One of the not so great things about Beijing is air pollution. Because there are so many people living in a small area driving cars and burning coal for heat, the air outside can get hazy. In addition, Beijing is surrounded by three mountains, so the atmosphere of the city traps the pollution coming from other major cities located in southern China. Air pollution used to be a big problem here, but it has gotten a lot better in recent years. Unfortunately, Beijing still has some hazy days, and I try to spend less time outside for my health on those days.
The official language in China is Mandarin, and that is what most people here speak. There is also a local dialect called Pekingese that people native to Beijing speak to each other.
Mandarin is a pictographic language, meaning that it is made up of a series of characters (pictures), all of which have a certain sound and meaning associated with them. This makes the language especially difficult to learn because, unlike English, there is no way for you to figure out how to read or say a character if you've never seen it before! Thankfully, a system called, "pinyin" spells out the sounds phonetically, similar to how English works and tells you what tones to use. There are four tones for Chinese characters. These change the way the character is said, and its meaning entirely. It's a lot of keep track of when you're learning the language!
We can learn how to say "teacher" in Mandarin Chinese -
Pinyin: Lǎoshī
Chinese characters: 老师
