Mandarin Chinese

British

noun

the official language of China since 1917; the form of Chinese spoken by about two thirds of the population and taught in schools throughout China See also Chinese Pekingese

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Program administrators hope to add Mandarin Chinese and Thai.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 27, 2025

Speakers of languages including Estonian and Finnish had the highest match rate of 100%, with the lowest at 70% for speakers of languages including Albanian and Mandarin Chinese.

From Science Daily • Nov. 20, 2024

“The end goal is the same,” Wu said in an interview in Mandarin Chinese.

From Seattle Times • May 5, 2024

Tibetan educational sociologist Gyal Lo can speak Mandarin Chinese fluently - but he would rather not.

From BBC • Mar. 9, 2024

Somewhat analogous to Urdu, in that it is a literary language used by the educated classes for intercommunication throughout a polygot empire, is the Mandarin Chinese.

From International Language Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar by Clark, Walter John

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023