About Chinese
What’s with the grid?
The grid you’ll notice behind the Chinese characters is used by school children learning calligraphy.
Posted: November 3rd, 2006 under About Chinese.
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Minnan
Minnan, as known as Hokkien or Taiwanese. A major Chinese language spoken by the wealthiest Chinese populations: in China in the coastal Fujian province, in Taiwan and in many overseas Chinese communities. Around 45 million Chinese speak Minnan. (SIL International 2000)
Posted: November 2nd, 2006 under About Chinese.
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Mandarin
The official language in China and Taiwan, also spoken by about 1 in every 5 people on earth.
Posted: November 1st, 2006 under About Chinese.
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Simplified Characters
The Chinese have been using traditional characters for several thousand years. About 50 years ago the Chinese Communist Party gained political control and changed the writing system. It was a stepping-stone towards their goal of eliminating characters and eventually replacing them with the Western Roman alphabet. Fortunately, this plan is no longer in place. However, […]
Posted: October 31st, 2006 under About Chinese.
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Chinese by the Numbers
1 Written language — Chinese characters — mutually intelligible by speakers of 13 mutually unintelligible Chinese languages, as distinct as French, Romanian and Portuguese.
2 Sides of the brain used in aural comprehension of Mandarin; non-tonal English utilizes only the left side for aural comprehension.
3 Mandarin’s ranking in the top 10 most commonly spoken languages in […]
Posted: October 13th, 2006 under About Chinese.
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