Chinese Learning
欢迎！ This thread is meant to facilitate the learning and discussion of the Chinese language. In here, you will be able to:
- Meet and get acquainted with others who are learning Chinese
- Ask for resources/correction/advice on the acquisition of Chinese
- Practise writing in Chinese
The Chinese "language"
Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language group, and is by far the largest variant in terms of speakers. However, Chinese is not one language, but rather a group of related but mutually unintelligible languages. The most common ones that people learn are Cantonese and Mandarin (though even then it is debated whether these two are languages or sub-groups of the Chinese language family!)
- Cantonese comes from the traditional English name for Guangdong, it has reached a far-reaching impact due to emigration, as well as being the main language of Hong Kong and Macau, the two SARs
- Mandarin is the most widespread variant of Chinese, and its Beijing dialect is what Modern Standard Chinese is based on (though from what I've researched it is not exactly the same as it). Mandarin has become the lingua franca of China, and should be understood by most educated Chinese.
Pinyin
The official romanization system of Modern Standard Chinese. However, this is not meant to be a replacement to the Chinese characters; rather it is meant to help facilitate correct pronunciation of words. This system was made by a Chinese person, so do not expect the letters to match up to what exactly you will expect.
Hanzi
Chinese uses one of the most complex writing systems in the world. Not only are there thousands of characters in common usage (though, to be honest a few hundred characters make up a large majority of the most frequent words), but there are two separate sets depending on where you are. Mainland China and Singapore use simplified characters while Taiwan, Hong Hong and Macau use traditional characters.
Radicals
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