Chinese language
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
The Chinese language is the language of China -- most often referring to the Mandarin language.
Chinese language use pinyin to represent the sound. All of the Chinese languages (or dialects of one language) have at least four tones, some have eight. But none of them have tense or plural.
Chinese is almost always written in Chinese characters. They are symbols that have either sound or meaning, or both. Chinese characters are from over 5000 years ago. In Mainland China and Singapore, people use more simple characters. In Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other places where they speak Chinese, people still use the more traditional characters. The Korean language also uses Chinese characters to represent certain words. These are known in Korean as Hanja.
[edit] Examples
Here are some samples of some words and sentences in Mandarin Chinese. Simple characters are on the left, and traditional characters are on the right.
Hello = Nǐ hǎo = 你好
How are you? = Nǐ hǎo ma? = 你好吗? = 你好嗎?
(Note: The Chinese word for hello also means "You be well" or "You Well" (你好) "Nǐ" (你) means you, hǎo (好) means well, or good. The Chinese say "Ma" (吗, 嗎) at the end of "You be well" to say "Are you well?")
I am (Name) = Wǒ jiào (名字) = 我叫（名字）
What is your name? = Nǐ jiào shénme míngzi? = 你叫什么名字 = 你叫什麽名字？
Are you Chinese? = Nĭ shì Zhōngguó rén ma? = 你是中国人吗? = 你是中國人嗎?
(Note: If you want to ask if someone is from other countries, just replace Zhōng guó (中国, 中國) with any of the countries below. You also have to add rén (人) on the end for the nationality.
America = Měiguó = 美国 = 美國
Brazil = Ba xi = 巴西
France = Fǎ guó = 法国 = 法國
Britain = Yīng guó = 英国 = 英國
Germany = Dé guó = 德国 = 德國
Russia = é guó = 俄国 = 俄國
Thailand = Tài guó = 泰国 = 泰國
Poland = Bo lán = 波兰 = 波蘭
Japan = Rì bĕn = 日本 = 日本
[edit] See also
- Mandarin language
- Cantonese language
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