China Archives | Raptor Translations Magazine

Your Ultimate Guide to The Languages of China!

27Apr

By Gareth SeagullNo Comments

Culture

Your Ultimate Guide to The Languages of China!

Today, it often seems like China is taking over the world, their industry is seemingly everywhere, and their language is spoken by 1.3 billion people. Yet, the languages of China are not as cut-and-dry as you may think... Indeed, as with pretty much every other country in the world, there are numerous languages spoken in China. 302 to be exact, more so than any other country on Earth (but then again, China is the fourth largest country in the world!) (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Official Language of China According to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, there is only one official language of China: Standard Chinese If you live in the west, chances are that you've never heard of someone refer to it as "Standard Chinese"...

15 Chinese Slang Words to Sound Like a Native!

Chinese is one of the most spoken languages in the world, with one the most spoken variant being Mandarin. To sound like a native, you’ll want to learn at least a few Chinese slang words. These are among the best! There are actually two distinct versions of Chinese slang: verbal and internet slang. The latter is naturally the newest, although much of the latter has entered verbal slang. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 15. 丑八怪 (chǒu bā guài) - (Very) ugly Personally, out of all the Chinese slang terms I know of, 丑八怪 is my absolute favorite! If not due to its somewhat offensive slang meaning, because of what its slang meaning actually means! If you were to look at 丑八怪 in the dictionary, you'd find that 丑八怪 translates as "Monster-looking"!...

Why Chinese Doesn’t Rule The World

Chinese is the most spoken language in the world with roughly 1.2 billion native speakers. Much more than the measly 360 million native English speakers, or the measly 350 million native Spanish speakers. So this begs the question, why isn’t Mandarin, the Lingua Franca? There are many reasons why English is the Lingua Franca and not one of the many dialects of Chinese. One of the largest may be the fact that 1.5 billion people speak English as either a first or second language. This is more than the speakers of the many dialects of Chinese. And plus, the 1.5 billion speakers of English, are dispersed throughout the World, not just situated in one country. In this case, only China and some of its surrounding countries. Most people know that if a Uruguayan man, a Russian man and ...