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The Chinese Language(s)

Everything Everywhere Daily

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How to Learn Mandarin

For a non-Chinese speaker, perhaps the defining characteristic of any Chinese language is the fact that it's a tonal language. Mandarin and other Chinese languages use tones to indicate a word, not just pronunciation. Cantonese has six tones which are used in everyday modern usage; as many as nine in classical Mandarin. The Chinese system of writing is unique, in that it is the only logographic system of writing widely used in the world today. Every other language in the world uses some form of alphabet where characters represent sounds.

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