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| Language Programs |
| Mandarin Chinese |
This is the national language of China and the most widely spoken language in the world. If you learn Mandarin you will potentially be able to speak with more people in the world than with any other language. If you learn the basics of Mandarin while you are visiting China during a gap year or career break you will have tremendous advantage because few Westerners are able to speak this dialect. That’s because People’s Republic of China is a fast growing economic power in the world today. And Mandarin is becoming more and more important to the western world.
If you learn some Mandarin, you will be able to communicate easily with the local people. When you make the effort to learn Mandarin, Chinese people really appreciate your efforts since they are used to western travelers not being able to speak more than just a few words of Mandarin.
While learning Mandarin, remember that it is a tonal language. A word must be spoken at exactly the correct pitch in order to be understood. In Mandarin you will be taught sounds that are completely different from those in English. When you learn Mandarin, you will need to master the Chinese writing system which is alien to the Roman script as well as the Western writing system.
The ideal thing for you to do would be to enroll in a Paid Teaching English Programme China which suits anyone who wants to experience Chinese culture in-depth by living and working there on a gap year. It includes comprehensive Mandarin lessons.
Travelers doing this program get about four weeks of training before they start their teaching jobs, learning Mandarin alongside. The plus point of this program is that you learn Mandarin and then test your new skills in the classroom itself. You will learn as much from your pupils as they will from you, and you get paid in the process.
Cantonese is the other major dialect of Chinese, spoken widely in the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces of mainland China, besides Hong Kong and Macau. But the official language of government, international relations and much education in China is Mandarin.
Both languages are tonal (the same sound said in a different tone will change the meaning of a word) and therefore proves quite difficult for Non-Chinese speakers to learn. The varied tonal pronunciation, vowels and consonants effectively turn Mandarin and Cantonese into two different languages, although both use the same written characters. |
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