Learning Chinese, At A Glance   by Ben Pate

in Education / Languages    (submitted 2010-12-28)

There are many people who travel to China for business, vacation and simply for the sake of traveling to different places but do not learn Chinese. You may have always wanted to learn and thought that it would take too much time. If you found out it could take you less time than you thought, would you take the lessons?

To learn Chinese is not as hard as you would think. With proper lessons and practice on a regular basis, learning the language could be quite easy and not take long. For advanced learners, a month is required for speaking whole sentences and understanding sentences spoken. For normal learners, a week is required to speak an entire sentence from memory.

Many lessons that are available are generally for those who need to learn to speak and not read or write Chinese. To read or write, you do not have to be fluent but it does help if you have an idea about the language. Grammar lessons along with learning about common phrases written are important and may take longer to learn. Beginners could take as little as one week to learn to speak and write the entire Chinese alphabet.

Chinese is considered a sinitic language, meaning that it is in a family of other languages that are unintelligible between one another in different aspects. Almost one fifth of the world speaks some type of Chinese. There are different variations of this language based on the tone used when speaking it as well as the area.

There are thirteen main types of Chinese based on classifications, with Mandarin being the most commonly used and Cantonese being the second most popular. Standard Mandarin is the main language used for the People's Republic of China as well as Beijing. Many other areas including Singapore and even the United Nations use it as one of the 6 they speak.

Other areas that Chinese is spoken in include but are not limited to the Philippines, Indonesia, Peru, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Speaking the language and learning it will depend on the area in which you decide to visit and the dialect used there. Writing or reading the characters will also depend on these instances.

To speak Chinese, most companies and many individuals offer home lessons. The most popular are those with CDs to listen and learn pronunciation accompanied by books and daily practice time for perfection. Other types of lessons exist such as private tutoring and the military also offers courses. You should decide the best way for you to learn and this will cut the amount of time needed. If you learn faster by hearing and repeating, the CDs are ideal.

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However if you have a general grasp of the concept and need a little guidance, the readers could be best. To find out more information about translating Mandarin to English and who offers these lessons near your home, talk to your local librarian. He or she may have free information in the library for you to check out or a list of language courses in the area.