Chinese phrasebook

Mandarin Chinese is the official language of mainland China, and one of the official languages of Taiwan and Singapore. Chinese is also one of the official languages in Hong Kong and Macau, although most local people speak Cantonese instead of Mandarin. In English, it is often just called "Mandarin" or "Chinese". While not an official language, it is also widely studied and spoken by the Chinese minorities in Malaysia, Brunei and Myanmar, and commonly heard in Chinatowns throughout the world. In China, it is called Pǔtōnghuà (普通话), meaning "common speech", while in Taiwan it is referred to as Guóyǔ (國語), "the national language." In Indonesia, it is widely known as Zhōnghuáyǔ (中华语), and in Singapore and Malaysia, it simply referred to as Huáyǔ (华语). It has been the main language of education in mainland China and Taiwan since the 1950s, so most non-elderly locals speak it regardless of what their native language or dialect is.

While the spoken Mandarin in the above places is more or less the same, the written characters are different. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau all still use traditional characters, whereas Mainland China and Singapore use a simplified derivative. In Indonesia, the older Chinese generations tend to use the traditional characters, but younger generations tend to use the simplified one, though most of the time, the usage of the Latin script is way more commonly practiced.