Need Chinese Translation?
Find language Translators

Learn Chinese

Since China’s economic and political rise in recent years, standard Chinese has become an increasingly popular subject of study amongst the young in the Western world, as in the UK. [1]

In 1991 there were 2,000 foreign learners taking China's official Chinese Proficiency Test (comparable to English's Cambridge Certificate), while in 2005, the number of candidates has risen sharply to 117,660.

Despite Chinese’s reputation as a difficult non-native language, the development of Hanyu Pinyin and simplified Chinese characters has made it vastly easier for non-Chinese to begin to learn the language.

The first step in many Chinese classes is to teach students how to use pinyin (how to read and pronounce it).
Listening to a native speaker pronouncing Chinese will help. It will not take too much effort, since pronunciation is always regular. One character, one sound (almost always true).
Characters are generally the most difficult aspect facing new learners, taking most of their time
In compensation, Chinese grammar is considerably easier than that of many other languages.

Source: Wikipedia

Let's be honest, learning to speak Mandarin Chinese is not easy. Mandarin is a tonal language, which means if you say a word with the wrong tone or inflection, you can be misunderstood.

To hear the different tones in Mandarin, visit this page.
Mandarin's writing system consists of written symbols. There are two systems for writing Mandarin: traditional and simplified. Simplified characters are used mainly in China and Singapore, while Taiwan uses traditional writing.

Beginners, however, usually start with lessons in Pinyin, which is Chinese written phonetically in the Latin alphabet.

But do not be discouraged, you can learn how to speak Mandarin! Practice a few phrases and words each day, and the language will begin to make sense. It will take time and commitment, but if you follow the steps below you too can speak Mandarin!

Mandarin Pronunciation
You will need to learn the tones of Mandarin to truly speak the language. Do not get discouraged if you can't hear tones at first - tonal changes get easier to distinguish the more you study.

Tones
Mandarin has four distinct tones. In Pinyin, tones are noted with numbers or tone marks, so pay attention to the marks as you read new words.
Play the sound clips on this page to hear different tonal pronunciations.
Repeat the tones as you hear them.
Pronunciation
This pronunciation guide is another great reference as you study Mandarin.
Listen to the different sounds by clicking on each sound clip.
Repeat the sounds as you hear them.

Source

 

Translation Agency | Spanish Translation | French Translation | German Translation | Japanese Translation | Translater |

chinese translation chinese chinese food chinese symbols chinese new year learn chinese china hong kong chinese zodiac great wall of china ancient china chinese calendar chinese new year 2007 china airlines map of china china town chinese culture made in china chinese democracy chinese dragon chinese art