I wanted to know about Chinese language?

Question

I am very fascinated by the chinese language, more so by its calligraphic albhabets. Can anyone tell me more about this language and its character?

Answer 1

Actually, the Chinese spoken language is comprised of many more languages than just Mandarin & Cantonese. Those two just happen to be the most widespread (and Mandarin is the "official" Chinese language). The written language is standardized, regardless of which dialect you speak. Chinese is made up of characters, each of which has its own meaning & pronunciation (unlike English which is phonetic and can be sounded out). The examples I've listed below were found on Wikipedia, and I can verify it from what I've learned in the Chinese language classes I've taken. :)

Early characters started out as pictograms, where the character actually looked like the object it represented. However, most Chinese words are composites. They use a simplified version of a general character to symbolize a connection with something. The example on Wikipedia describes how the words "river", "lake", "stream", "riptide", and "slippery" all have on the three dots on their left side which is a simplified pictograph for water, indicating the character as a whole's connection to water. The rest of the character can be phonetic, indicating that the sound is actually similar to another word.

Other words can be "ideographs" where the word illustrates an abstract concept. For example, the words for up and down basically are lines that point up and down respectively. There are also words that are logical aggregates, characters which combine pictograms to illustrat abstract concepts. For example, combining two pictograms of a tree makes the character for forest. An example that a teacher told me of is the word for peace. The top half of the character is a roof symbolizing the home. The bottom half of the character is 'female' or 'woman'. Thus (this was probably true historically), you have peace when women are safely at home.

I forgot to mention also that the written language has in the past century undergone radical change on the mainland. The communist Chinese government 'updated' many characters to a simplified form, thus creating what is known as "Simplified Chinese". The Taiwanese government, largely comprised of those from the mainland who fled the communists, stuck to the original Chinese characters and that writing system is known today as "Traditional Chinese". Many Chinese characters have been integrated into the writing systems of neighboring countries due to their political influence over the past few millenia. Thus, you will find Chinese characters have been historically found in written Japanese and Korean.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Well chinese is divided into actually 2 different languages which is mandarin and cantonese. Mostly in China they speak mandarin but from personal experience I think cantonese sounds alot better. Both languages are written with the same characters but just pronounced different. Each character is a syllable and you can sometimes relate words to each other with things that are similar between words. Like in the word 'mouth' and 'door' have a similar box that's because they both relate to open. Chinese is pretty complication but if you read and hear it all the time it'll grow on you.

Answer 4

There is only one Chinese language. However , you can write in two forms for exactly the same meaning . One form is written in its full character , the other is the short form .

In China, Taiwan , Singapore , the full complete form is used . Country like Malaysia is using the short form

Full complete form and short form means , e.g. in English it is " examination " , we can also understand if it is written as " exam "

Hope you understand so far.

When Chinese speak , they speak Mandarin. Unlike the words in written forms, Mandarin is the one and only standard language Chinese speak. Mandarin is one of the international language.

However , among the Chinese there are many dialects. Some of them are Teochew, Hahka, Cantonese , Foochow , Hainanese etc. These are the local dialects of small town. In big city , mandarin is commonly used in conversation .

Chinese is one of the hardest handwriting to learn. It can be written with ballpoint pen . This is common in modern days now . The calligraphic writings have become one of the Chinese art . They are used with fine leather " brush " inked with black ink.

Chinese words is written with combination of strokes, dot, kick,
and etc to form a word. The simplest word needs one stroke . The most conplex word may requires 20 over strokes plus 4 dots and a few kicks. Writing calligraphy requires varying strength to put in your fingers to make the words " alive " . That is the hardest to learn , also the beauty of it and the art .

Seeing is believing . Sign up with a Chinese teaching centre nearby you to experience it.

Answer 5

Chinese is one of the oldest languages in the world. It’s the most important carrier of the five thousand years’ Chinese civilization. TalkingLearn -- Learn Chineseis such a kind of app. It covers several topics in the Chinese environment such as life, business, travelling and so on.Web links: http://www.talkinglearn.com/