The Chinese language is both fascinating and mind-boggling complex to the uninitiated. More than just a single language, it is more like an entire family of languages, with the individual 'dialects' actually being as different from each other as Italian is from Spanish or English is from German.

While the majority of people will only ever experience the government-standard Mandarin Chinese spoken language and the Simplified Chinese written language, it is important to know that these are not the only versions of 'Chinese'.

Also included here are some resources which other beginners to the language have found helpful in getting a handle on either the spoken or written part of the language.

Even if you do end up having a translator for most of your stay, you'll definitely want to at least learn a little bit before you leave. Learning more of the language will help you to gain a further understanding of the culture which cannot easily be understood just by reading about it in some other language.

And remember-- almost everyone who has learned Chinese also started off being "bad at learning languages", but with a little dedication and practice, it's more than possible for anyone to pick it up.