Countries
China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan
Hong Kong, Macau
Total No. Of Countries
52
0
46
👆🏻
National Language
China, Taiwan
China, Guangdong
Second Language
Republic of Brazil
Not spoken in any of the countries
Speaking Continents
Asia
Asia
Minority Language
Indonesia, Malaysia
Hawaii
Regulated By
Chinese Language Standardization Council, National Commission on Language and Script Work, Promote Mandarin Council
Civil Service Bureau, Government of Hong Kong, Official Language Division
Interesting Facts
- Chinese language is tonal, since meaning of a word changes according to its tone.
- In Chinese language, there is no grammatical distinction between singular or plural, no declination of verbs according to tense, mood and aspect.
- Cantonese have lot of slangs, many of them include words that do not make sense at all and some also have English in them.
- Even though Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects of Chinese, Cantonese has 8 tones instead of Mandarin's 4.
Similar To
Japanese and Korean Languages
Chinese Language
Derived From
-
-
Alphabets in
Alphabets
2628
18
247
👆🏻
Phonology
How Many Vowels
248
0
32
👆🏻
How Many Consonants
2320
9
60
👆🏻
Scripts
Chinese Characters and derivatives
Chinese Characters and derivatives
Writing Direction
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom
Hard to Learn
Language Levels
610
2
12
👆🏻
Time Taken to Learn
88 weeks88 weeks
3
88
👆🏻
Hello
您好 (Nín hǎo)
您好
Thank You
谢谢 (Xièxiè)
谢谢
How Are You?
你好吗？ (Nǐ hǎo ma?)
你好吗？
Good Night
晚安 (Wǎn'ān)
晚安
Good Evening
晚上好 (Wǎnshàng hǎo)
晚上好
Good Afternoon
下午好 (Xiàwǔ hǎo)
下午好
Good Morning
早安 (Zǎo ān)
早上好
Please
请 (Qǐng)
请
Sorry
遗憾 (Yíhàn)
遗憾
Bye
再见 (Zàijiàn)
再见
I Love You
我爱你 (Wǒ ài nǐ)
我爱你
Excuse Me
劳驾 (Láojià)
原谅我
Dialect 1
Mandarin
Guangzhou
Where They Speak
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan
outside mainland China
How Many People Speak
960,000,000.0071,000,000.00
1.5
960000000
👆🏻
Dialect 2
Wu
Xiguan
Where They Speak
China, United States of America
Hong Kong
How Many People Speak
80,000,000.0071,000,000.00
700
274000000
👆🏻
Dialect 3
Yue
Hong Kong
Where They Speak
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam
Hong Kong
How Many People Speak
60,000,000.0070,000,000.00
2
230000000
👆🏻
Total No. Of Dialects
103
0
188
👆🏻
How Many People Speak?
1,051.00 million60.00 million
0
1200
👆🏻
Speaking Population
16.00 %16.00 %
0
89
👆🏻
Native Speakers
873.00 million52.00 million
0
873
👆🏻
Second Language Speakers
178.00 million71.00 million
0.01
400
👆🏻
Native Name
中文 (zhōngwén)
Kwang Tung Wa
Alternative Names
Zhongwen, Hanyu
Guangfu, Metropolitan Cantonese
French Name
chinois
cantonais
German Name
Chinesisch
Kantonesisch
Pronunciation
[ʈʂʰíŋ] [huà]
[kʰɐn˧˥tʰœːn˧˥sɨ˧˥]
Ethnicity
Han
Han Chinese
Origin
1250 BC
17th century
Language Family
Sino-Tibetan Family
Sino-Tibetan Family
Subgroup
-
-
Branch
-
-
Language Forms
Early Forms
No early forms
No early forms
Standard Forms
Standard Chinese
Standard Cantonese
Language Position
11
1
120
👆🏻
Signed Forms
Wenfa Shouyu 文法手語 ("Grammatical Sign Language", Signed Mandarin (Taiwan))
Signed Cantonese
Scope
Individual
-
ISO 639 1
zh
No data available
ISO 639 2
ISO 639 2/T
zho
yue
ISO 639 2/B
chi
yue
ISO 639 3
zho
No data available
ISO 639 6
zho
yue
Glottocode
sini1245
cant1236
Linguasphere
79-AAA
No data available
Types of Language
Language Type
Living
-
Language Linguistic Typology
Subject-Verb-Object
-
Language Morphological Typology
Analytic, Isolating
-