Canada is a multicultural and multilingual country, esp. in its Western Gate Vancouver with the blowing Chinese Wind. Many of you must have heard about its official language here Chinese Mandarin. The most widely spoken official language in the world by over 836 millions. However, most of you might have never known there are three types of Mandarin.

There are three types of Mandarin: 1) Mainland Mandarin, Pu3 Tong1 Hua4, in Chinese Romanization System PinYin; Poo Toong Hwah in Wade Giles Phonetic System (which was invented by Mr.Thomas WADE and Mr.Herbert GILES in 1867), literally means "the Common Language"; Guan1 Hua4 or Gwan Hwah, literally means "Official Language" which was officially unionized and widely spread in Mainland China since 1728; 2) Guo2 Yu3 or Gwaw Yew, the term used by Overseas Chinese), National Mandarin (called Guo2 Yu3, Gwaw Yew, spoken by Taiwanese), and 3) Singaporean-Malaysian Mandarin (called Hua2 Yu3 meaning "Chinese Language" spoken in Southeast Asia). The difference is approximately 15% between the first two languages. No need to worry about it!!! You may also hear it referred to as Zhong1 Wen2, Joong One; the language of the Chinese people) informally; or Han4 Yu3, Hahn Yew; the language of the HAN people) under formal situations, the majority of Chinese as the descendents of the HAN dynasty, one of the golden eras of Chinese history, 206BC-220AD).

Many learners are scared by Chinese as they think they have been stuck by the most difficult language in the world. Which is the most difficult language to learn? Chinese belongs to Sino-Tibetan linguistic system. Sanskrit and Latin, are the hardest ancient languages to learn as they are lost almost. In modern days, Navajo (The" Southern Athabaskan Language by Native Americans; no adults can learn it.), Hebrew & Arabic (in Writing) & Greek, Hungarian, Korean, Japanese & Chinese (in Speaking and Writing) are the EIGHT most difficult ones, depending on many considerably factors.

A native speaker of Spanish will find Portuguese much easier to learn than a native speaker of Chinese, for example, because Portuguese is very similar to Spanish, while Chinese is very different, so first language is an important factor. The more different a language is from our mother tongue, the harder it will be to learn!!! Many people assume that Chinese is the hardest language to learn, possibly influenced by the thought of learning Chinese characters, and the pronunciation of Chinese does appear to be very difficult for foreign learners. However, for Japanese speakers, who already use about the most common 1,945 out of the original 27,533 contemporary (The Latest Microsoft GBK 18030 Group) and ancient 42,711 up to 79,487 Traditional Chinese Characters named "KanJi" (=Han4 Zi4) in their Japanese, the writing will be less of a challenge than it will for people from languages using the Roman alphabet.

According to my own teaching experience to expatriates and Vancourites, I myself believe it is much easier for you beginners or even intermediate students start all over again with spoken Mandarin only focusing on SPEAKING initially (SPEED CHINESE at www.speedchinese.ca and SPEED MEDICAL CHINESE at www.bettermedicine.ca), the official Chinese language recognized by UN since its birth on Oct.24th, 1945, and updated with Simplified Chinese characters in 1971, and compared with spoken Cantonese for reference if necessary, which is most widely spoken dialect overseas China since the 1st Gold Rush. This is because Mainland Mandarin with 2,235 Simplified Chinese characters (Jian2 Ti3 Zi4) reformed from 1957-1959 has only FOUR different phonetic intonations (tones). Just like American English is easier than the so-called "Int'l English" (including British English, Canadian English, Australian English, German English, etc.). Both politically and economically, it has become one of the most dominating linguistic tools in the last century after Elizabeth English. Before that, British English won over French in most colonial countries, in the 19th century, except for Quebec. The business language is English while the key to the artistic world is French. The key to the future is definitely the Mainland Mandarin. Shall we start learning the future language and the trend before the existing facts? A fact is a fact. It is the history in the past or on this day we are not supposed to forget.

Canada is famous for its multiculturalism and multilingualism, unique from the so-called "melting pot" in the States. So is China with 56 nationalities or minorities and many of their own dialects without numbers. For example, more than 270 different dialects with different accents are spoken in South, Southeast of China, and that is why Cantonese is served as another "common language" in those areas. Among all of the dialects, Cantonese (a.k.a: Yue4 Yu3, Yweh Yew/Kwang Tung Hwah) , Swatowese (Chao2 Shan4 Hua4, Swa Tow Hwah,), Hakka (Ke4 Jia1 Hua4, Kuh Jyah Hwah) , Taiwanese, Min3 Nan3 Hua4, Meen Nan Hwah) , ShangHai (Wu2, Woo in abbreviation/ShangHai Hwah), HuNan (Xiang1, Shyahng in abbr./HuNan Hwah), AnHui (Gan4, Gahn in abbr. or AnHui Hwah) are the major ones.

I believe you have obtained a clearer big picture of our largest visible minority in Canada by now. A dream says we hope we will succeed. A goal says we will succeed. A plan says we will have succeeded. A piece of the action says we have succeeded. Your success is our success! Let's crash this difficult language together! Call me at 778.883.1728 or shoot me an e-mail to kk@waitungkwok.com?

See www.speedchinese.ca and http://www.bettermedicine.ca" for more info. Professional quality work is priority #1! Flexible with hours as home tutoring services are now available in GVRD.
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• Location: Greater Vancouver, B.C.
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