Mandarin Chinese is spoken by about 70% of the Chinese population. With around 990 million native speakers, it is the most widely spoken first language in the world.

Some dialects of Mandarin are not mutually intelligible with the Beijing dialect.

The word Mandarin comes from several translations, originally referring to officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Mandarin is a tonal language with four distinct tones.

Mandarin has served as the lingua franca of the Chinese government since the 14th century.

In addition to China and Taiwan, Mandarin is widely spoken in Singapore and Malaysia.

Mandarin does not have equivalents for the articles a, an, or the.

Unlike most European languages, Mandarin has no gendered nouns. Which is fairly common with Asian languages.

There is no single, simple word for “yes” in Mandarin.

Mandarin is not widely spoken in Hong Kong, where Cantonese remains dominant.

President Herbert Hoover and his wife lived in China for several years and both spoke Mandarin. They sometimes used it in the U.S. to avoid eavesdropping.

At the Louvre Museum in Paris, there is a Mandarin sign instructing visitors not to defecate on the grounds.

The Mandarin phrase for “so-so” or “meh” is mǎmǎ hūhū (马马虎虎), which literally means “horse horse tiger tiger.”

Mandarin speakers often type “88” as a way of saying goodbye, since it sounds like bà ba when spoken.

In relationships, Mandarin speakers sometimes affectionately call their partners Zhūzhū (猪猪, “piggy”), and it is not taken as an insult.