The official name of the language spoken in China is Mandarin, which is mostly spoken in mainland China and Taiwan. Even though Mandarin is the official language, in China there are many other languages and dialects spoken, such as Wu (77 million speakers), Min (70 million speakers) and Cantonese (55 million speakers). We recommend you to start with Mandarin, since most people in China and other regions can speak this language and also because it is considered to be easier since it Mandarin has 4 tones while Cantonese uses a range of 6 to 9 tones.

Learning Mandarin is one challenging endeavor and having the desire to learn the language is an admirable one. Mandarin is quite a complex language because of its great variety of sounds, not used in other languages such as English. Also, it is written with characters which are unlike western alphabets. Despite these differences, many people in the world right now are learning the language for various reasons.

The following are some of the many reasons why you should learn Mandarin:

• Almost one quarter of the planet’s population speaks Mandarin. More than a billion people not only in China but also in countries in Southeast Asia and in Chinese communities all over the world. Being able to communicate with more people may open more doors to more opportunities for you.

• Learning Mandarin will be a challenging yet amazing experience since it is a unique language. Mandarin has an extraordinary writing system which offers visual comprehensibility, and is similar with Cantonese since they share written characters with a few exceptions. The grammatical structure of the Mandarin language is pragmatic as well as logical and it is related to the particular way of Chinese thinking. Having the ability to understand the written Mandarin language will lead you to know more about the culture of one of the oldest civilizations in the world.

• The traditional Chinese culture, the Chinese cuisine and literature, the Chan Buddhism and Confucianism, martial arts and festivals, have a great influence on many countries not only in the East but also in the West. If you know the Mandarin language, you will be able to have a deeper understanding of the culture and of the various works produced in the Mandarin language.

• China is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and it is considered to be the potentially biggest global market in the twenty-first century. If you learn Mandarin and become fluent, you will have the opportunity to be one of the many who will be able to find jobs in various fields in government, tourism, business, international relations, education, translation, and so much more. A lot of students in American colleges and universities have enrolled in Mandarin courses since they see the importance of the language in the future.

The Mandarin language is increasing in importance in our world today. If you would like to be among the billion people that are speaking Mandarin, and you’re interested in traveling to China to study the language, please visit our web and look at the courses the school in Shanghai offers.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 10:52 am and is filed under Language Schools, Learn Languages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.