reasons to learn mandarin Chinese

We now live in a completely different world. It has gotten to the point that it is essential to speak Chinese Mandarin if you do anything internationally. More and more people from around the world especially in the United States are doing business in China. Most Chinese when doing business at home or overseas speak Chinese.This is why it has become essential to study and learn to how to speak Chinese.

It is therefore not surprising that many world leaders today can speak Chinese which makes this language very useful in government. A world leader who learned Chinese and attended Beijing University is Timothy Geitner. Another fluent Chinese speaker is Jon Huntsman who was a former Utah Governor and is now the Ambassador to China. When he was a missionary in Taiwan he learned Chinese characters and to speak Chinese and adapted a child from China. Another prominent leader is Kevin Rudd who is the Austrian Prime Minister known for being able to speak fluent Chinese Mandarin. If these world leaders do not inspire you to learn to speak Chinese Mandarin, then maybe knowing more about the Chinese culture will.

By trying to learn to how to speak Chinese Mandarin language, you begin a quest in learning about the Chinese culture which is more than 5000 years old. Additionally, by educating yourself when it comes to learning another language and culture shows that you are willing to have a better understanding as to how civilization came to be. Also, you will get to know more about Chinese art which includes Chinese poetry that normally gets lost in translation when interpreted in another language. Chinese poetry is known to be one of the most beautiful in the world and by understanding the language, you get the essence of what it truly means.

When you learn another language studies have shown that you create another viewpoint, which is another reason to learn Chinese characters. Research also shows that people, particularly children, who can speak more languages, are noticeably much smarter. This is because words trigger associations in the child’s brain. When numerous mental associations play in the head of the child, it brings about new ideas and opens their minds to new things which only get better with age. It is no wonder programmers claim that learning a new computer language keeps their minds fresh, bold and alert.

idea of learning Chinese

Hello, I just moved here from California. I am an English teacher, fresh out of college and to be honest I am really here because I want to learn Chinese characters. I am wondering, do any of you know of any good resources for foreigners how to learn Chinese fast? I’m doing the usual Language Exchange and make friends with the Taiwanese thing, but I still have a lot of trouble understanding. I’ve only been here two months, and have studied Chinese for 4 months total, with NO formal classroom training.

Also, I am interested in getting a Masters degree over here and am wondering if any folks know of any good programs or scholarships? I have a 3.5 GPA with an Economics degree and previous experience in the Financial Services industry. Why teach English? The US economy SUCKS, I always wanted to live in another country and learn a new language, and getting a job teaching English is pretty easy, and given that the cost of living is rather low in Taiwan compared to California it just all sort of made sense. Like I said, it is basically a doorway into this interesting culture that is Taiwan and greater China.

But in reality I cannot see myself in this crazy buxiban industry for more than 2 years but don’t necessarily want to return to America in 2 years. Thus I am searching for masters degrees. . I feel the buxiban prevents me from learning Chinese because the Taiwanese staff kind of freak out when how to speak Chinese. I know they are paying me to teach English, of course. Also I am very shocked at how many Taiwanese speak good english! In a way I am dissapointed because they all seem so obsessed with English and excited to speak English to foreigners that I don’t get much of a chance to speak Chinese other than when I buy stuff from shopkeepers (On a side note, I’ve been to Japan before and although it is a rich and educated society they don’t speak English NEARLY as well as Taiwan does!)

Yes, it is difficult to learn Chinese characters if you are in a buxiban. Speaking Mandarin in class will result in some parents complaining and then your boss. Especially since you are killing most of your free time speaking English with your girlfriend. I picked up Mandarin by hanging at local bars and talking to girls in Mandarin. At the beginning that can be difficult but every time your try you get closer to your goal.

How to speak Chinese?You should start to take some Chinese reading/writing classes and a formal course 2 hours a day 5 days a week, you will be glad you started as early as possible later on. If you want a solid career it’s better to start with something formal in the US though…my two cents.

reasons to learn to speak Chinese

In today’s highly competitive world, there are many reasons as to why it is beneficial for you to learn to speak Chinese Mandarin and learn Chinese characters. To date, more and more people from all over the world, particularly in the United States, are currently doing business in China and are studying Mandarin which is the language that most Chinese use – both in China and overseas.

