Basics of the Language

It is important to know some basics of the Chinese language before your travel to China because aside from touristy areas and some parts of big cities, very few people will speak any foreign languages. Besides being a convenient way of getting around the country, a foreigner speaking even a simplest word of Chinese impresses the local people. Learning the language will definitely allow you to understand the Chinese culture more deeply.

The official language of China is putonghua ("The People's Language"), which is also commonly referred to as Mandarin or Hanyu, and is based on the dialect that is spoken in Beijing. With some basic Mandarin, you can be assured that you will be understood anywhere in the country except for certain minority tribal areas or autonomous regions (mostly the western-most regions such as Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang). Although it is the common language nationwide, locals within the same area usually communicate with each other using their own dialects.

There is not much difference in the way modern Mandarin is spoken compared to the past, but the written language has been simplified and a romanization system called pinyin (literally: "spell sound"), which is a way of writing the spoken language using a standard roman alphabet. All variations of the Chinese language, whether a major sub-type or a minor dialect, can generally be expressed with one common form of writing, with the exceptions of Cantonese and some dialect groups. Though Mandarin is very different from the Romance languages of the west, both in terms of writing and speaking, many foreigners are able to learn the language by way of pinyin representations.

The spoken Chinese language is quite strange to the Western tongue. From tonal to syllabic expressions, pronouncing Chinese words requires an entirely new conditioning in speech sensibilities. Though all the words are within the interpretation of alphabets, the language as a whole relies on a different form of structuring in terms of phrasing and sentencing—much of the grammar in the language is based on word order. The tonal expression of Chinese is also difficult to adopt if you are a total stranger to the language. For standard Mandarin, every word can have one of five different tones, and given the same pinyin representation, it can mean five very different and diverse things. It can be rather complicated to begin with, but once you have adopted to this, the rest will come naturally.

It is often the case for foreigners that the written aspect of the Chinese language proves more difficult than the spoken. Instead of being defined by alphabets alone, Chinese is written based on symbolic and phonetic representations. Many of the earliest forms of characters were derived from pictorial adaptation of the object or action depicted. Through the years, the written language has gone through many phases of reformation to assume its present form. The present standard Chinese, which is also known as Simplified Chinese, is a very simplified version of Traditional Chinese and even though the characters are based on those of the past, they are quite different in appearance (though places outside of the government’s control during the Cultural Revolution such as Taiwan and Hong Kong still utilize the older Traditional Chinese characters).

China has only had two official languages throughout its entire history, and they are Manyu and Putonghua. Manyu was the common language during the rule of the Manchus between 1644 and 1912. It was not until 1958 that Putonghua made its mark as the national language after the Communists took over the country. There are seven major groups of the Chinese language and they are ranked in importance according to their popularity. After Mandarin, the other six include Wu (Shanghainese), Cantonese, Min (Hokkien), Xiang, Hakka and Gan. Mandarin is the prevailing language from the southwest to northeast regions of China while the other major groups are spoken in different provinces in the southeast.

There are thousands of dialects spoken all across China. Mountainous regions of the south have more diverse dialects compared to their northern counterparts, with many tribal minorities each having a dialect of their own. The difference in dialects is so varied that it is possible for people from one town to be totally clueless about the dialect spoken by neighbors who are just fifty miles away. In the written form, many dialect groups invent their own characters which are only comprehensible within their areas. Western regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang also have their own languages and cultures, and the inhabitants of these places do not consider themselves a part of mainland China—in fact it is common that the locals will refuse to speak the government-sanctioned language.

If all the major groups and dialects are considered one language, Chinese would be the most popular language used in the world today. More and more foreigners are learning the language in order to communicate with the locals for business or other purposes. For those who are traveling to China, knowing some basic Chinese will definitely make your trip more meaningful and complete and allow you to learn more of the culture which is essential for you to get the "real China experience".