This book is about the contemporary Chinese language as it is spoken and written in China today. Like the country itself, the Chinese language has changed dramatically over the past decades, although the writing system itsel:f is more than three thousand years old.

Its History and Current Usage has been written for people who are thinking of learning Chinese, or who have started learning it already. It is also for anyone who is simply curious about the language, attempt to teach Chinese -- there are many textbooks available which meet that aim. Rather, it provides the type of information a typical language text will not tell you information on how the language developed, how it is used today, regional variations, and the extraordinary richness of China's long literary tradition. It does not pretend that there is anything easy about learning Chinese--the fascination of Chinese lies in its complexity.

Dr Daniel Kane began his studies of Chinese at the University of Melbourne in 1967. He served as a diplomat for several years in the Australian Embassy in Beijing, and is now Professor of Chinese at Macquarie University, Sydney. He has broad interests in the field of Chinese Studies, including linguistics, intellectual history and current affairs.

Chapter 1 Introduction

 1.1 What is Chinese?

1.1.1 Who speaks Chinese?

1.1.2 Foreigners learning Chinese in the past

1.1.3 Foreigners learning Chinese today

1.1.4 How long will it take me to learn Chinese?

 1.2 HSK--The Chinese Proficiency Examination

1.2.1 Learning "a bit of Chinese"

1.2.2 The romanization question

1.2.3 The spread ofputonghua in China

1.2.4 Putonghua in Hong Kong

 1.3 Mandarin in Southeast Asia

 1.4 Chinese as a world language

1.4.1 Chinese dialects

1.4.2 How to start?

1.4.3 The spoken language

 1.5 Levels of Modern Chinese

1.5.1 Varieties ofputonghua

 1.6 Tones

Chapter 2 Chinese Characters

 2.1 Origins

2.1.1 The traditional six categories

2.1.2 The modern three categories

2.1.3 Pictographs

2.1.4 Loan graphs

2.1.5 Phonographs

2.1.6 How many radicals are there?

 2.2 Simplified radicals

2.2.1 Notes to the Chinese Characters Unified Radical Draft

 2.3 The phonetics

 2.4 How many Chinese characters are there?

2.4.1 How to learn characters

2.4.2 Characters and pinyin

 2.5 Simplification

2.5.1 Simplified characters and unsimplified characters

2.5.2 The simplified and traditional scripts--a comparison

2.5.3 Simplification by changing the phonetic element

2.5.4 Simplification by retaining part of a traditional character

2.5.5 Simplification based on the handwritten forms of characters

 2.6 Learning characters

 2.7 Characters with more than one pronunciation

 2.8 How can I learn characters more efficiently?

2.8.1 Learning words rather than characters

2.8.2 How many words do I need to know?

2.8.3 Character cards

2.8.4 Character writing as a motor skill

 2.9 The revival of traditional characters in modern China

 2.10 How to use a Chinese dictionary

 2.11 How to write Chinese characters

Chapter 3 History and Dialects

 3.1 A brief history of the Chinese language

3.1.1 The earliest transmitted texts

 3.2 Old Chinese

 3.3 Classical Chinese

 3.4 Middle Chinese

 3.5 Chinese during the Yuan dynasty

 3.6 Mandarin or Cantonese?

 3.7 Chinese dialects

3.7.1 The Wu dialects / A conversation in Shanghaiese

3.7.2 Central Chinese dialects

3.7.3 The southern dialects

 Cantonese / A conversation in Cantonese

 Hakka 100 / A conversation in Hakka

 Hokkien and Foochow

  / A conversation in Hokkien

  / A conversation in Foochow

  / A conversation in Teochew

 3.8 Comparative tables

Chapter 4 Grammar

 4.1 Nouns, pronouns and titles

4.1.1 Other terms of address

4.1.2 Family terms of address

 4.2 Numerals

4.2.1 Ordinais

4.2.2 Numbers as dates

4.2.3 Percentages

 4.3 Classifiers

 4.4 Calendar events

4.4.1 Days of the week

4.4.2 Months of the year

4.4.3 The seasons

4.4.4 Reign titles

4.4.5 Hexagenary stems

 4.5 Comparisons

 4.6 Adjectives

 4.7 Particles

4.7.1 Question particle 吗 ma

4.7.2 Question particle 呢 ne

4.7.3 Polite suggestion 吧 ba

4.7.4 Emphatic statement with 啊 α

 4.8 Expression of time

 4.9 Perfective aspect 了 le

4.9.1 Change of state 了 le

4.9.2 Double 了 le

 4.10 Past experience with 过 guo

 4.11 Continuous action with 着 zhe

 4.12 The three de particles: 的，地 and 得

4.12.1 Possessive particle 的 de

4.12.2 Adverbial particle 地 de

4.12.3 The structural particle 得 de with complements

 4.13 The disposal form (the 把 ba construction)

 4.14 Negatives

 4.15 The 被 bei construction and the passive

Chapter 5 Pronunciation

 5.1 Terminology

5.1.1 Voiced and voiceless

5.1.2 Aspirated and unaspirated

5.1.3 Palatals and retroflexes

5.1.4 Palatals

5.1.5 Retroflexes

 5.2 Final r

 5.3 Vowels

 5.4 Tones

5.4.1 Tone sandhi

5.4.2 The light tone

 5.5 The importance of getting it right

Chapter 6 Beyond the Basics

 6.1 Chinese in its social context

6.1.1 Greetings

6.1.2 Polite language--客气话keqihua

6.1.3 Polite expressions

6.1.4 Lack ofguanxi

 6.2 Culturally specific words

 6.3 New words

 6.4 Ancient loanwords

 6.5 Modern loanwords

6.5.1 Drinks

6.5.2 Foods

6.5.3 Dances and music

6.5.4 Animals

6.5.5 Games

6.5.6 Clothing

6.5.7 Vehicles and weapons

 6.6 Chinese words in English

 6.7 Acronyms

 6.8 Conversation fillers

 6.9 Euphemisms

 6.10 Exclamations

 6.11 Rude language

 6.12 Proverbs and sayings

 6.13 Classical allusions

 6.14 歇后语xiehouyu

 6.15 Illogical expressions

 6.16 Quotations

 6.17 Conclusion

Sources of Illustrations and Quotations

Suggestions for Further Reading