It is therefore not surprising that many world leaders today can learn how to speak Chinese which makes this language very useful in government. A world leader who learned Chinese and attended Beijing University is Timothy Geitner. Another fluent Chinese speaker is Jon Huntsman who was a former Utah Governor and is now the Ambassador to China. When he was a missionary in Taiwan he learned to speak Chinese and adapted a child from China. Another prominent leader is Kevin Rudd who is the Austrian Prime Minister known for being able to speak fluent Chinese Mandarin. If these world leaders who speak Chinese Mandarin do not inspire you to learn the language, maybe knowing about Chinese culture will.

An added benefit of learning Chinese characters and Mandarin language, is the Chinese culture you get to learn about which is over 5000 years old. In addition when you learn another language and culture it becomes obvious that you are interested in having a better understanding of the history of the civilization. Also, you will get to know more about Chinese art which includes Chinese poetry that normally gets lost in translation when interpreted in another language. Chinese poetry is known to be one of the most beautiful in the world and by understanding the language, you get the essence of what it truly means.

Another good reason to try and learn how to speak Chinese Mandarin is the fact that many studies prove that learning another language allows you to garner a different viewpoint on things. Research also shows that people, particularly children, who can speak more languages, are noticeably much smarter. This is because words trigger associations in the child’s brain. When numerous mental associations play in the head of the child, it brings about new ideas and opens their minds to new things which only get better with age. It is no wonder programmers claim that learning a new computer language keeps their minds fresh, bold and alert.

Students who are currently learning to speak Chinese Mandarin are given a huge competitive edge especially since the Chinese language is now the fastest growing foreign language that is being taught in schools, particularly in the United States. This really shouldn’t be surprising because China and the US do a tremendous amount of trading and they are the two largest economies in the world.

learn to speak Chinese

“Chinese writing is very different from most other languages in the world. In the Chinese writing system, Chinese symbols represent each character which corresponds to a single spoken syllable. A majority of words in all modern varieties of Chinese require two or more characters to write. Many Chinese characters were adopted according to their meaning by the Japanese and Korean languages to represent native words, disregarding pronunciation altogether. To learn Chinese characters are also considered to be the world’s longest continuously used writing system.”

I have spent many years learning languages and the one thing that I have always found to be really frustrating is when a course is not up-to-date.

Chinese is my third language that I decided to pick up and the program that I am using at learnchinesetoday.info rocks!

You don’t have to worry about missing out on real life lessons here at all. Right out the box you will be able to understand a “real conversation with any Chinese speaker.

To learn Chinese characters is actually a lot of fun and entertaining. You will have more than one funny moment working through the pronunciations. Take the time to learn the basics and you will go really far and be able to impress your peers and loved ones in no time.

Let’s face it there are a lot of “options” to learn how to speak Chinese and even some shortcuts. Phew! Guess what the biggest obstacle to learning how to speak Chinese is?. . . . . . . “you!” That’s what I found out really quick trying to learn shortcuts to Chinese. Fortunately, for me and now you, I got a really great course at “Best Chinese Courses”

I have spent many years learning languages and the one thing that I have always found to be really frustrating is when a course is not up-to-date.

Chinese is my third language that I decided to pick up and the program that I am using at learnchinesetoday.info rocks!

You don’t have to worry about missing out on real life lessons here at all. Right out the box you will be able to understand a “real conversation with any Chinese speaker.

how to speak Chinese

First of all, Chinese does not have an alphabet. Alphabets describe how to say a word. Learning Chinese characters is mainly composed of ideographs. They express a meaning. In turn these symbols are given a pronunciation, but the pronunciation varies from dialect to dialect while the meaning is constant.

Originally, many Chinese characters were standardized drawings of ideas. Over time, the drawings were simplified until they only vaguely resemble the original drawings.

There are some oral components to learn Chinese characters. Sometimes an additional component is added to change the meaning of a character while the base sound is changed little or not at all.

Ni Hui Shuo PuTong Hua Ma? (knee hway shwo poo toeng hwa ma?)

Do you know how to speak Chinese?

