for students even today, but the rewards of proficiency have never been greater and the increased experience level of teachers at language schools makes the learning process easier fore every year. This article will try to take stock of what learning Mandarin means in 2010: how hard is it and what awaits the successful seeker at the end of the rainbow?

For starters, the pot of gold is pretty unique. I will assume that you speak English already as you are reading this... which means that learning Mandarin is the single most productive effort you can make, language wise, to increase the scope of your communication capabilities. China is not a country. It is a continent. Over 20 percent of mankind is Chinese today. There are more than twice as many Chinese people as there are Europeans and North Americans combined. Put in this context, even calling China mere continent is insufficient. Furthermore, the proportion of Chinese people that speak English is one of the lowest ratios in the world. It is only recently that the Chinese Ministry of Education has defined English as a long-term strategic target for public schools. This means that Standard Mandarin holds a unique key to the Middle Kingdom and will do so for at least our lifetime.

Secondly, the pot of gold is pretty large. For the last 20 years China's economy has grown by an average of more than 10 percent per year, it has almost increased 4 times over. This is not likely to change any time soon. When China has half the per person wealth of The United States of America, China will be twice as rich. When China's individual personal wealth is on par the with the USA China's economy will be 4 times greater than The total US economy.

Thirdly, the pot will only get bigger. Currently China is known as the factory of the world. It is world leading in manufacturing. With production, comes further investment, with further investment, comes, as we have seen, phenomenal growth rates. With sustained growth rates over time comes consumption. In the future China will not only be defined by its thirst for investment to fuel its factory. In 20 years China will also be the worlds largest consumption market. 20 years may seem as a long time now but there are many companies even now that are rushing in to get a piece of a future cake.

Which brings us to the fourth point. As companies are rushing in to see what China holds, the need for bilingual staff on either side of both the investment and sales bridges grows. As Chinas rise, as a global power will define our time by virtue of constituting its greatest paradigm shift, Mandarin will represent our lifetime's greatest culture shift. English has dominated the worlds other languages since the English ruled the waves. When China rules the worlds markets Mandarin will rise as an equally important mode of communication. There is of course a lag between cause and effect in this matter, but the future will be a different place than what we see today.

Finally, what about the nature of the actual learning process? What about learning Mandarin? 10 years ago there was not a single curriculum in China, which catered to western students in a sufficient manner. Education was available, but it was a Chinese education in Chinese. Memorization was emphasized above all other factors. Western students, used to an interactive classroom, really struggled to learn Chinese in China, because of this. Today this really has changed. There are language schools today that teach Mandarin in a way that is aimed directly at a western mind. Application and comprehension is more important than mass memorization and with these changes the cost of learning Mandarin is lower than ever before.

Rui Ming works for a Mandarin language Academy in Beijing that is a great option for those that want to learn Mandarin. If you are interested in more information about learning Mandarin in Beijing, please consult the website of Beijing Gateway Academy.

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Learning Mandarin - How Hard Is It Really?

Learning Mandarin is considered to be a pretty amazing feat. People that learn to speak Chinese are few and far between, even in China's expat communities. Popular opinion is therefore that learning to speak Mandarin is very difficult. This is not the case. Mandarin is not more difficult to learn than any other language. The complication with mandarin language studies is rather that Mandarin is very different from Germanic and Latin derivates such as English, German and Spanish, but once you get over those differences, learning Mandarin is no harder than achieving proficiency in a second European language. This point is very hard to argue from a scientific point of view, but I have learned to speak English and I have learned to speak Mandarin. In my experience of these two language, of which neither is my native tongue, which Swedish, I would not say that one is much harder than the other.

I would however not have said that during the first few months of studying Mandarin. I, like everyone else, was absolutely baffled by the language. For starters, as I had expected, the writing system was completely different. Secondly, which I had not really expected before coming to China, the spoken language was different in a very strange and fundamental way. Chinese, or more specifically Mandarin, has 5 ways of pronouncing each syllable. Right now, if you have no experience of a tonal language, you are probably scratching your head. Trust me, so was I.

