The rise of China both in economic terms, and as an increasingly important nation on the world stage, has been very well reported in recent years. Additionally, as China has become more open to the world, more and more people are visiting the country for vacations, as well as for business and trade purposes. It is for these reasons that many people want to learn] the Chinese languge. They know that speaking the language will not only allow them to better understand appreciate Chinese culture, but can also offer a significant business advantage when trading with China and Chinese companies.
It should be emphasized there are significant differences between the Chinese spoken in different parts of China. How to classify these varieties of Chinese in fact remains a highly controversial issue - some people identify each variety as a "language" and Chinese as a whole as a "language family", whereas others say that Chinese is more properly classified as a single language, with each variety of the language being a "dialect".
In any case, over 1 billion people speak one or another variety of Chinese, including more than 850 million people who speak the Mandarin (literally "Northern Dialect") variety of the language. Standard Mandarin is in fact the official language of the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of four official languages of Singapore, and of six official langauges of the United Nations.
If you would like to learn the Chinese language, there are many tools and resources available that can help. A variety of computer-based Chinese language courses are available, and many people find these very useful.
By S. Tanna. "Learn Chinese" was first published at http://www.downloadfocus.com/cat_language_chinese.php