Chinese has seven major language groups Putonghua (Mandarin), Gan, Kejia (Hakka), Min(Taiwanese), Wu(Shanghainese), Xiang and Yue(Cantonese),of which the Mandarin language group forms the largest group. The language spoken in Beijing is often referred to as Mandarin or Putonghua.

Mandarin is commonly used(by more than 70 percent of the population)in the modern China as the country's predominant language.The majority of the 55 other ethnic groups have their own languages. There are also many dialects around the country. As a written language, Chinese has been used for 6,000 years.

Chinese and most related languages share features that distinguish them from most Western languages: they are monosyllabic, have little inflection, and are tonal. In order to indicate differences in meaning between words similar in sound, tone languages assign to words a distinctive relative pitch-high or low-or a distinctive pitch contour-level, rising, or falling.

In recent years, as tourism to China has been increasing, the use of English has been sweeping across the country. Most of the service staff in major cities can speak fluent or basic English.Now, there is no longer any reason to have language concerns when visiting China. Of course, it will be interesting and fun for you to learn some basic Putonghua.

There is a theoretical total of almost 50,000 written Chinese characters; only about 5,000 of these are frequently used. Among these 5,000, if you learn about 200 key words that are most often repeated in daily use, then you can say you know Chinese. Really learning to read and write Chinese is not nearly so formidable a task at all.