To try to explain this conundrum in a simple and concise way - for example; the English word for father is comprised of 6 sound, each symbolized in written form by one letter; F, A, T, H, E and R. Chinese or Mandarin, has not got an alphabet so this way of doing things is not really an option. Instead they have pictures, composed by strokes, which are called characters. These characters have (almost) nothing to do with pronunciation. The Chinese spoken word for father is best written, with the English alphabet as baba. Now to the real kicker here: the English alphabet cannot actually capture the complexity of that word. There are two so-called tones that need to be imparted for the word to make sense in Chinese.

Baba, two syllables - ba and ba, is as far as we can go. But in Chinese this is not very far, and certainly not far enough. Just writing the syllables points the reader in the right direction but baba can actually be pronounced in 25 different ways. As I said before, each syllable can be bent in 5 ways. Neutral and 4 different pitch modulations. 5 by 5 is 25, so you can see that we are not really able to understand Chinese by understanding how English works, in the same way as we can understand German based on previous experience of a different European language.

But once we get passed this and a few other major fundamental differences we are in much more sensible territory. Chinese is super structured and very very logical in its mark up. I can often guess at a word that I have never heard, and as you may have realized before; when something is intuitive is very easy to remember. Somehow the brain's memory banks are wired in the same way as our analysis capability. If you buy that point, great, if not don't worry about it. Either way you can see that a language that you can guess at is pretty convenient. I remember a few months into my studies when I had gotten past the complicated weirdness and I first guessed at a word. The word was airport. I knew the words for machine, for flying and for bus station. Combined they make up the word for airport. The word airport could be pretty much anything, or at least a few things, for me, a Swedish native, when I encounter the word for the first time. Flying machine station can only be one thing. Learning mandarin is therefore not really that hard, it is just hard initially.

Rui Ming works for a Mandarin Language School that is a great option for those that want to study Mandarin in China.

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Learning Mandarin Is Like Having Sex

I write a lot about Mandarin language studies and I often need to use some kind of analogy to illustrate my point. Over the years many have come to my mind. In the end, one of the strangest ones that I have ever thought of is also one that fits almost perfectly. Learning Mandarin is like having sex. That statement might seem strange, but the life cycle of a mandarin student and that of really good coitus is remarkably similar. There is a period of foreplay, then there is a period repetition and at the of a person's studies there is a big price to be had. But, let's start with the beginning.

When you first start studying Mandarin you should really be in China. This is not a matter of debate. Trying to learn a language like Mandarin by just reading about it in a book in your home country is like trying to win the Olympic gold for swimming, by chilling out in the kiddy pool in your parent's backyard. You will be comfortable in the pool, you might even enjoy it for a few afternoons but to reach for the top you will need to climb out and go to place where you are initially a bit out of your depth. Your first time in China will be exiting. There is an immense wealth of cultural differences to be explored. Baozi to eat. Alleys bike to down. Sights to be seen, and a million other facets of a very strange society to be lived. This first honeymoon period is for some people the best part of studying Mandarin, but those people have rarely experienced the pleasures of proficiency.

Between proficiency and the initial grace period does however lay a stretch of repetition. Some people will tell you that this period is boring and even some people may even say that it is unpleasant, but those people are only saying that because they are doing it wrong. You can be sure that they have failed in the first step, and have remained in the kiddy pool in their home country, or they have arrived in China, but failed to explore the country. Learning Mandarin should be more than trying to copy the entire content of a dictionary into the brain, it should be about experiencing China on China's terms. By that I mean this: speaking, speaking and speaking. There simply is no better way to learn something than doing it. For languages this means going out into the world and immediately putting the classroom-acquired knowledge to applied use. I spoke before about the wrong way of learning Mandarin. Like with sex, the wrong way is just repeating the same mechanical stuff over and over.

Instead, the right way is to learn the things that feel good to you. Everyone has hobbies and professional ambitions. Every hobby and profession has jargon and terminology for you to learn - focus on this! Get a private tutor or study with a private language academy that has personal content. As soon as you have this stuff below your belt you can get down with natural communication in the setting where you will have most use of speaking experience.

Lastly, to conclude the use of the sex analogy, once it is all said and done, you will have a new skill. I will always remember the first time I dreamt in Mandarin. I was high the next morning. The road to get there was interesting but long. I remembered when I first arrived in China and my tongue was trying to wrap itself around the alien pronunciation. I remembered when I was fumbling with my characters and when they first started to make sense. But most of all, today, I remember the feeling of having conquered something that people had rapidly condemned as too hard. I felt like a winner of an Olympic race. Golden.

