Foreign Language 

(Mandarin)

China at Glance

 China (Zhong Guo) is located in East Asia, officially known as Peoples

Republic of China (PRC) Zhong hua ren min gong he guo) 
 Zhong Guo (Chinese language local term) Zhong means center and Guo
meaning country 
 Chinese citizens are known in Chinese language as Zhong Guoren. 
 China is believed to have been derived from the name of Qin Dynasty which
first unified the nation during 221BC (Qin Shi Huangdi, the first Qin Emperor,
was a brutal ruler who unified ancient China and laid the foundation for the
Great Wall)
 China is the third largest country in the world next to Russia and Canada,
with total land area 9.5 million square meters (3.69 million square mile
 China population as of 1 July 2021 as per UN census is at more than 1.44
billion, majority of the Chinese belong to the Han ethnic group.
 China is one of the oldest civilisations in the world, dating back 3,500 years
ago, and one of the few civilisations that still exist in the modern times.

 In the 16th century, The Spaniards called the Chinese traders “Sangleyes”,
when they arrived in the Philippines 
 Most of Chinese in the Philippines came from southern China particularly
from Fujian Province, there were not mandarin speaker, rather they speak
Fookien dialect. 

Example:

Hokkien  Mandarin English

Gam Sia (greatful) Xie Xie Thank you!

Doh sia (Many Fei Chang Xie XieThank you very much
Thanks)
Lu/Li  ho Ni hao Hello
Ho tsa khi Zao an Good morning
Ho e-po Wu an Good afternoon

 There are seven dialects of China. Mandarin(Putonghua); Wu(Shanghainese);

Gan; Xiang; Min(Minbei/Fuzhou); Yue(Cantonese) and Hakka.

 The major cities of China includes Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou,

Shenzhen, Dongguan, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Nanjing, Wuhan, Shenyang,
Hangzhou, and Chongqing. China claimed Taipei (Taiwan) as one of their
cities but Taiwan insisted to be an independent country.
  3 Major Religions in China 
 Buddhism- From India came to China 2000 years ago. Based on the teaching
of Siddhartha Gautama or Buddha. China is predominantly Buddhist.
 Confucianism- the teaching is based of the Chinese Philosopher Confucius
about moral, social, political, and philosophical religious thought.
 Taoism- it is founded by Lao Tzu, the teaching is based on the writings of Tao
teachings of humility, calmness and patience.
 There were also believers of Islam due to China’s proximity to Middle East and
Christianity is also practiced.

Mandarin as China’s Official Language

 Mandarin-China’s official language. It is the most widely spoken language in

the world because China is the number 1 in terms of population
 Mandarin (Putonghua, guoyo, hanyu/huayu) is the most widely spoken
language of all Chinese dialect
 Mandarin is also known as Hanyu “Han- refers to the ethnicity of the Chinese
and Yu that means language” literally means  Chinese language 

Mandarin/Hanyu Pinyin

 In 1949 the newly established Communists government of Mao Zedong

decreed that Mandarin Chinese, the dialect spoken in Beijing, was to be the
official language of China.
 Today majority of Chinese speak Mandarin Chinese known as Putonghua (the
common language)
 There is a huge diaspora of Mandarin speakers in South East Asia, (Brunei,
Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia) United Kingdom, USA, and
Russia. 

 You don’t need characters to learn to speak Chinese. In fact, learning the
characters for everything you learn to say is an inefficient way to learn
Chinese, one that significantly slows down your progress.

Why do we study Hanyu?

 Now a day it is a must to learn language because of the increasing demands

for globalisation, People learn Mandarin because of certain reasons. Either for
additional knowledge, job or business requirements, or simply to
communicate.
 Learning Mandarin is going to be easy when you are interested to learn and
to have additional knowledge and to be able to compete and or
communicate globally.