Why learn Chinese in Beijing?

There are many reasons why you should consider to learn Chinese in Beijing:

1. Beijing is the capital of China (it is the political epicentre of a 1.3 million strong state) and is the center of  culture, politics, history and business of the Chinese realm.
2. In Beijing you can learn the standard Chinese by immersing yourself in everyday life. Each city in China has its own accent and speaks Mandarin differently. Beijing language, however, has been taken as the standard for all mandarin speakers, and is thus spoken on TV, written in official documents, and is a vehicular language between citizens of different provinces. There are many people who come to learn Chinese in Beijing and so it is easy to practice with them.
   
3. A lot of multinational companies have their offices in Beijing. Profiting from the international flair, but staying within the local culture is as easy as taking the metro for one stop.

Check out: One day in Beijing

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Dialect Overview

Where the main Chinese “dialects” are spoken:
	Mandarin/普通话		Gan/江西话/赣语
	Mandarin is spoken by more people than any other language – over 1 billion. It is the main language of government, media and education in China and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages in Singapore.		Gan is spoken by about 20.5 million people in Jiangxi province and in parts of Hubei, Anhui, Hunan and Fujian provinces.
	Cantonese/广东话/粤语		Hakka/客家话
	Cantonese is spoken by about 66 million people in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces and Hainan island in China, and also in Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia and many other countries		Hakka is spoken in south eastern China, parts of Taiwan and in the New Territories of Hong Kong. There are also significant communities of Hakka speakers in such countries as the USA, French Guiana, Mauritius and the UK.
	Xiang/湖南话/湘语		Min Bei/闽北话
	Xiang (Hunanese) is spoken by about 25 million people in China, mainly in Hunan province, and also in Sichuan, Guangxi and Guangdong provinces.		Mín Bĕi has about 10,3 million speakers mainly in Northern Fujian Province and Singapore. Mín is the Classical Chinese name for Fujian province and Bĕi means ‘north’ or ‘northern’.
	Wu/吴语		Min Nan/闽南话
	Wú is spoken in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces and in Shanghai and Hong Kong by about 77 million people. Major dialects of Wu include Shanghainese and Suzhounese.		Mĭn Nán is in the south of Fujian province, Guangdong province, southern Hainan Island, in the south of Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces, and also in Taiwan, Singapore and many other countries.