Rui Ming works for a Mandarin academy that is a great option for those that want to learn Chinese. If you are interested in more information about learning Chinese in China, please consult the website of Beijing Gateway Academy.

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Can You Really Learn Mandarin Online?

Mandarin Chinese is one of the more difficult languages to master if your first language is English. Some languages such as Spanish share some attributes with the English language, but Mandarin Chinese is not one of them. Learning this language involves learning a completely new language that doesn't share much with your native tongue. It may seem impossible that you can learn Mandarin online, but with a program like Rocket Chinese it is entirely possible.

In fact, many people who learn Mandarin Chinese later in life do so online. They are able to study in their spare time and do not have to sign up for classes with a local community college. They can study from any location where they have access to their computer, which means they can download a program to their laptop and study from anywhere. Imagine sitting on the train after work studying Chinese, rather than reading a novel.

Many people decide to learn Mandarin online simply because they live in areas where they do not have access to Mandarin Chinese courses. They may not live near a community college and there may be no other organizations offering these lessons. They are forced to find other alternatives to learning the language and studying online is more convenient than CDs, DVDs or books.

If you need to learn Mandarin Chinese to communicate with others or just want to learn the language to enrich your own learning, learning online will be the most convenient option you find. It can also be the most affordable option, since taking courses can get quite expensive.

If you decide to learn Mandarin online, consider these tips:

1. Select your program with great care. You need an interactive program that will take you from the beginner to advanced levels without requiring you to purchase more and more programs. It is always more affordable to invest in one high quality program right from the start than to go through many lower quality programs that don't teach you as much.

2. Look for an interactive program as they are easier to follow and you are less likely to get bored. You can't effectively learn Mandarin Chinese simply by repeating words over and over and trying to remember them. You need a program that will teach in an interactive manner that allows you to hear how native speakers say the words and form sentences.

3. Don't skip the grammar lessons. Very few people find grammar exciting, but if you pass those lessons in your Mandarin lessons you will have a full grasp of the Mandarin language. Until you understand at least the basic principles of grammar, you will sound like a tourist rather than a fluid speaker.

4. Set a study schedule and remain very consistent over time. When you learn Mandarin online you don't have dedicated class times that you have to make. If you start letting yourself slack on your studies, you will hold yourself back from mastering the language. Set a schedule for your studies and stick to it. Tell your family about the schedule and ask them to help you keep it up.

The great thing about studying language online is you can spend as much time on the lessons as you want. If you catch onto something quickly, you can move ahead quickly. If you need more time on a lesson, you go over and over it all you want.

I am a proud member of the Rocket Chinese language course and there is no better way to Learn Mandarin Online. It has really helped me power through the learning curves of what used to be a difficult language to learn.

I have put together a website called Check Out Chinese which explains a more in depth about the training material that is available and you can find it at http://www.checkoutchinese.com

The Mandarin language is an amazing language and once you understand and can speak it you to will realize just how amazing it really is.

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Learning Mandarin - The Ultimate Tool?

If you are interested in studying Mandarin you more or less need to be in China. The reason for this is threefold. The first reason is that it is much easier to learn a language when you can practice it everyday in the natural setting in which it is spoken. The second reason is that Mandarin language studies take time - if you are just trying to learn the language by reading a book your eyes are likely to fall out of their sockets before you complete it. Studying Mandarin in China, as opposed to trying to pick it up from a book, is an adventure. Really a grand undertaking that is part academics and part experience; a view into a very different and exotic culture. The third reason is linked to the second reason. Learning Mandarin is not something most people do randomly, it usually is linked to a very clear aim, or at least a general purpose. "I want to learn Mandarin in order to work with x, y or z". To use Mandarin in China, in essence to work in China while relating to Chinese culture by engaging China on its own terms, you need a broader skill base that is not confined to only the language. For this purpose you don't only more or less need to be in the country, you literally are unable to grasp it anywhere else.

A good school should therefore be formed a little bit like this: it should allow a student to really capitalize on the fact that they have come to China, it should show them China through their studies and encourage and support any foray into a deeper understanding of Chinese culture which will prove to be as useful as any list of vocabulary the school is ever able to conjure up. How to go about creating this? What does a school need to sort it out and what can you as a prospective student look out for?

