Chinese language - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

# Chinese language

### From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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. The pronunciation is given in the pinyin system, which may not always be as simple as it looks for those who have not studied it.

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: to ask if someone is from other countries, just replace Zhōngguó (中国, 中國) with any of the countries below. The word rén (人) is added on the end for the nationality.

America = Měiguó = 美国 = 美國

Brazil = Baxi = 巴西

France = Fǎguó = 法国 = 法國

Britain = Yīngguó = 英国 = 英國

Germany = Déguó = 德国 = 德國

Russia = éguó = 俄国 = 俄國

Thailand = Tàiguó = 泰国 = 泰國

Poland = Bolán = 波兰 = 波蘭

Japan = Rìbĕn = 日本 = 日本

## [edit] External links

- Learn Chinese Free online Chinese lessons with audio.
- Chinese-English dictionary Contains more than 30.000 entries. Can be searched with Chinese , Pinyin, or English. Audio is available.
- Learn Mandarin Chinese Free resources on Free Language (podcasts, software, websites. etc.)

## [edit] See also

- Mandarin language
- Cantonese language

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Category: Sino-Tibetan languages

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