How to Speak Chinese - Tips on Learning to Speak Mandarin Chinese

China used to be an isolated country that few people knew anything about. Today, due to the vast numbers of products that this country is exporting to the rest of the globe, Chinese is becoming an international language in the business world. If you wish to learn how to speak Chinese, there are several online classes as well computer software available to help you in your quest.

To learn how to speak Chinese, there are several things that you will want to keep in mind. There are several different dialects spoken in the various areas of the country. Many of these spoken languages sound nothing alike, and are based on the tones in which certain words are spoken. These dialects include Mandarin, Cantonese, Putonghua, and Pinyin.

When learning how to speak Chinese, you may want to work with the Mandarin dialect. This type of Chinese is mainly spoken in Beijing and the area of northern China. The spoken language of this dialect consists of four different tones.

If you wish to learn how to speak Chinese, the Cantonese dialect may be of interest to you. This is the type of Chinese language that is spoken by most Chinese-American immigrants and is spoken mainly in the southeastern part of the country. The Cantonese dialect consists of nine different tones and is nothing like its Mandarin counterpart.

The official Chinese dialect that is used in the government as well as the schools is called Putonghua, and may be the best type for you to utilize when learning how to speak Chinese. This dialect is the based on the Mandarin type, and is the mandatory language that every Chinese citizen is expected to speak.

The Pinyin system is an alphabet that may help you to learn how to speak Chinese. This writing system is Latin based and was developed in the 1950 to replace the Wade-Giles system, which did not represent the sounds very accurately. The government has begun using this method in educational programs so that the natives can learn to write in Chinese using this form of alphabet. The Pinyin system is based on the Putonghua dialect, using this dialect's sounds to orally represent Chinese written characters.

When learning how to speak Chinese, there is also a simplified system that is used everywhere that may be of interest to you. When China was the People' Republic of China, the simplified dialect was the language of choice for government officials, which in turn expected all the citizens to learn it as well.

In areas such as Hong Kong and Taiwan where Chinese is spoken, the dialect is much older and utilizes much more complex symbols when compared with the other types of dialects. If you are learning how to speak Chinese, this dialect may not be the best for you to start with due to these complexities.

If you wish to learn how to speak Chinese, you will first need to decide the dialect that you wish to study. For business practices, you will probably wish to study Putonghua as well as the Pinyin alphabet system. This dialect will enable you to deal with contracts as well as to communicate with anyone that you might happen to meet in the business world.