China Guide > China Guidebook > Chinese Dictionary
Chinese Dictionary
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Prologue
Chinese is not only a language, it is a culture. The Chinese people are very proud of their long heritage and you cannot expect that everyone you meet will speak English. This has little to do with insufficient education. Areas that have a large tourism industry will have many more English speakers, generally English is not widely spoken by average people. We designed this dictionary as a tool to assist you while you are in China.
Pronunciation
The Chinese language is a tonal language of sound. Many words sound very similar but a slight tonal difference changes the meaning of the word.
Every word has a different Chinese character. In order to differentiate between these syllables it is important to know the right pronunciation. For this, Chinese has 4 different tones.
4 tones
- Tone: steady
- Tone: rising
- Tone: falling and rising
- Tone: falling
The most common example is the word "ma", which can have 5 different meaning, depending on the pronunciation.
Dictionary
We have prepared an extensive list of words and phrases that may be useful to you as a traveler in China.
By showing a Chinese person the Chinese Characters matching the English word, you will be able to communicate simple requests or have a short conversation.
Greetings
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