a_yanakz
Kazakhstan
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Thanks for your question, that will warm up the cold topic.
Glad to know you are interesting in learning Chinese. For English, I am just a beginner, but for Chinese, I could be your mentor.
As China is so big country and with a complex history, it is not strange that there are several languages in different place.
The official language of China is Mandarin, but in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Guangdong province, there is another language called Cantonese. Of course there are so many other native languages in China at different places and for different nation. But Mandarin and Cantonese are the most popular language. I could say maybe all Chinese can say Mandarin and 1/10 Chinese can speak Cantonese.
The different of these two language is not only its accent but also their writing. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, and including all the Chinatown oversea, the Chinese is written in the Complex form(eg. 中國), that is the original pattern of the Chinese character. But in mainland of China, we use the Simple form(eg. 中国), that was created by the new Chinese government in about 1950’s, which is easy to master but lost some culture.
Anyway, if you will deal with the people from mainland, you shall learn Mandarin and the Simple form, otherwise you need to learn the Cantonese and the Complex form. My suggestion is, you shall learn Mandarin and the Simple form, which is wide used and easy to master.
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