While Mandarin Chinese might certainly seem like a hodge-podge of various inflections and a thousand different character strokes, and learning it might seem like the most daunting task since climbing Mount Everest, it is as easy as Yi, Er, San! (Ee, Are, sawn).

Clearly, the best way to learn how to speak Chinese, or any language, is to live in a country where the language is spoken.

That being said, if you cannot live in the country, and you do not have the money to hire a tutor or take a class, then the following steps are for Yu (sounds like ‘you’).

In Chinese, Yu means fish. The same sound, but with a different character also means prosperity.

learn Chinese characters and speak Chinese

First of all, Chinese does not have an alphabet. Alphabets describe how to say a word. Learning Chinese characters is mainly composed of ideographs. They express a meaning. In turn these symbols are given a pronunciation, but the pronunciation varies from dialect to dialect while the meaning is constant.

Originally, many Chinese characters were standardized drawings of ideas. Over time, the drawings were simplified until they only vaguely resemble the original drawings.

There are some oral components to learn Chinese characters. Sometimes an additional component is added to change the meaning of a character while the base sound is changed little or not at all.

Ni Hui Shuo PuTong Hua Ma? (knee hway shwo poo toeng hwa ma?)

Do you know how to speak Chinese?

While Mandarin Chinese might certainly seem like a hodge-podge of various inflections and a thousand different character strokes, and learning it might seem like the most daunting task since climbing Mount Everest, it is as easy as Yi, Er, San! (Ee, Are, sawn).

Clearly, the best way to learn how to speak Chinese, or any language, is to live in a country where the language is spoken.

That being said, if you cannot live in the country, and you do not have the money to hire a tutor or take a class, then the following steps are for Yu (sounds like ‘you’).

In Chinese, Yu means fish. The same sound, but with a different character also means prosperity.

learn Chinese characters

If you do want to learn Chinese characters, choose the appropriate system
Simplified Chinese characters are used in China and Singapore. Traditional characters are used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and will also be seen on most Chinese menus and newspapers found overseas (US, UK, Australia, Canada, etc).

Character simplification was part of Mao Tse-Dung’s pre-Cultural Revolution in 1960’s China, which explains why Hong Kong and Taiwan continue using traditional characters. Because the simplified system is based on the traditional one, many characters are actually exactly the same in both systems.

Chinese Characters Visual Dictionary is a super cool learning tools for Chinese learners; There are many utilities for this award winning tool:

– You can find a Chinese character very easily if you only know the Chinese Pinyin;

– You can quickly gauge your Chinese character knowledge (because all the Chinese characters are ranged by frequency of use, the character with the smallest number is the most frequently used;)


– You can review all characters;

In order to find a Chinese Character, You can enter a Pinyin without tones(e.g. wo, ni, ren), a Pinyin with tones (lai2, zhong1, mei3…); You can also type or copy and paste a Chinese character in “Find Charater” box).

If you are learning Chinese Pinyin, make sure you checkout this great online interactive Pinyin table.
Welcome to the home of Chinese character. Here you can find information you about Chinese character.
Chinese character is mysterious. Chinese symbols come from painting or drawing. Ancient Chinese people paint or draw some figures. As it evolves, it become Chinese character.

Chinese character is now very popular. You can see a lot of people have Chinese character on their body. Art works contains Chinese character such as Chinese painting and Chinese calligraphy are great gift ideas and great decoration of rooms. Many people have Chinese character on their t-shirts.

Most Japanese calligraphy or Korean calligraphy actually are Chinese calligraphy.

Chinese calligraphy are different from other calligraphy works. Chinese calligraphy is painted by special calligraphy paper (Xuan paper), special brush and special ink. Chinese calligraphy is not just writing Chinese characters. It is not just writing Chinese well. It is not just writing Chinese characters beautifully.


At the very beginning, people have an intuition about writing Chinese characters well. But later, as they found that learn Chinese characters have something more than just a good looking, Chinese calligraphy was born. The invention of Chinese brushes greatly pushed the development of Chinese calligraphy as an art.


Chinese calligraphy are popular in China for thousands of years. People decorate rooms with Chinese calligraphy just like painting.