The key to really being able to take advantage on the fact that you are in China is very closely linked to how the curriculum enables you to explore China independently. I strongly believe that 1 hour of actual speaking, in a setting that feels natural, is worth multiple hours of pure memorization during a study session. There is therefore very little sense in burning the midnight oil. For a person that has come to China What do I mean by a natural setting and why have I singled it out? Well. A natural setting is a social situation in which you hope to use the language in the future. If you are really interested in the elaborate and mystical Chinese tea ceremonies this might be a good place to start. You will probably really exited to take a course in Chinese regarding this topic - this excitement is too important to ignore and not take advantage of.

For this to happen you need access to content that will not interest other people. You can therefore not teach this type of material to a large class. The class size needs to be tiny or de facto private. I call this stuff personal content and it really is the key to unlocking the advantages, the necessary benefits, of being in China. It will enable a tea lover or a car fanatic to explore China, and thus learning much more than just the Mandarin language, and it will allow a person to learn the language faster than if they were sitting at home, buried in books. The comparative rates of these two methods are difficult to prove without pouring your ears full of statistics but suffice it to say that most people would call it common sense: to learn something by doing it is always going to be better than reading about it in a book. You don't give an aspiring mechanic a technical drawing of a complicated engine and expect them to learn about it that way, you give them a wrench. Personal content is the tool you need to learn Mandarin, and it is the best vehicle for learning more than just a language.

Rui Ming works for a Mandarin Language School in China that is a great option for those that want to study mandarin in China. See the program overview page for more information about learning Mandarin in Beijing.

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Is It Difficult to Learn Mandarin?

No. Mandarin is not as difficult a language to learn as most people believe. The reputation Mandarin has for being so difficult is largely attributed to its system of reading and writing, which differs greatly from the Roman alphabet which English uses.

The Defense Language Institute (DLI), a United States Department of Defense education and research institution, lists Mandarin as a Category IV language. DLI states that on average Category IV languages take up to four times as much time to master as Category I languages such as Spanish and French.

One reason why so much more time is required to learn Mandarin is that its language distance is much further from English than other Indo-European languages such as Spanish and French. Languages belonging to the same family share sounds, grammar and vocabulary. Mandarin and English, being languages which belong to different families, have almost nothing in common.

With that said, the DLI's estimate on amount of time necessary does assume that learners are striving for fluency in all four aspects of language learning (speaking, listening, reading and writing.) As such, learners initially interested in only learning to speak Mandarin will find they progress quite quickly, as oral Mandarin is not very difficult.

Almost every learner of Mandarin starts off learning pinyin. Pinyin is the Romanized version of the sounds which make up the Mandarin language. Beginning with pinyin allows you to begin speaking right away without having to spend any time learning Chinese characters. Almost all beginner-level textbooks include pinyin, as do most dictionaries. With a little practice and the right teacher, anyone can develop standard pronunciation through learning pinyin.

Another aspect of learning Mandarin which makes people believe it to be difficult is its use of tones. Mandarin is a tonal language, meaning that each word has a specific tone in which the word is pronounced. Changing the tone on a word can completely alter its meaning.

In the next article in this series, we will examine the best places you should go to learn Mandarin, and why learning Mandarin in China is the best choice. Where you will study Mandarin is almost as important as how you will study Mandarin. Choosing a location that is not conducive to cultivating good language learning habits means you will spend much more time (actually, much less time) studying than you would like. In this section we will discuss learning Mandarin in and outside of China.

If you plan on traveling to China to study a TESOL course, it's important that you are familiar with how best to learn Mandarin.

This article was written by Kyle E David, Dean of Studies of the Will-Excel TESOL Course.

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How to Learn Mandarin Chinese - Four Things the Beginner Needs to Know

So you've decided to learn Chinese, but not quite sure what you've gotten yourself into? No problem! We have identified four things that all beginner Mandarin learners need to know to start learning Chinese!

1 - Chinese Pinyins

You probably know that Chinese characters are the standard for written Chinese, but they're not very helpful when it comes to pronunciation for beginners. As a newbie, your best friend is pinyin. Pinyin is a system for writing out the sounds of the Chinese language using the Roman alphabet. It's not a "pronunciation key," it's a way of representing the sounds of the Chinese language in a phonetic way. This means reading pinyin correctly will still require you to learn some new sounds.

