Introduction:

Chinese language is the principal language group of eastern Asia, belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese exists in a number of varieties that are popularly called dialects but that are usually classified as separate languages by scholars. More people speak a variety of Chinese as a native language than any other language in the world, and Modern Standard Chinese is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The sound system of Chinese is marked by its use of tones to indicate differences of meaning between words or syllables that are otherwise identical in sound. Chinese words often have only one syllable, although modern Chinese makes greater use of compounds than did the earlier language.

China is emerging as one of the strong global economies for the last two decades and is the world’s biggest foreign exchange reserve holder with over 3 trillion US dollars. Business, travel, and trade are increasing with China, so it will not hurt you to start learning Chinese in India. China’s rise as an economic and global superpower is a reality and that is why the late Indian Ministry of External Affairs is asking Indians to learn Chinese as a second language. Additionally, it can also be rewarding, and knowing it can benefit your career and help improve your travels to the Chinese-speaking region in Asia. It doesn’t matter if you are from Kerala or Bihar because learning a new language has nothing to do with it. In this blog, we’ll discuss some of the ways to learn Chinese:

1. Listen to Mandarin as Often as Possible – Start out by focusing on listening. Just get used to the sounds. You should read whatever you are listening to, but do so using a phonetic writing system, such as Pinyin, in order to get a better sense of what you are hearing. You will have to learn the characters eventually but you can leave the characters out at first, and instead, try to get a little momentum in the language.
2. Immersing into Chinese Media – Watching TV and movies in Chinese will help you in innumerous ways. You need to hear it, hear the proper tones, hear it in context to the storyline and in relation to the human connections being made, in order to really encompass more of the language as a whole. You can learn a lot by listening to popular Chinese songs too.
3. Learn Pinyin – The secret to pronouncing Chinese words, and reading Chinese characters for that matter, is to start by learning pinyin. Pinyin is the most commonly used system for writing Chinese using roman letters. Each character in Chinese represents one syllable and can be spelled out phonetically in pinyin.
4. Start learning Chinese Characters – Once you start learning characters, start with the goal of understanding how Chinese characters work as a system rather than rote memorization. Check out my guide to learning characters and Chinese vocabulary as a starting point. Once you have a good system of learning Chinese characters in place, you will want to start reading to solidify words you have learned and further expand your vocabulary.
5. Start listening to Chinese – It’s important to start listening to Chinese as much as possible. Improving your listening is a skill that won’t happen overnight and takes considerable time. Luckily it is something you can do both actively and passively.