Chinese Dialects

Chinese is spoken by around 16% of the world’s population – approximately 1.2 billion people around the globe speak some form of Chinese as their first language. It is an official language in 4 countries/regions worldwide including China, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore.

Chinese Dialect_image

Countries and their Chinese Dialects:

FACT

Mandarin is the most spoken dialect of Chinese. There are 800 million native Mandarin speakers and one out of five people speak it around the world.

Did you Know?

Mandarin is the most spoken dialect of Chinese. There are 800 million native Mandarin speakers and one out of five people speak it around the world.

“Chinese is officially the most spoken language in the world!”

English words have Chinese origin!

Brainwashing洗腦 (Xǐnǎo)
Tea茶 (Chá)
Feng shui風水 (fēngshuǐ)
Kung fu功夫 (gung fu)
Yin Yang陰陽 (yīnyáng)

Chinese is the Hardest Language to Learn

It may be a vital language when it comes to business and global matters, but in fact, Chinese is the one of the most difficult languages to learn. According to the United States Foreign Service Institute, it can take an English speaker more than 2,200 hours to learn Chinese!

A Tonal Language

Mandarin is the most spoken dialect of Chinese. There are 800 million native Mandarin speakers and one out of five people speak it around the world.

“Chinese Language Day is celebrated on April 20th!”

Population vs. Internet Penetration

Chinese Population: 

1,420,062,022

Internet Users:

829,000,000

Penetration:

58.4%

As of 2019. Source:
www.internetworldstats.com

Did you Know?

There are some differences in Chinese dialects, especially with Cantonese and Hakka. These differences are mainly noticeable in informal writing styles.

Traditional vs Simplified Chinese

  • The two primary Chinese writing systems.
  • Simplified uses less characters than Traditional.
  • Simplified uses less brushstrokes than Traditional.
  • Simplified is mainly used in China Mainland,
  • Traditional is used in Hong Kong, Macau, & Taiwan.

Chinese Translation Tips

  • Avoid translating character by character. Make sure to read the entire sentence before translating.
  • Be cautious of grammar! Chinese grammar is rather flexible and tense is generally represented through ‘adverbial’ or ‘auxiliary verbs’.
  • Chinese has a shorter sentence structure compared to an English sentence!
  • The active voice is very common in the Chinese language, unlike English which generally uses the passive voice.
  • Words do not change in the Chinese language. Unlike European languages, words have a fixed form and do not change no matter where they’re placed in a sentence.
  • Chinese is topic-prominent – meaning the thing the sentence is about is put first. Whereas English is subject-prominent so the doer of an action is placed first.

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