Understanding Chinese……one The term "中文 (Chinese)" emerged as a counterpart to the English word "Chinese." In China's education system, the subject is not called "中文 (Chinese)" but "语文 (Chinese language and literature)." Chinese is a language system with a long history, roughly divided into two parts: "written Chinese (the written form)" and "spoken Chinese." Written Chinese is unified across the country. No matter which dialect people speak, they use the same Chinese characters for writing (either simplified or traditional; traditional characters are mainly used in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan). For example, the phrase "我爱中国 (I love China)" is written the same way by all Chinese speakers. Spoken Chinese is rich and diverse, mainly including "Mandarin" and various "local dialects": 了解“中文” 一 中文一词是对应英文一词而产生的，在中国的教育体系里命名不是中文而是语文。中文是一个有着悠久历史的语言体系，大致可以分为“书面语中文即书写体”和“口语中文”两部分。 书面语在全国范围内是统一的。无论人们说哪种方言，书写时都使用相同的汉字（简体或繁体，繁体主要在港澳台使用）。比如“我爱中国”这几个字，所有使用中文的人都会这样写。 口语则丰富多样，主要包括“普通话”和各种“地方方言”：