2 - Chinese Tones

Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, which means that every syllable has a tone, and the meaning of each syllable can change, depending on the tone. This means that if you want to express yourself in Chinese and get the correct meaning across, you have to pay attention to those tones! There are four main tones in Mandarin Chinese, plus one "neutral" tone. The tones are simply referred to as "first tone," "second tone," "third tone," and "fourth tone." We could describe them here, but the best thing to do is to listen to them, and keep listening until they become familiar.

3 - Chinese Characters

While the casual learner of Mandarin Chinese may opt not to spend too much time on learning Chinese characters, the serious student will want to dive right in. There are just a few main points you should know about characters to make the most out of your studies:

a - There are two sets of Chinese characters: simplified and traditional. Simplified characters are used in mainland China, whereas Hong Kong and Taiwan still use traditional characters. Most students of Chinese will want to study simplified characters (unless they are focused on Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Chinese history).

b - All Chinese characters are composed of strokes. The order of the strokes that is used when writing a character is called that character's "stroke order." Each Chinese character is not a unique "drawing," however. As you learn more and more characters, you will notice that certain parts of a character appear again in other characters. These recurring component parts have the same stroke order every time, and their use helps us to make sense of Chinese characters. These component parts, when used to classify characters, are called "radicals."

c - Every Chinese character has a one-syllable reading. This means that a one-character word is one syllable, a two-character word is two syllables, etc. Most Chinese characters have one reading, but the number of Chinese characters far outnumbers the total number of syllables in Mandarin Chinese. As a result, for most syllables in Chinese, there is more than one corresponding character.

d - When writing in Chinese characters, there are no spaces between words. This can make it difficult to tell where one word ends and the next begins. Practice is the key. Modern Chinese in mainland China runs left to right, top to bottom (just like English text), but you will occasionally see old texts or signs printed vertically.

4 - Standard Mandarin

You often hear about various "Chinese dialects," such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Hokkien, and you may imagine that they are as similar to each other as American English, Australian English, and British English. In actuality, they are as different as the Romance languages Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian. Mandarin is by far the most common of the Chinese "dialects" mentioned above,and is the official language in both mainland China and Taiwan. (Cantonese is the language of Hong Kong and Guangdong.) Mandarin is what is usually meant by "Chinese" in casual usage.

You will sometimes hear mentions of "standard Mandarin" in discussions about learning Chinese. China was once fractured by innumerable dialects, and a unifying dialect helped bring the nation together. Standard Mandarin, or putonghua in Chinese, was originally based on the Beijing dialect in northern China, but has long since spread throughout the country. Just as a traveler in the USA will hear the difference in the local accents of Texas, New York, California, and Boston, a visitor to China will notice differences in the Mandarin of the residents of Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, and Sichuan. These differences add to the richness and variety of the language.

So now you know the 4 most important aspects of learning Mandarin Chinese - so why not get started!

To start learning Chinese now, join 300,000 students from around the world on the award-winning ChinesePod.com - http://chinesepod.com

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How to Learn Mandarin Chinese

I have been learning Mandarin Chinese for over 5 years now and I believe I am in a position to give tips on how to learn Chinese.

Someone deciding to embark on their lifetime journey of Mandarin Chinese learning I believe should start with the very basic foundation of the Chinese language. These are the basic phonetics of the language. I believe the best way how to learn Mandarin Chinese is to first master all 60 or so of these sounds. I recommend perhaps spending a few weeks or even a couple of months getting all these sounds down pat as perfectly as you, even before you start learning how to say "hello" or anything else for that matter. This may be monotonous and boring at first, but you will thank yourself years later for doing so.

I personally have been fortunate enough to have attained a very high level of Mandarin Chinese pronunciation. I believe this is partly due to the fact that I spent a great deal of time polishing my pronunciation in the early stages. I can't stress this enough, because once you develop a bad habit in pronunciation it is VERY hard to get rid of, and that is not how you want to learn Chinese.

