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Mandarin

Mandarin

Summary

Mandarin is natively spoken by 925 million people, primarily in China, Taiwan, and Singapore, making it the most spoken language in the world. It is a key part of the cultural and national identity of the Chinese people, with a history that spans thousands of years, encompassing ancient dynasties, philosophical traditions like Confucianism and Taoism, and significant contributions to art, science, and technology. Mandarin is written using Chinese characters, which are logograms representing words or morphemes. The language is tonal, meaning that pitch is used to distinguish word meaning. Mandarin grammar is relatively straightforward, with a subject-verb-object (SVO) word order and no verb conjugation or gendered nouns, making its structure quite different from many Indo-European languages.

Stats

  • Language Family: Sino-Tibetan

  • Writing System: Chinese

  • Writing System Type: Logography

  • Writing Direction: L to R

  • Tones / Pitch Accent: 4

  • Morphology: Analytic

  • Cases: 0

  • Grammatical Gender / Noun Class: 0

  • Number of Verb Tenses: 0

  • Word Order: SVO

  • Number of Vowels (Monophthongs): 6

  • Number of Consonants: 26

Areas Where Spoken

  • China (official) (~ 64.0%) (~ 904 mil)

  • Hong Kong (2.3%) (169 k)

  • Singapore (~35.5%) (2 mil)

  • Taiwan (official) (83.5%) (19.7 mil)

Resources

So the way that mandarin operates is that they have different leveled tests for certificates of proficiency that you’ll eventually want to take. It’s called HSK. Here’s more about that: https://improvemandarin.com/hsk-levels/ Thus, it can be pretty easy to find textbooks for grammar and such because you can just look up prep books for that level. So like you would start on HSK 1 and work your way up to 9 Another book series that people like is Integrated Chinese 4th Edition, Volume 1 Workbook (Simplified Chinese) (English and Chinese Edition) https://a.co/d/6T8ouz9 Now the thing about mandarin is that they don’t have an alphabet and it’s a tonal language so you’ll have to learn stroke order and what the different tones are. You should also learn pinyin to help out with that I found this YouTube channel that does free lessons: https://youtube.com/@kexiayan3714 Alternatively I would recommend finding resources to learn stroke order, tones, and pinyin:

Other stuff I’ve seen people recommend are


Apps

  • Pleco Completely Free Chinese dictionary of both Simplified and Traditional characters Dictionary consists of definition(s), radicals/components, example sentences, and words the character is used in Simple to use, as you can find characters and words by typing in its pinyin, drawing it, or simply typing in the translations. Most basic characters have a stroke order animation (pay to unlock all characters’ stroke order) 

  • DuChinese PLENTY of Free content for any level Hundreds of stories in both Simplified and Traditional, with audio, translation, and meaning of the characters in each story. 

  • Anki Free Flashcard App Great for remembering characters and vocabulary 

  • Chineasy Free beginner lessons. Pay a subscription for full access Mainly teaches Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters using visuals 

  • Skritter Free basic lessons. Pay subscription for full access Teaches writing and meaning of characters. Excels at teaching stroke order. 

  • Chinese Writer Practice stoke order and character meanings

  • https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hellochinese

  • https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.memrise.android.memrisecompanion


Books

Reading Practice

Vocabulary Lists (sorted by HSK level)

Grammar Guides (for any level)


Podcasts


Websites


Videos

Comprehensive Grammar, Vocabulary & Cultural Lessons for Beginner-Advanced Language Learning


Just Vlogs/Culture


Listening Practices


Audio Companions for HSK Coursebook Textbook

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