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Before the dawn of globalization, people thought it would be fun to learn a second language, but never took it seriously. In high school, for example, young people have learned Spanish, French, German or even Latin, only to lose quickly after graduation. Recently, however, Chinese has become favorite language of choice and not just to teach high school and college, but also online. Their growing popularity should not be too surprising. More than 1 billion people speak Chinese. Being able to learn Chinese is not only fun, but also it is becoming an essential tool for business people and travelers worldwide. Take classes in Chinese language and mastery of the language opens the door to almost a fifth of the world population. Standard Mandarin is spoken in China Hong Kong Macao, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and many others around the world. Chinese language proficiency is essential for business people willing to expand into the Asian market, especially in the growing market for products and services at the Western China. Not only China has become a giant in the global economy, but also in the 2008, Olympics in Beijing promise to put China on the international stage, hosting the World competition. The entire nation will be exposed for the world to see the charm of the country and offer the discerning business travelers a great opportunity to learn the Chinese language. While the Chinese language have a reputation for being difficult to learn, the adoption of simplified Chinese characters and Pinyin Hanya development has made it easier for Westerners to learn Chinese.
One of the best ways to learn Chinese on a network is learning it online. Learning to speak Mandarin is easier when a student acts as a native speaker. Listening to language allows students to learn the correct pronunciation quickly. This is the first step in learning the Chinese language. Teaching how to use pinyin, you can quickly learn to read and pronounce the key characters. Native language can help you with pronunciation. Rules of language are more rigid than in English too, so you don't need to learn from the myriad of exceptions to every rule.
Difficulties in learning Chinese language
Complex, mysterious still, ridiculous many students from western worlds are attracted to China because of the writing system, which is surely one of the scripts most fascinating in the world. The more you learn the Chinese characters about the most exciting and compelling it becomes. A study of Chinese characters can become a permanent obsession, and you soon find yourself involved in the daily task of accumulation, drip of the vast ocean of characters, in a vain attempt to accumulate in the leaky bucket with memory long term. Signs of beauty are undeniable, but the Chinese people began to realize the importance of literacy, it becomes clear that these ideographs have been a bit like the bound feet - some fetishists may have liked how they looked but they are not practical for daily use. From practical standpoint, many things one could do to improve the language with time and develop a set of skills that has more value in the labor market. Learning Chinese was a wise move for many other reasons but not to those who need to make money or get a better job. Comparison of learning western language compared to Chinese is striking.
Ted
www.singaporechinesetuition.com
Singaporemathstuition is the leading chinese tuition agency in Singapore that specializes in private chinese tuition of all levels from primary, secondary to JC level and at affordable rates. Visit our website for more information.
It is often considered one of the most difficult languages in the world. It has no alphabet and the characters (also called hieroglyphs) must be remembered in learning. It has five recognized Dialect Groups, meaning fifty-six dialects! Speaking this language has also four tones, sounding like a rapid series of almost identical monosyllables that could easily create confusion.
All of these seem to make it almost inaccessible for the people interested in studying it or get in contact with it.
However, Chinese is a very fascinating and interesting language, full of challenges and not the last, very important in the international relationships, between people of different categories. Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language, the term sinophone, coinciding in analogy with anglophone or francophone, referring to the people who speak Chinese language natively, or prefer it as a medium of communication. The term sinophone is derived from by "Sinae", the Latin word for the ancient China. There is a dispute about whether linguistic groups of Chinese language should be categorized as languages or dialects. However, it is usually accepted that there are five major dialect groups within the language group of Chinese: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Yue and Hakka.
Mandarin or Simplified Chinese is the official language spoken in mainland China where is known as Pu-Tong-Hua, Taiwan (known as Guo-Yu) and Singapore (Hua-Yu). It is to retain that in Singapore is official language but not the main one. Simplified Chinese is spoken by approximately 1 billion people all over the world, starting from South Eastern Asia until other regions in the world where the Chinese population is very representative, like Australia, Mauritius, Peru, North America, etc.
In China, the Government included the present official language in 1948, after the establishment of the new People's Republic of China; one of the major tasks of the Chinese governments during the second half of the twentieth century, was to standardize the common language in order to make the written language more accessible. Mandarin was created based on Beijing dialect, being used over the years in public institutions, on the radio and television, in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools.
As China was during the years an important economical power in the world, it was also an attractive partner for businessmen from a lot of countries. In the last years, the economy of China has known a major development, becoming in 2008 the third largest economical power in the world, after the United States and Japan. China has been the fastest growing major nation for the past quarter of the century with an average annual GDP growth rate above 10%!
Now, you would say: "Ok, but what is the connection between the China's economical increase and Chinese translations?"
Well, the impetuous development of China's economy in the last years had as consequence the increase of businessmen's interest towards this country, in the same way! In this respect, the necessity and importance of translations from/in Chinese to English (especially) of different texts, correspondence, documents, certificates, etc, used in business relationships appeared as a very important and essential activity. Moreover, it is an important factor, very helpful in the development of relationships between businessmen all over the world that use these two languages.
There are also the ordinary people all over the world that get in contact with Chinese people, establishing different cultural, personal, friendship relationships and even marriages. Thus, in order to facilitate the communication, it appears for them the necessity of translating text, messages, personal documents, certificates, degrees, etc.
Here, intervenes the English-Chinese translators' part, but about this please read in my next article.
Click here for more information about Chinese-English translations: http://www.sparkling-markets.com/ChineseTranslations.html
Cristina Dong is an experienced translator from English to Chinese and reverse of different texts, including also personal documents! Graduate of Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), very passionate of chinese language and culture. Do not hesitate: http://www.sparkling-markets.com/ChineseTranslations.html
