Mandarin

How the most spoken language is also the most difficult to learn
General Stats
(Guanhua): language of officials ~ 14th century lingua franca
Yongzheng Emperor 1723
(Guoyu), (Putonghua), (Huayu)
Basically what people refer to as Chinese
Official language of China, Taiwan, and Singapore
1B+ speakers, 899M L1, 178M L2
Dialects
(Beifan)
(Zhongyuan)
(Nanfan)
(Taibei)
Zhuyin/Bopomofo
Orthography
Alphabets cannot be seen in the words
Subject-verb-object I like to play basketball
Left to right, right to left, up-down
Up to 64 strokes -
Commas for listing and commas for breaks
Specific modifiers for objects -
Characters make up according to association
Words can be broken down to smaller words, sometimes this helps with understanding
Also works on words with two or more characters
Related ones often have one or more similarities
Can combine two or more of the same characters to form other characters


Traditional or Simplified?
Simplified Chinese
Hong Kong and Macau
Taiwan
Pinyin or Zhuyin?
Phonology
Tongue rolls

No -ed, but we add time markers such as before
Unique Words/Phrases
(Chenyu) - Idioms based on stories, usually four words
Tongue twisters

Combination words
Pragmatics
Respect elders -
Sarcasm -
Drawled out
, ,
Doubling words to sound cute -
Personal Value
Mandarin is my default language when Im trying to relax
People say Im a lot nicer and less serious when I speak Mandarin
Being from the only place that still uses Traditional Mandarin, I seek to preserve
this by also using zhuyin over pinyin.
References
http://pinpinchinese.com/wp-content/uploads/simplified-vs-traditional-chinese-characters.png
http://www.ethnologue.com
https://i.stack.imgur.com/MNOwz.png
http://www.omniglot.com/images/writing/zhuyin.gif
http://wordyenglish.com/musing/i/taiwan_keyboard_layout.svg
https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f657d6d628fe4fbc0644be97afbae133
https://www.moedict.tw/%E6%8B%9B%E8%B2%A1%E9%80%B2%E5%AF%B6.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Chinese_Character_zhao1_cai2_jin4_bao3.svg/1075px-Chinese_Character_zhao1_cai2
_jin4_bao3.svg.png
http://a4.att.hudong.com/65/70/01300001024098143219700331082_s.jpg
http://zhs.glyphwiki.org/glyph/u7537.png
http://blog.tutorming.com/hs-fs/hubfs/gender-pronouns.jpg?t=1493793694379&width=650&name=gender-pronouns.jpg
http://twimg.edgesuite.net/images/ReNews/20141209/640_b4443698ce9edcf93755f08d656daf88.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZCmnHImdqOg/VOIxNueTo5I/AAAAAAAAEuk/_z_N7He78kQ/s1600/P1440655.jpg
http://travel.ulifestyle.com.hk/cms/news_photo/original/20160517142309_4_3.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/China_administrative_claimed_included.svg/857px-China_administrative_claimed_in
cluded.svg.png
http://www.sandiegochineseschool.com/Han-Yu-Pin-Yin%20Chart.jpg
Google.com
Me and Myself