Mandarin meaning “speech of officials” is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and south-western China. Because Mandarin mainly includes the northern dialects, the term "northern dialect(s)" is also referred to Mandarin Chinese informally. When the Mandarin group is taken as one language, as is often done in academic literature, the Mandarin language has more native speakers than any other language. The "standard" in Standard Mandarin refers to the official standardized language of China based on the Beijing dialect.

It is spoken in China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia and there are 885 million people with Mandarin as their first language. The total amount of speakers of Mandarin is around 1,365,100,000.

Study abroad in a location such as Beijing in a summer camp, a summer school or a language school and learn Mandarin Chinese and experience the Chinese culture and Chinese food.