Why learn Chinese?

Chinese is spoken by nearly a quarter of the world's population, more than 1.3 billion people. With China gradually opening up its borders, there is more and more opportunity now to visit that mysterious and fascinating country, either on holiday or on business.

If you feel like walking along the Great Wall of China, cruising down the Yangtze River, following the Silk Road, discovering the Forbidden City or hiking in the Chinese mountains, there is nothing to stop you!

For facts and inspiration - and to book your trip - check out travelchinaguide.com.

Whatever your connection with China, you will find your visits, holidays and business meetings vastly enhanced by being able to speak the language. It is really not as difficult as you might imagine. It takes a while to learn to write Chinese, to become familiar with the form and meaning of the characters, but there are a lot of excellent resources available to help you. Also, you don't actually have to write in Chinese characters until you feel ready - although it is useful to recognise some and be able to read a bit - because many Chinese nowadays are accustomed to Pinyin, a romanised alphabet for Chinese writing.

The grammar, however, is fairly straightforward and logical. Chinese sentence structure is similar to that of English (subject-verb-object), there are no irregular verbs, the verbs don't change according to tense as they do in most languages and there are no noun plurals to learn.

To get an idea of what Mandarin sounds like, you can explore the Real Chinese section of the BBC website.


Recommended Reading

If you are interested in learning Chinese, have a look at the Chinese language books we recommend to accompany any course you take or for maintaining/improving your Chinese by yourself.

If you are interested in the life and culture of China, have a look at our recommendations for books about or set in China. These books are in English, a range of fiction and non-fiction that we have enjoyed and hope you will too.

If you are planning a trip to China, don't go without the Lonely Planet China Guide.



Some Quick Facts About China

Official name:
The People's Republic of China

Languages:
Mandarin Chinese (major language)
Cantonese
Other minority languages and dialects

Capital city:
Beijing

Regions:
China is divided into 23 provinces:
Anhui
Fujian
Gansu
Guangdong
Guizhou
Hainan
Hebei
Heilongjiang
Henan
Hubei
Hunan
Jiangsu
Jiangxi
Jilin
Liaoning
Qinghai
Shaanxi
Shandong
Shanxi
Sichuan
Yunnan
Zhejiang
The government considers Taiwan to be the 23rd province of China.

5 autonomous regions:
Guangxi
Nei Mongol
Ningxia
Xinjiang
Tibet (Xizang)

4 municipalities:
Beijing
Chongqing
Shanghai
Tianjin

2 special administrative regions:
Hong Kong
Macau

Area:
9,596,960 sq km (This is slightly smaller than the USA.)

Population:
1,313,973,713 (July 2006 est.)

Currency:
Renminbi Yuan

Religion:
Officially atheist
Buddhist, Taoist

Government:
Communist republic. Unicameral parliamentary system.

Internet domain:
.cn

Country calling code:
+86


If you are interested in learning more about China, you might also like to look at the following websites:

China Today

China Knowledge



   

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