Chinese (Simplified) Language Guide

Official language in
China, Singapore
Script
Simplified

Where it's spoken

The Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language says that the national common spoken and written language is Putonghua and the standardized Chinese characters, and that these are the language and script legally in common use throughout the country. State organs use them for official business unless another law provides otherwise, and schools and other educational institutions use them as their basic language of teaching. The same law lists the cases in which a dialect may still be used, among them broadcasting approved by the competent authority and the needs of opera, film and television; every nationality is free to use and develop its own spoken and written language. In Singapore, the Constitution makes Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English the four official languages.

Sources

Script & pronunciation

Chinese is written with Han ideographic characters, which make up a coherent script. It was traditionally written vertically, with the vertical lines ordered from right to left; in modern usage, especially in technical works and in computer-rendered text, it is written horizontally from left to right. The cards here use the standardized simplified characters, as in 谢谢 (Xièxie, "Thank you"). The law keeps traditional and variant characters for named cases: cultural relics and historic sites, variant characters in surnames, works of calligraphy and seal carving, hand-written inscriptions and shop signs, and use in publishing, teaching and research.

The same law makes the Hanyu Pinyin Scheme the tool for spelling and annotating the national language, and the unified standard for writing Chinese personal names, place names and documents in Roman letters. Mandarin has a complex tone system, and the scheme gives a mark for each of the four tones. The mark is placed on the main vowel of the syllable, and the neutral tone is not marked: the scheme's own examples are 妈 mā, 麻 má, 马 mǎ, 骂 mà and 吗 ma. The cards carry the marks, as in 你好 (Nǐ hǎo, "Hello").

Sources

Grammar essentials

The basic word order of Mandarin is subject-verb-object. A numeral does not stand directly in front of a noun: a classifier is obligatory between them, as in 一位大人 (Yí wèi dàrén, "One adult, please"), where 位 stands between 一 and 大人. A yes/no question is made with a question particle, as in 你会说英语吗？ (Nǐ huì shuō Yīngyǔ ma?, "Do you speak English?"), which ends in 吗. The negative word comes in front of the verb: 我不明白 (Wǒ bù míngbai, "I don't understand") uses 不, and 我没有预约 (Wǒ méiyǒu yùyuē, "I don't have a reservation") uses 没有.

Sources

Politeness & etiquette

Mandarin has a binary politeness distinction in its second-person pronoun: 您 is the respectful form of 你. This app's card for 你 (Nǐ, "You") says that 您 is the polite form for elders and superiors, and the card for 你好 (Nǐ hǎo, "Hello") says to use 您好 for them. The same description of the language notes that personal pronouns are generally avoided in discourse, except when a participant has to be highlighted.

The card for 请 (Qǐng, "Please") says to add it when you ask for something, and that it also works on its own. It also stands at the head of requests, as in 请等一下 (Qǐng děng yíxià, "Please wait"), which the card gives as a polite way to ask someone to hold on.

Sources

Browse all TravelPhrases languages