Millions of people around the globe are learning Mandarin Chinese. China presents a huge opportunity for business growth and expansion, and it is also a fascinating country with a rich cultural history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you are one of the several people considering learning Mandarin these interesting facts about the Mandarin language may surprise you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Very Popular Language<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is no secret that Mandarin is quite a big deal, not just in Asia, but around the world. Accounting for around 70% of Chinese speakers, Mandarin is more widely spoken than any other form of Chinese \u2013 with some 1.1 billion native speakers globally. That is almost 13.92% of the world\u2019s total population. In fact, there are more native Mandarin speakers in the world compared to speakers of any other language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It Developed More than 1000 Years Ago<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While written Chinese started to take shape nearly 4000 years ago, Mandarin began to develop in the 10th and 11th centuries in northern China. The \u201cOld Mandarin\u201d came from local dialects in the North China Plain. The new dialect spurred a new genre of common literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has Several Chinese Dialects<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandarin is amongst one of several Chinese dialect groups, which can be a bit confusing. In places such as Taiwan and the People\u2019s Republic of China, it\u2019s the official language. Mandarin dialects are spoken throughout the majority of northern and southwestern China. Despite their similarities, some Mandarin dialects are really not \u201cmutually intelligible\u201d. Other varieties of Chinese include Wu, Xiang, Yue, Min, Hakka and Gan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It Always Do Not Goes Side to Side<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Written Chinese has a great history, dating back to the Shang Dynasty around 1200\u20131050 BC. Up until 1955, the language was written using vertical columns, going from right to left. Since then, the People\u2019s Republic of China has Westernized the written form so that it is written left to right, horizontally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Uses 50, 000 Separate Characters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Compared to the 26-letter English alphabet, Chinese seems downright impossible to learn. Instead of an alphabet, Chinese applies characters that symbolize a syllable of spoken Chinese. Each character could include parts that represent abstract notions, physical objects, or a pronunciation. Even though there are multiple thousand characters in the complete language, everyday Mandarin normally uses a set of around 2,500 characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It Uses Four Different Tones<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Another challenge to learning Chinese is that tone impacts the meaning of different words. That\u2019s because Chinese is a tonal language. Mandarin has four separate tones including, flat, rising, falling then rising and falling. There are other Chinese dialects use as many as nine distinct tones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Millions of people around the globe are learning Mandarin Chinese. China presents a huge opportunity for business growth and expansion, and it is also a fascinating country with a rich cultural history. If you are one of the several people considering learning Mandarin these interesting facts about the Mandarin language may surprise you. Very Popular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,82],"tags":[98,96,97,95],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learn-chinese-language","category-learn-foreign-language-with-hello-hello","tag-best-chinese-iphone-app","tag-chinese-language-learning","tag-hello-hello-chinese-language-app","tag-learn-chinese-language"],"yoast_head":"\n