I recommend getting a recording, or CD, or something of a native speaker (with perfect "standard" pronunciation) and listening to those sounds in your sleep. I can't attest to whether or not this is a contributing factor to my accurate pronunciation, but it IS something I did early on. At this point I don't think it is necessary to learn the 4 tones, as learning new phonetics AND learning to add tones to those words is just too much for the brain to bear all at once. Focus on one thing at a time so as not to be overwhelmed.

When practicing the "bo po mo fo de te ne le ge ke" etc be sure to always say everything in the same tone. Most of these recordings the speaker is saying them using the first tone. This is a high level tone that doesn't go up or down. Almost like singing a high note. Every word should be practiced using the exact same tone. This will get you ready for the other 3 tones later as tones are very important in Mandarin Chinese. However, don't let the tones scare you or put you off. If you are not musically inclined or are completely tone deaf and you are confident you will never be able to master these tones take comfort in the fact that if you have good enough pronunciation the tones won't matter as you will be understood even with the wrong tones. It's like having an accent. When a foreigner speaks English you know right away they aren't native English by the way they talk and Mandarin Chinese is no exception. I am very pleased with the fact that when I speak with Mandarin Chinese people on the phone they don't no I am foreign. I have met other foreigners who have also attained this standard and these people also were good singers, so that may be a factor in their natural talent.

I would also recommend not even thinking about learning how to read or write Mandarin Chinese characters at this point. I think the best way how to learn Mandarin Chinese is to just focus on the speaking and listening. Reading and writing can come later and are the most difficult aspects of this language. For the beginning you can just learn the romanized version of the language known as "PinYin", which is the Mandarin Chinese word meaning "Spell Sound/Pronounce".

The speaking is surprisingly easy despite the "difficult" reputation Mandarin Chinese has. I was very surprised after I began to learn how to speak Mandarin Chinese as to how easy it is.

So in my opinion if you want to know how to learn Mandarin Chinese, start with the basic 60 or so phonetics, also known as the "initials/consonants" and "finals/vowels". Don't try to learn any actual words until you have those mastered, because once you have mastered those phonetics there is nothing else to learn for the rest of your life when it comes to pronunciation. Unlike English where even us native speakers need to learn proper pronunciation of new words as we don't have hard and fast rules ie "through" and "tough", both end in "ough" but the pronunciation is different and the only way to know is to remember. Mandarin Chinese is not like this, so that's great for us!

The Author started learning Mandarin Chinese over 5 years ago, and was amazed at how easy this language was despite what he had heard. He now lives in China in order to perfect his language ability in hopes of becoming a professional freelance translator/interpreter one day. In his spare time he enjoys tinkering with a few websites eg Feiyan Tea and Wulong Tea.

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Studying Mandarin Versus Learning Mandarin

How difficult is it to learn Mandarin? That was the question that I asked myself a few years ago. As it turns out, rather difficult. But it was also difficult for me to learn to speak English and I found it difficult to learn Spanish as well.

As you can see for yourself in the end I managed with English. I did however not with Spanish and today I only remember the most common phrases - what makes Mandarin and English different, for me, is that I had a much more defined purpose with both and I think this is the crucial ingredient that turns language learning from merely studying to actually speaking it.

I learned to speak English in America when I moved there as a young teenager, the beginning was rather awkward as I was not really able to partake in most social situations. People found it pretty hilarious and that was the motivation I needed to at least keep trying. That and a pretty girl called Alissa with whom I was eager (galore) to speak to. My English is even today incomplete in a strange way, I don't have the faintest clue of the underlying grammar for example, but I speak English at a close to native level. I went to an English university (York) and after 3 years of hard-core academics I think my English is probably better than my native tongue Swedish. This tells me one thing: learning a language is not about studying it. I made more progress in my first month in America than I did during my three years of studying German in Sweden (today I can recall exactly no useful German).

Learning a language is about speaking the language. For this reason one could erroneously conclude that language schools are a pretty stupid invention. One would be wrong because although it is using the language that eventually brings about fluency, one is much better off with structured tuition combined with a natural setting to practice that which one learns in the classroom environment.

