Mandarin is the main language in China. The province I am from speaks Cantonese, which is similar to Mandarin, but it has has some key differences. Over the summer, I learned beginner Mandarin through the Peking University summer program. The program taught us how to speak, write and read. Because of the time difference, I had to get up for online classes at four a.m.!
Since we were beginners, we started with a combination of Chinese characters and pinyin-- that's the word for Chinese writing that uses the English alphabet. Did you know that each Chinese word has a unique combination of characters? Unlike English, you can't really sound things out as you go. Students need to memorize hundreds of combinations before they can truly begin to interact with native speakers. When you speak Chinese, you also learn new things. The language tends to use shorter sounds than English, and some sounds that we make when speaking English don't really exist in Chinese.
