How do you say "tea" in Chinese?

There is a wave of popular opinion, I'm sure you've heard it, which says that since China is developing into a super power, we will all inevitably be speaking Chinese one day. I'm not so sure. And I guess by "we" they are referring to future generations; although I do like the idea that I might somehow acquire the ability to speak Chinese through a kind of passive participation in the Chinese economy.

Whether or not it one day becomes a truly international language, Chinese is already well established as a key language of international finance and trade. China is poised to overtake Japan as the world's second largest economy and is already the world's largest exporter, automobile buyer and steel producer. Add to this the surging capitalist economies of Taiwan and Hong Kong and it's easy to see why there is such a high demand for Chinese language services.

So, if you're thinking of getting ahead of the game and learning Chinese, you'd be wise to start with Mandarin, the variant of Chinese spoken in mainland China and Taiwan. In case you're considering using your language skills for international diplomacy, Standard Mandarin is also one of the six main languages of the United Nations and is the variant spoken by the vast majority of the 1 billion Chinese speakers worldwide.

If you've ever commissioned a Chinese translation, you'll know that there are two character systems (simplified and traditional) and three main variants of written Chinese, simplified Mandarin (used in mainland China), traditional Mandarin (used in Taiwan) and traditional Cantonese (used in Hong Kong). Doing what it says on the tin, the simplified character system was developed by the People's Republic of China in 1954 in an attempt to promote mass literacy.

There's no doubt that if we will all be speaking Chinese one day then it is Mandarin we will be conversing in. But if you're hoping to pick up Chinese from a Chinese native speaker living in your country then the chances are you'll be learning Cantonese, the variant of Chinese spoken in Hong Kong, its neighbouring province of Guangdong and the most widely spoken variant among Chinese speakers living abroad.

Apparently a Chinese speaker needs to recognise around 3,000 characters to read a mainland newspaper and a large unabridged dictionary contains over 40,000 characters. According to my calculations, if we start now and learn one character a day then we would have learnt them all by 2120, that should be in plenty of time I reckon. Ignoring the obvious problem with that plan, I am going to start with the character for "tea".

If you'd like to know more, please give us a call on +44 (0)1727 862722 or drop us an e-mail.

The Language Factory: Taking Language Further for you and your business.