Many people buy Chinese calligraphy works from us and then asked which side should be the top later.

3 key principles to learn Chinese characters

The minimum number of chinese characters that you need to know to be able to start reading a newspaper is 1,500. How is it possible to memorize so many different characters ? Needless to say that, if you don t have an efficient method and don t use the right tool, you will waste a lot of time and energy for poor results.

To efficiently and quickly memorize chinese characters, three things are important :
1. learn only the useful characters (that is the 1,500 most used characters),
2. know the category the character you are learning belongs to,
3. Learn characters in a pedagogical order.

Key principle 1: Learn only the useful Chinese characters There are roughly 50 000 existing chinese characters in use today. A native chinese speaker only knows 5 000 to 10 000 characters. But you will only need to know 1,500 to start to read a newspaper. So it is important that, at least in the beginning, you learn only these 1,500 most useful characters, and NOT any of the 48 000 other characters. With this ways, you will only spend time learn Chinese useful characters

Key principle 2: Understand where the characters come from and how they have been formed All right, we know the 1,500 characters we have to learn first. But, these 1,500 characters, we still have to learn them, no ? learning 1,500 characters is a real challenge, how are we going to make it ?

Well, the trick is to be organised and logical. If you don t have a logical way of storing things in your garage, it will be extremely difficult to find any object when you need it. But if you store things by category, for examples, you put all the tools in one box, all the light bulb in one drawer, etc, it will be easier to localize things, since you will just have to remember where each categories of things are.

In the same way, if you try to learn each character as a whole through pure memorization, it will be extremely difficult and time-consuming to remember them. But if you know the important thing about a character (by knowing which category it belongs to, its history, how it has been formed) you will then be able to memorize it much more efficiently. Any chinese character can be classified in one of the following six categories :

?pictograms,
?symbols,
?picto-phonogram,
?ideogram,
?phonetic-loans
?reclarified

Depending on the category a character belongs to, you should apply a different strategy for learning it. Below we will explain the 5 main categories of characters and the corresponding learning strategy.

Key principle 3: Learn Chinese characters in a pedagogical order
We have seen that most chinese characters are picto-phonograms, and that these characters are themselves composed of symbols or pictograms. Thus, it makes sense to first learn symbols and pictograms before learning more complexe characters like picto-phonograms, phonetic-loans or reclarified. Since in MyChineseFlashCards, new characters are introduced only in combination with characters already learned, the benefits for the learner are twofold :

?learning the new combination is made easier,
?it provides a review of the characters already learned.

Chinese character numbers

The Numbers One to Ten
一 yī (one)
二 èr (two)
三 sān (three)
四 sì (four)
五 wǔ (five)
六 liù (six)
七 qī (seven)
八 bā (eight)
九 jiǔ (nine)
十 shí (ten)

While China has for many uses adopted the Arabic numeral system familiar around the world, it also still uses its native Chinese character number system. The Chinese system is also a base-10 system, but has important differences in the way the numbers are represented. Chinese has characters for numbers 0 through 9, as seen above. In addition to the character shown above for zero, a simple circle is also used. Pronunciation for the characters uses the standard Romanization scheme in China called “pinyin”. The number at the end of the Chinese pinyin indicates the tone.

Eleven in Chinese is “ten one”. Twelve is “ten two”, and so on. Twenty is “Two ten”, twenty-one is “two ten one” (2*10 + 1), and so on up to 99. One-hundred is “one hundred”. One-hundred and one is “one hundred zero one”. One hundred and eleven is “one hundred one ten one”. Notice that for eleven alone, you only need “ten one” and not “one ten one”, but when used in a larger number (such as 111), you must add the extra “one”. One thousand and above is done in a similar fashion, where you say how many thousands you have, then how many hundreds, tens, and ones. An exception to this is for zeroes. When a zero occurs in the number (except at the end), you need to say “zero”, but only once for two or more consecutive zeroes. So one-thousand and one would be “one thousand zero one”, where zero stands in for the hundreds and tens places. Try different numbers in the converter above to practice and check on other numbers.

