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22 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Where is China located geographically?
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In the eastern part of the Asian Continent
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1) Roughly how many people live in China?
2) What percentage of the world's population does this number represent? (Give as a fraction or percentage) |
1) Over one billion.
2) Over 25% or 1/4 |
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How many different minorities are there in China?
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55
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What is the dominant ethnic group in China?
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Han (汉)
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Name 3 of the largest minorities in China.
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Mongolian, Tibetan, and Zhuang
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What other cultures did China influence throughout history?
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Japan, Korea and other Asian Cultures.
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What does the Chinese name 中国 (zhōngguó) mean in English?
Why does China go by this name even to this day? |
The Central Kingdom.
Because they thought they were at the center of the world. |
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What is the standard language of China called?
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Mandarin Chinese
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Please describe what a Chinese Dialect is.
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Regional differences in pronunciation, words and grammar that are often different enough to make two dialects mutually unintelligible.
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Why can people who speak different dialects of Chinese still communicate in writing?
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Because written Chinese characters can be pronounced using a variety of different dialects without the characters themselves changing.
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What did the Chinese government do in 1958 regarding language in China?
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Declared that the dialect spoken near Beijing was to be the standard language of China.
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1) What are the Chinese names for the standard language of China?
2) What do westerners call this language? |
1) pǔtōnghuà - 普通话 or hànyǔ - 汉语
2)Mandarin |
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What type of Chinese is taught in school, used on TV, radio and official documents.
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Mandarin
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How many syllables does each Chinese character represent?
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One
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1) When was the earliest writing discovered in China?
2) What was this writing written on and what was it called? |
1) Between 1480 BC and 1122 BC
2) Oracle Bones ( Bones from Oxen) and turtle shells. It was called jiǎ gǔ wén - 甲骨文 |
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True or False - Two or more characters can be used together to make a new word but the characters remain the same?
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True.
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Why did the Chinese Government begin to simply characters in 1956?
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To make them easier to write.
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How many basic strokes are there in Chinese writing?
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4
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What system do we use to write Chinese sounds using English letters?
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pīnyīn - 拼音
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How many Chinese tones are there in Mandarin Chinese?
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5 - Including neutral tone.
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What are the names of the 5 tones?
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High tone, rising tone, low tone, falling tone and neutral or no tone
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True or False: Words with different meaning can have exactly the same pronunciation.
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Yes, many Chinese words work this way. For example, the sound méi - can mean plum, eyebrow or coal (see page. 6)
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