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Mandarin Language Facts

If you’re thinking about learning Chinese Mandarin it’s always good to know a little about the origins and history of the language you are learning. Here, Cactus Language offers up our most interesting Mandarin language facts:

  • Mandarin
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5 Interesting Mandarin Language Facts

1. Mandarin is one the of Chinese language forms which develop from the regional variants of Middle Chinese

Mandarin was originally a dialect of Northern China, before being chosen as the standard form of Chinese in order to help unify China.

2. The Mandarin language has almost a billion speakers

Mandarin is famous for being the most natively spoken language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is primarily spoken in mainland China.

3. Mandarin is the dominant form of Chinese in China.

While Cantonese is the main language in many parts of Southern China including Hong Kong and Macao, and of most Chinatowns across the world, Mandarin Chinese has an ever-increasing number of speakers, whereas Cantonese is suffering from the central Chinese government efforts to make Mandarin the only national language.

4. There is an estimated 100,000 Chinese characters

Logograms are written characters representing a word or a phrase. The Chinese don’t use all these characters in their everyday lives, and the Chart of Common Characters of Modern Chinese lists 2,500 common characters.

5. Mandarin has four tones and an additional neutral tone.

Tones are used to differentiate words in the Mandarin language.

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Our Course Outlines give an overview of the content and learning framework of Cactus courses. Includes themes, grammar and vocabulary you can typically expect to cover. These are intended as a guide only. Language teachers may at times adapt the course content to suit the specific level, aims and interests of the class.

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