Mandarin, also known as Standard Chinese, is the official language of China (known as Putonghua) and Taiwan (known as Guoyu). It is also one of the four official languages in Singapore and one of the six official languages of United Nations.  Mandarin is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both the PRC and Taiwan. 

The Chinese language is thousands of years old. In fact, it is the only language that has had one fairly consistent written language for more than 3,000 consecutive years.  Based on pictographs, Chinese characters combine shapes with sounds and connotations to form unique, block-shaped characters that carry meaning. The written forms of Standard Chinese are essentially equivalent, although simplified characters are used in Mainland China while people in Taiwan, Macao and Hong Kong generally use traditional characters.  At AMA, we teach simplified characters and pinyin. 

Facts & Stats
• Over one fifth of the world (over one billion people) speaks a Chinese Language as their native tongue with nearly 90% being able to understand Mandarin.
• Chinese is a tonal language. Mandarin, the most prominent of the dialects, consists of 4 tones (flat, falling, rising and rising/falling.) Other Chinese dialects can have up to 9 tonal variations.
• Chinese Languages are known for being indirect or to understate meaning, which is a cultural trait, older than the language itself.
• The unified writing system contains roughly 40,000 characters. Literate Chinese need to be able to understand a minimum of 2,000, and to read a newspaper you need to understand a minimum of 3,000.