Learn Chinese Mandarin Speaking PinYin Pin Yin Characters Pronounciation Simplified Traditional Chinese

What's Mandarin?

Due to the large geographic barriers and a long history of independent development, there are thousands dialects in the spoken Chinese even though the same written language is used. People who speak different dialects often cannot understand each other. For instance, without prior training, people from Guangzhou (formally, Canton; also Hong Kong), Shanghai, and Fujian would surely not be able to communicate orally using their native dialects. Sometimes, people who are divided simply by a mountain and a few hours of driving distance cannot understand each other easily.

This vast difference in dialects has hindered the communication, trade, and development of the Chinese society and communities for centuries. Since the early 20th century, there has been a slow standardization process to convert the dialects to one uniform spoken Chinese. That standard language was called Mandarin - the official language of Qing Dynasty. The official title for the standard oral language was changed to Guo Yu (national language) during the Republic of China era, and Pu Tong Hua after 1949 when the country became the People's Republic of China.

After the education and training of several generations, Mandarin is now understood and spoken by more than 80% of the Chinese population. For a foreigner who plans to travel to China, Mandarin should be the oral language he or she learns. Mandarin is also spoken in Taiwan, Singapore, and most overseas Chinese communities.

What's Simplified Chinese Characters?

Perhaps more than any other language, the Chinese written language is very dynamic. It has undergone tremendous changes over the five thousand years of its development and evolution. For instance we, as a younger generation, would have a hard time to read and understand the written language merely one hundred years ago without some special training. The way the characters are written has been changed many times. One clear trend in this process is to make the characters easier and simpler to write, recognize and use.

This process was dramatically speeded up in 1950's during Mao's early rule in China. The Chinese government at that time introduced a simplified Chinese system and made it a standard across the country. The new system was called Jian Ti, meaning simplified characters. This system was implemented efficiently over the years. Now almost all Chinese in People's Republic of China use it.

The simplified Chinese system significantly reduces the number of strokes it takes to write many Chinese characters. The following illustrates the difference between a simplified "Hua" and a traditional "Hua." Hua means China. The one on the left hand side is simplified.

The simplified system helps making it easier for people to learn and master the written language, which in turn helps reducing the illiterate rate and the social development in China. One may also argue that the simplified system saves money by taking less ink to print.

As one can tell from the above example, some of the characteristics of the traditional characters were kept in the simplification process. The changeover from traditional to simplified characters was systematic and followed several pre-determined rules. It affects only a portion of the Chinese characters. It's not that hard for one who is used to traditional characters to learn to recognize the simplified ones or vice versa. In today's computer age, the switching between the two systems takes only one simple key stroke or short cut.

For a foreigner who plans to travel to China, he or she should learn the simplified version of the Chinese characters. We believe the simplified system is easier to learn and master. However, we must point it out that the traditional Chinese characters are still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and most overseas Chinese communities. The use of simplified Chinese characters has been controversial overseas mostly due to historic and political reasons.

In recent decades, the simplified Chinese written language is gaining popularity overseas as well. It's been the standard in United Nations and many international organizations for many years. It's now the standard used in American Chinese education system at college and high-school levels. It was adapted and used, decades ago, in Singapore where 65% of the population is Chinese.

What's Pin Yin?

The written Chinese language is based on a system of symbols, which are neither alphabetic nor associated with the pronunciation. The separation of the written and oral language has made it difficult for the ordinary Chinese people to read and write. Historically the illiterate rate was very high in China. There have been several attempts in the last hundred years to develop a pronunciation system as a tool to learn how to read and speak Chinese. Several systems were developed over the years. Nowadays two main systems co-exist around the world.

Pin Yin, also spelled as Pinyin, is the westernized (Romanized) pronunciation system developed and implemented by the Chinese government in 1950's, which was based on an earlier version of an alphabetic system (Wade-Giles). Pin Yin literally means "form pronunciation." It uses the same 26 English characters to systematically mark the pronunciations of Chinese characters. With this system, one can read (pronounce) Chinese without recognizing the characters. One who cannot write Chinese characters may write in Pin Yin to communicate with others. The Pin Yin system helps the standardization in translating Chinese characters such as people's names, street names, and city names into English. It also helps Chinese data entry and computerization of Chinese language in general using the common English keyboards.

Pin Yin has now been used in China for decades and proven to be a very effective, useful, and easy-to-learn tool. It's used and understood by most Chinese in China. For people whose first language is not Chinese and plans to visit China, Pin Yin is a must-learn tool.

Pin Yin has become the choice of Chinese pronunciation systems overseas as well. It is now the standard in United Nations and most international organizations including Olympics for Chinese translation. It's also used in the Chinese education in American colleges and high schools. Singaporean uses Pin Yin.

The other co-existing system was developed and used during the Republic of China era in the 20's to 40's. It is now used mostly by people in Taiwan and overseas immigrants from Taiwan. This so-called "Zhu Yin" system uses parts of Chinese characters to mark the Chinese pronunciation. Because symbols instead of western alphabets are used in this system, it is more difficult to learn, master, and computerize than the Pin Yin system.