Mandarin Chinese and English, each of which has over 1 billion speakers, are the top two most-spoken languages in the world.

Mandarin Chinese is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. It is the official language of mainland China and Taiwan and one of the official languages in Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore. It is also spoken in Indonesia, southern Vietnam, Malaysia, and other parts of the world.

As the top two largest economies in the world, it is imperative for the United States and China to understand each other and learning each other's official languages plays a critical and crucial role in developing this understanding.

At Fieldston, Mandarin Chinese classes are offered to students beginning in the 6th grade. This website is focused on the Fieldston Upper School Chinese program and aims to share its students' projects, activities, and resources.

The World’s Languages, In 7 Maps and Charts

Is Mandarin Chinese the most difficult language to learn? Of course not! Learning Chinese is not as hard as you think!

Chinese grammar is much simpler. It has no conjugations, no articles, no tenses, no cases, no genders. It has fixed sentence patterns, no inversion. For instance, "你喜欢吃什么？" is "What do you like to eat?" . When you answer, it is "我喜欢吃________。“ You keep the same sentence order and just replace the question word with your answer.

Chinese vocabulary is generally built up in a very logical way. As you progress, you will notice that many new words that you learn are simply creative combinations of other basic words you have learned before. For example, "电(diàn)"means "electricity", “话" means "talk", guess what "电话" means. Yes, it is "telephone"! "脑(nǎo)" means "brain", guess what "电脑“ means. Yes, it means "computer"! "影(yǐng)"means "shadow", guess what ”电影" means. Yes, it is "movie"! The more you learn, the more connections you can make. It is like a game!

Do you know that since Chinese is a tonal language, when you speak Chinese, you use both sides of the brain? When you speak English, only the left hemisphere of your brain is used. When Chinese is processed, there are neural dynamics between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

In terms of Chinese characters, some characters are stylized representation of objects, some are expressing abstract ideas through form, but the majority of characters are radical-phonetic compounds. A radical will help you guess the meaning of a character, and its phonetic compound will help you guess its pronunciation. Also, through your regular keyboard, you can type Chinese on your computer!