Chinese Language
Why Learn Chinese?
Traveling to China doesn't require you to learn the language, but we found out that those that know a little bit before they go, and willing to learn some there will enjoy it that much more. The natives just love it when you try to speak their language and are more than willing to help and even teach you more. Learning any language while you live in the country can be so much easier to learn while you're there.
The greatest benefit is really being able to go to the markets and negotiate, order food, get directions and speak with the bus or taxi driver. Just becoming Chinese for a bit really helps when you at least know part of the language. Not a requirement, but sure makes your stay more enjoyable, especially the farther away from tourist areas you go, the more you will find this useful.
One product we wish we would of had on our trip is a electronic handheld translator. Almost all Chinese students had an electonic translator that they would bring with them all over.
You can buy one when you arrive in China, but one thing we found is that the products there, don't last as long, so you might want to get some help making a decision when you are ready to purchase. Most smart phones can get an app to have this on your phone, we highly recommend it. We often use the Google Translate service, its free and it shows the characters, ping ying and also has the pronouciation too.
The greatest benefit is really being able to go to the markets and negotiate, order food, get directions and speak with the bus or taxi driver. Just becoming Chinese for a bit really helps when you at least know part of the language. Not a requirement, but sure makes your stay more enjoyable, especially the farther away from tourist areas you go, the more you will find this useful.
One product we wish we would of had on our trip is a electronic handheld translator. Almost all Chinese students had an electonic translator that they would bring with them all over.
You can buy one when you arrive in China, but one thing we found is that the products there, don't last as long, so you might want to get some help making a decision when you are ready to purchase. Most smart phones can get an app to have this on your phone, we highly recommend it. We often use the Google Translate service, its free and it shows the characters, ping ying and also has the pronouciation too.
Language History
There is somewhere around 70,000 Chinese charactersand phonetic sounds. The average person needs to know around 3,000 characters to be able to read the newspaper and really the amount that is taught in the secondary school is roughly 5,000. The vast majority of the Chinese people are Han and approximately 95% speak Chinese, as opposed to other languages such as Tibetan, Miao and Mongolian spoken by minorities. More people in the world speak Chinese than anyother language, followed by English and then Spanish. It has been estimated taht until the 18th century more than half of the world's printed books were Chinese. Highly changing languages like Latin and Russian make many of additions to, or changes in, the sound of a word to indicate grammatical differences; modern Chinese, on the other hand, never changes, and seldom adds, sounds for such purposes. 
This map gives an general idea of just how common Mandarin Chinese is all over China.
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Common Phrases
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Below are a few videos that we found go over some basics to speaking Chinese, like numbers and greetings. We're sure there are many others you can find and even programs to purchase, but these are a few we found helpful. Pleas enjoy and good luck learning Chinese.
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