Growth of Mandarin WorldWide

In many respects, however, computerization of Chinese will facilitate commercial functions, and the race is already on, among start-up firms and corporate giants alike, to produce the software of choice for the Chinese language market.

The english term "Mandarin" refers to the northeastern Chinese dialect that China's rulers have long promoted as a unifying language. Within China this dialect is referred to as "standard speech" (putonghua); outside China, it may be called "country language" (guoyu) or simply "Chinese" (huayu). Most Taiwanese speak fluent Mandarin, as do most educated mainlanders. Large numbers of Hong Kongers, who traditionally speak Cantonese dialect, are brushing up their Mandarin for post-1997 PRC rule. Similarly, business and cultural ties with China and Taiwan are reinvigorating Mandarin usage among the twenty to twenty-five million ethnic Chinese throughout Southeast Asia.

Mandarin has always been the language of high culture among the Chinese within China and abroad. It is now becoming the language of pop culture as well. Taiwanese and Hong Kong movies, television shows, and music formerly produced in dialects, like Cantonese or Hokkien, are increasingly made for distribution to the wider Mandarin market. The international success of Chinese artists such as filmmakers Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) and Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern; To Live) adds to the allure of Mandarin among the young.

Until recently the designation of Mandarin as the world's most spoken language was mainly due to the size of the population of China itself (1.2 billion and climbing). But now Mandarin may be poised to spread beyond the Chinese world as a language of commerce and influence among the elite and professional classes of Asia. The economic impetus is clear: Trade within the region is expanding twice as fast as Asia's trade with other regions. And if reformist policies are sustained, the growing China market stands near the center of those trade flows. China could also become Asia's largest source of tourist revenue. In 1995 PRC citizens represented the third largest group of Asian tourists, a relatively new and growing phenomenon.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• China
• Chinese
• 华人
• 中国
• 大陆
• 香港
• 澳门
• 台湾
• Mandarin
• 天安门
• 天安門
• Tiananmen
• Beijing
• Military
• 中國
• army
• 解放军
• PLA
• Hu
• 胡锦涛
• CCP
• parade
• Airforce
• navy

[lthp]

"To think i took French!"

[MrYahoo666]

You are another one of those ignorant persons who know nothing about PRC. Is China communist now? No, it's socialist with a socialist market economy, get that straight. And also the president of Taiwan himself even said that he was thinking about Taiwan going to reunificate peacefully with China so suck it up whether you like it or not.

[7255202]

yet english is used everywhere..

[DarkFenix34512]

Learning Chinese is very fun, sure its tricky but it is not as hard as you think, and helps improve your thinking, you use both left and right, a symbol matched with a sound, very fun very interesting, 3rd semester chinese student

[waki26]

Each Chinese character is actually a semi-word. 2 or more characters form a "word". A character is like a half-ready, versatile part to be combined to make a machine whereas in English each alphabet is like the bolts and nuts. So in English you make a machine using the bolts and nuts from the scratch, in Chinese you do it by putting parts together.

See the difference?

[waki26]

As far as difficulty of learning is concerned, it is subjective. To the Chinese it is easy and English is hard to learn. One thing is sure. To learn Chinese the Westerners must "unlearn" some of their pre- concept. If you imagine Chinese as a picture of a bird and English as a series of 1 and 0 you will start to grasp the difference. You need a different approach. Just like you can;t play table tennis with a soccer skill.

[waki26]

In its age of 5000 yrs Chinese was created and stayed rather stable until today. That is a miracle in itself. It has adapted to changes but never mutated or die. It remains the same language -old yet new, ancient yet contemporary! From the unearthed tombs to China spaceship, it's the SAME language!

In the past Chinese language had "exploded" a few times. One is after invention of paper, next the invention of printing. Now with IT and internet it is poised to explode again.

[waki26]

Chinese is simply DIFFERENT from the Western languages ( WL ). Don't compare on the same basis. While WL are phonetic in nature, Chinese is visual. That means WL are to HEARD but Chinese is to be SEEN. Each character is a refined picture. Either will have its own advantages. For fast reading and visual scanning, Chinese is good as it can be "seen" rather than "interpreted". Also Chinese has a unique feature that it can go left-right ( or R-L if wanted ) and up-down making it easy for display

[Tentenlaw]

@2VtEAf : Yeah. Chinese characters are visually appealing but phonetically they are mute. It requires memorization of pictures than letters. Not mention learning pinyin. :-P HAHAH! I am learning Chinese (both traditional and simplified). English grammar is VERY hard and I was born in the United States. >_>

In english, there is hard C and soft C. Big A, Small a,. big I, small I

BUt in every other languages, letters are pronounced one way...unless it has an accent. English is VERY hard to learn.

[2VtEAf]

"China doesn't have a proper alphabet" yeah and in english you've got to learn how to spell every single word... But it's true that english is easier to read, but not to pronounce. So I would say english wins the game for this. But for grammar CHINESE all the way (BTW I'm not chinese, I'm french canadian)

[Raymasaki]

@lukebccb are you Retarded? Jesus didn't speak English!!

he spoke aramaic.

[Raymasaki]

@MrYahoo666 you are Ignorant Just because its been on a Economic rise Doesn't mean its Not communist anymore. Yeah they adpoted capitilism something they have always said they would Never do. Dont tell me i don't know anything about chinese culture either Im Advanced level of Mandarin. they just better be ready & exspect Millions of Foreigner to want to go to china & visit china