What is different from American English is that when you get to ten-thousand, Chinese has its own word (wan4), unlike English where you must use a compound of ten and thousand. Only after ten thousand does Chinese start using compounds itself. One-hundred thousand is “one ten wan4” (where wan4 is the Chinese word for ten-thousand that English lacks). Chinese goes on like this until 100 million (yi4), where it introduces a new character. This happens every four decimal places, unlike American English where it happens every three decimal places (thousand, million, billion, trillion, etc. are all separated by three decimal places).

Regular Chinese characters for numbers use relatively few strokes. The characters for one, two, and three are just one, two and three parallel horizontal strokes, respectively. To prevent fraud when writing checks and other cases where fraud is possible, Chinese also uses a series of more complex characters for the numbers. It is easy to change a “one” into a “two” in regular characters, but with the formal complex characters, this is impossible. See above for a listing of the equivalent formal characters.

As in English, one can also abbreviate a number by just listing the digits with the tens, hundreds, thousands, etc. omitted (as the web counter below does).
Since the original learn Chinese characters were pictographs, they lack sound-to-script correspondence. In earlier times, different phonetic pronunciation systems were used to mark the Chinese characters. One of system is called Zhuyin , which provides the pronunciation of a Chinese character by citing another character with the same pronunciation. Fanqie is another method which indicates the pronunciation of a new Chinese character by using two other known Chinese characters, the first having the same initial consonant as the given character and the second having the same vowel and tone of the given Chinese character. Zhuyin fuhao (national phonetic alphabet) is a set of symbols (simplified classical Chinese characters) used to transcribe the pronunciation of characters.

It was used in the mainland before the 1950s and is still being used in China’s Taiwan. Chinese pinyin (Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, or Pinyin for short) is the phonetic system adopted by the People’s Republic of China since 1950s. In order to learn standard Chinese, one must learn its phonetic system first.

Learn Chinese Characters As Part Of Mastering Mandarin

As part of your mastery of Mandarin you will need to learn Chinese characters. While Pinyin is accepted throughout China as a form of writing, many areas still will use the traditional pictograms.

Even more importantly, by learning to write you will find you can communicate with people speaking other dialects, even if you cannot understand the spoken word.

In order to learn Chinese characters effectively, it is important to understand a bit of the history behind them. The earliest examples of recognizable written words date back to as early as 1500 BC and can be found on oracle bones. The bones were used for divination and were often inscribed with questions and answers regarding hunting, warfare and other information. Some earlier pottery, dating back to 4800 BC, has been found which might contain a form of writing. Unfortunately, due to the scarcity of samples it is unlikely the writing will be deciphered.

When you learn Chinese characters today you are studying Hanzi. Hanzi can be broken down into the Classical Chinese and the simplified version commonly used today. Classical Chinese became standardized around 220 AD and was the main form of writing until the early 20th century. You can still learn Chinese characters in this style today. The words are generally written with a single character and have only one syllable. In the 1920s the written word was simplified based on spoken Mandarin and this form is most widely used today. About 2,000 words were simplified, the goal being to increase literacy throughout the country.

The difficulty when trying to learn Chinese characters in the modern form comes from the fact each word can have one or more syllables written with a separate character. Each character is always given the same amount of room when writing. Therefore, while reading you have to decide which symbols go together and what they mean.

The other difficulty people have when they learn Chinese characters is the fact there are so many of them. The largest dictionaries include over 56,000. Thankfully, you will only need to read about 3,000 in order to understand modern publications. For Classical Chinese, technical writings and literature you will need to recognize at least 6,000.

In order to write Chinese words, you will need to learn Chinese characters by their different strokes. There are a total of 12 basic strokes used in modern writing. These consist of dot, horizontal, vertical, left-falling, right-falling, rising, four styles of hooks and two styles of turning. Any given syllable will be written using anywhere from 1 and 64 strokes. As you learn Chinese characters you will find you must make these strokes in a particular order to be able to write properly.

Another important thing to keep in mind as you learn Chinese characters will be Mandarin includes roughly 1,700 possible syllables in comparison to 8,000 possible syllables found in English. For this reason, many Chinese words will sound the same when spoken aloud, but the way you write them will change the meaning entirely. This situation makes it extremely important you commit to memory the individual strokes as you learn Chinese characters.