Used by Han people in China, has a history of thousands of years in China. Chinese language has a long history, having established a fairly mature written language more than 3,000 years ago.

Chinese language has more than 1.2 billion users and can be regarded as the one spoken by greatest number of persons. In addition to China, some people in Singapore and Malaysia also use Chinese, and millions of oversea Chinese and foreign citizens of Chinese origin distributed around the world use Chinese various Chinese dialects as native language.

Chinese language is main language used by Chinese, also one of the working languages of United Nations.

Standard language of Chinese is Putonghua, also known as Mandarin or guoyu in Taiwan. It is called huayu in Singarpore and Malaysia. Mandarin has Beijing pronunciation as its standard pronunciation, northern dialect as its basic dialect, and typical modern vernacular Chinese as its grammatical standard. Mandarin offers convenience for communication between people in different areas or of different ethnic groups in China.

China has a vast territory and a large population. Even though people all use Chinese language, they speak in different ways in different areas, which are called dialects. Generally called local languages, dialects are branches of Chinese language and are only uese in certain areas. At present, Chinese language has seven dialects; northern dialect, Wu dialect, Xiang dialect, Gan dialect, Hakka, Min dialect and Yue or Guangdong dialect which also known as Cantonese. Among them, northern dialect is used most widely. Hakka, Fujian dialect and Guangdong dialect are also used by oversea Chinese.

Dialects of Chinese language are very complicated. Various dialects differ from each other in three aspect: pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. And the difference in pronunciation is the most outstanding. There is a saying in the coastal areas of southern China: Pronunciations differ within 10-mile. If all people in defferent areas speaks in local dialects, it will lead to trouble in communications.

Chinese people had realized very early that a common language should be used in social intercourse. Compared with dialects differing with 10-mile area, mandarin can be understood by all people. Since it is beneficial for cultural exchange and information transmission between ethnic groups and people in different places, Chinese government attaches great importance to popularizing mandarin and encourage people to learn mandarin.