Spoken Chinese vs. Written Chinese

The Chinese language has two distinct styles.

First, there is Spoken Chinese, which is used in everyday informal conversation, and is known as 口语 kǒu yǔ or literally, "mouth language." Second, there is Written Chinese, which is more formal than Spoken Chinese, and is used in composing articles, creating literary works or writings for formal publications. This formal written style of Chinese is known as 书面语 shū miàn yǔ, or literally "book-face-language." The vocabulary and structures of kouyu are considerably different from those used in shumianyu. Therefore, in order to read Chinese, one has to learn shumianyu.

What will I learn in this entire volume?

In this volume, we will teach you the basic vocabulary and structures of shumianyu. In each chapter, we will provide many examples of shumianyu vocabulary and structures and their spoken equivalents. By comparing these two styles, we hope you will gain a better understanding of the characteristics of both. We will also suggest easy-to-follow learning steps and strategies to help you make the most of your study of shumianyu.

At various points in each chapter, we will direct you to the CD-ROM for practice exercises. You will also find the second half of our list of frequently used characters, with characters 1001-2000.

Shumianyu

Chapter 1 / Part 2