Chinese – the new second language
China used to be referred to as the sleeping giant. In recent years this giant has stirred from its slumber to become the world’s fastest growing economy, in size now only second to the United States of America. In 1978 China initiated market reforms that moved its economy from being centrally planned to being market-based. The country subsequently experienced rapid economic growth and social development which has lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty. China, with a population of 1.3 billion people, has become a leading player on the international stage.
Learning the official language of Mandarin Chinese has become important for people all over the world. Over 100 schools in the United Kingdom are now teaching Mandarin. Brighton College in East Sussex recently became the first school in the country to make learning Mandarin compulsory, alongside French, Spanish and Latin.
History of the language
The Chinese language derives from the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese (206 BC – 220 AD). The Han Dynasty’s first emperor was originally known as the king of the region of “Han Zhong”, which is where the word Han is derived from. There are between seven and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which Mandarin is the most spoken (850 million), followed by Wu (90 million), Cantonese (70 million) and Min (50 million). The result is Chinese, in one form or another, is spoken by about one-fifth of the world’s population.
Is Mandarin difficult to learn?
Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese and historically dates back to the 19th century, when mostly the upper classes and ministers in Beijing used it. It has now become the official language of the People’s Republic of China. It is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
Especially for outsiders, learning to write Chinese looks difficult; but this is not the case in relation to learning to speak the language. In some ways learning to speak Mandarin Chinese can be much easier than learning to speak many of the European languages. The reason for this is that there are no subject/verb agreements, no plurals, no conjugations, no tenses, and there is a simple numbering system which is applied to dates and time expressions, simple conditional sentences and simple prepositions.
One of the most important elements of learning Mandarin is to understand the “four tones”. Mandarin uses the four tones to help clarify the meanings of words as many characters have the same sound; the tones help to differentiate words from one another.
Here are some links to language learning services on the internet:
- Rosetta Stone: http://www.rosettastone.co.uk/
- Busuu.com: http://www.busuu.com/
- elanguageschool: http://www.elanguageschool.net/chinese
So why learn Mandarin?
As Mandarin Chinese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, business men and women who can speak Mandarin have a huge advantage in trying to penetrate the prosperous Chinese market. Also, there are many exciting travel opportunities in China to explore – from seeing the Great Wall to visiting the Municipality of Beijing, say as part of your Classic Trans-Siberian experience. Being able to understand Mandarin will make it much easier for you to enjoy a great and exciting country.
Some business experts predict that having Mandarin as a second language is going to be quite important over the next few years, especially as China’s economy and international standing keep growing. People who want to get ahead in industry need to be thinking about China and learning Chinese. The executives of tomorrow are going to have to speak fluent English and Chinese, and this is why the number of people in the UK learning Mandarin has gone up considerably in recent years. It may not be long before Chinese becomes the second language of choice to learn.
[Photo by Thomas Fischler]