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Chinese Language
Since ancient times the Chinese language was the symbol of something very complex and difficult. Indeed, studying Chinese is not very easy, but incredibly exciting. If you decide to start learning Chinese, you will find not only new rules of grammar, different from your native language, but be ready to plunge into absolutely unknown, strange, sometimes shocking world with other rules, principles and views on life. Therefore, the first thing you should do studying Chinese is open your mind and heart, be ready for a trip to the amazing planet, which is called China.
Chinese is the most important representative of Sino-Tibetan language family. Nowadays Chinese is spoken by more than 90% of the population in China, and also in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and other countries. In the modern Chinese language several major dialects are distinguished - they are different, basically, in phonetics, vocabulary and partly in grammar, which makes it difficult for the residents in different regions of China to communicate. Normative (literary) Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect, in China it is called Putonghua, which literally means «universal language», but in other countries where Chinese is spoken it is called “guoyu”(«the national language»).
The Chinese, unlike most Western nations, does not use an alphabet, but ideographic written language. The character is the basis of the Chinese language; it indicates a syllable, not a sound. Each syllable has 4 variants of pronunciation (4 tones), which could change the meaning to quite the opposite. Each character is an image, which goes back to the ancient Chinese ideas of the world’s organization, to the pictograms and rock art. The total number of Chinese characters is more than 40 000 (sometimes it is said that up to 70 000 characters). Most of the characters can be found only in the monuments of classical Chinese literature. A person can be considered literate at the elementary level if they have mastered more than 1500 characters. 3000 characters are enough to read newspapers and non-specialized magazines. Chinese characters are the means which help to unite the variety of Chinese dialects. Sometimes, the Chinese who speak different dialects can only communicate by pen and paper.
In 1958 with the help of Western linguists and on the basis of Latin alphabet a system of characters’ phonetic transcription (pinyin) was established. It was also designed to facilitate the studying of Chinese.
Learning Chinese is becoming more and more widespread. This is not surprising; bearing in mind the high speed with which China is being developed, opening up new possibilities and prospects for the business and successful career building.
According to what specialists now say, within 50 years Chinese, despite its complexity, may become an international language. But for many people studying Chinese now, it is not just for fashion or sober calculation, but it is a real passion, sometimes not amenable to common logic, but a surprisingly interesting language.
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Platonova Irina
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