TOWARDS the end of last year, on an impulse, I bought a couple of teach-yourself-Mandarin books and a repeat-after-me CD, and tried to learn the language. I was beguiled by the delicate dancing ...

Unlike the English language, which uses the Roman alphabet, Mandarin does not have an alphabet. Mandarin characters have developed over approximately 4,000 years. But Mandarin characters aren't ...

Chinese is not written in a phonetic alphabet in the way that European languages are. While some Chinese characters have a phonetic function and give you a clue as to their pronunciation, others are ...