One would be more correct in thinking that language textbooks, however, are a pretty silly attempt at finding an optimal method of learning Mandarin. That is because textbooks are never meant to be an optimal way of teaching a language in the first place - they are however an economical way of doing it. From an accounting point of view it is genius to identify that which most people need the most and make a book about it. One shoe fits all. One team sits down; churns out a book and then you are pretty much done with it. You can teach millions of people Mandarin by simply handing them a book and stuffing them all into a very large classroom. The trouble with the method is that even though it is really cheap, it is also, as we have already stated not optimal. In fact, it is so far from optimal that most people that try to learn Mandarin in this way fails.

Currently there are about 100 million people trying to learn Mandarin. Out of these 100 million people almost all of them are using the above method, and the vast majority of these students will never reach their goal. As I initially noted, learning Mandarin turned out to be hard. The tipping point for me came when I found a school that did not teach Mandarin in the conventional way. Instead the school created tailor-made study plans that allowed me to focus on the aspects of the Mandarin language that mattered most to me. This proved to be the building blocks that helped me take the learning process out of the realm of pure academics and learn it by speaking on the streets of Beijing, in my new job in China and during my spare time in various hobbies. For me this was the turning point but I am sure that there are many other ways of doing the same thing. I do however reckon that the methods might just work for everyone. Probably because it is the opposite of one-shoe-fits-all... instead of being a somewhat decent fit it is a perfect fit. There is however a drawback, of course - there is always a drawback, that this: the method is roughly twice as expensive.

Rui Ming works for a Mandarin Language School in China that is a great option for those that want to learn Mandarin, the lingua franca of the growing economic powerhouse. See the program overview page for more information about learning Mandarin in China.

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Would You Like to Learn Mandarin Chinese?

Mandarin Chinese is not an unique and distinct language but it is, in reality, an aggregation of related regional dialects which is spoken all over China. "Standard Mandarin" is a special dialect of Mandarin spoken in Beijing, the Chinese capital. Standard Mandarin is the official language all over China. From the 17th century the Beijing dialect of Mandarin has been used as the national language and it is applied in all state communications, media and education all over China. As well as the national language of China, Mandarin is also one of four official languages in Singapore. Used as Taiwan's official language and is the sixth official language of the United Nations. Thus we can gather that Mandarin is the principal spoken language in the world with more than a billion native speakers.

A person who has his mother tongue as English will surely find it difficult to learn Mandarin. Since this dialect contains more than 2,500 usual characters (from a total of some 47,000) and a four-tone phonologic structure it is regarded as one of the most difficult foreign languages to learn. While agreed that it is hard to read, write and speak Mandarin. with sincerity and devotion the language can be learnt by any ambitious student. More or less 20% of foreigners become eloquent in Mandarin after dwelling in China for less than a year while the remaining 80% take a few years to attain the same level.

The different languages spoken in China are based on tones; a single syllable has different meanings depending on the modulation used by the speaker. Tones in Mandarin are similar to the vowels and consonants in their English counterparts, and they form a part of the language. Getting the hang of tonal pronunciation is crucial for students as a vast bulk of the characters are distinguished only by tone. There is a fifth tone in Mandarin known as the mute or neutral tone. Information with regard to pronunciation and use, as well as specific tonal instances can be heard and then practiced.

Characters of Mandarin Chinese:

Mandarin uses Chinese characters for its writing purposes. Chinese is said to be one of the oldest written languages in the world and has been used throughout its prolonged history up to the present day. Written Chinese is not based on an alphabet system as is English and many other languages but they are glyptography representations of objects or ideas. Chinese characters have their origin in direct pictorial characterizations of objects and have developed over their 1000 year history. The more basic characters used in the present day are of recent origin. In the 20th century the government of China passed an ordinance to cut down the number of strokes within each character. It was ruled that each character use less strokes causing it to be easier to write. This was called Simplified Chinese and the original characters are known as Traditional Chinese. Students of Mandarin will learn both forms in concert with a third form of written Chinese called pinyin; pinyin is a form of presenting Mandarin words written with the Roman letters.

The Confucius Institute is a government sponsored international school and its purpose is to encourage Chinese language and culture around the world. It is similar to the United Kingdom's British Council or France's Aliiance Francaise. The Conficius Institute differs from the above mentioned French or British institutes, because it normally functions within universities or schools. Locations of Confucius Institutes all over the world can be found at their website. There is a standardized test for Mandarin fluency for non-native speakers and this test is recognized all over China and in many corporations and organizations all over the world.

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