Pimsleur Language Courses are audio courses and are a great way to learn while driving, exercising, etc.
To see the Pimsleur CHINESE Language Courses, click here.
Linguaphone audio language courses will teach you to read, write and speak your new language!
To see the Linguaphone CHINESE Language
Courses,
click here.
Additional Language Courses & Learning Aids.
To see our selection of Additional CHINESE Language
Courses & Learning Aids, click here.
Rosetta Stone Language Software is an interactive CD-Rom course and is great for people who like to learn with visual pictures and text. You will need a computer to use the courses.
To see the Rosetta Stone CHINESE Language
Software, click here.
Handheld Electronic Dictionaries and Translators.
To see our selection of CHINESE Handheld
Electronic Dictionaries & Translators, click here.
The CHINESE Language: Chinese is the mother tongue of over 1 billion people. Spoken Chinese has varied regional dialects. The two most common dialects are Mandarin and Cantonese. The pronunciation of the two are totally different.
The two are both tonal languages (different tones have different meanings for the same sound.) and they also have different vowels and consonants too. Mandarin has four tones while Cantonese has more than six. People who can understand only either Mandarin or Cantonese can communicate with each other by writing because they use the same written characters with a few exceptions.
Mardarin is the official language in Mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore. The Mandarin dialect is used by most of the Chinese schools, colleges and universities and in most TV programs, movies and radio stations all over the country (even in Guangzhou or Canton where people speak Cantonese in their daily lives.) Mandarin is one of the five official languages in the United Nations.
Cantonese is mainly spoken in Hong Kong, Guangdong (where Guangzhou/Canton is the capital) and Guangxi provinces and most of the overseas Chinese communities including Australia, Europe, North America and other parts of the world.