Chinese - language most people speak in the world

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Pos  Language    Family                 Script(s) Used    Speakers (Millions)   Where Spoken (Major)
1    Mandarin     Sino-Tibetan         Chinese Characters     1151    China, Malaysia, Taiwan
2    English         Indo-European      Latin                          1000    USA/UK/Australia/Canada/New Zealand
3    Spanish       Indo-European      Latin                           500    Mexico/Central and South America/Spain
4    Hindi           Indo-European      Devanagari                 490    North and Central India
5    Russian        Indo-European     Cyrillic                        277    Russia, Central Asia
6    Arabic         Afro-Asiatic          Arabic                        255    Middle East, Arabia, North Africa
7    Portuguese   Indo-European     Latin                           240    Brazil, Portugal, Southern Africa
8    Bengali         Indo-European     Bengali                       215    Bangladesh, Eastern India
9    French         Indo-European     Latin                           200    France/Canada/West Africa/Central Africa
10  Malay, Indonesian     Malayo-Polynesian     Latin       175    Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore

Tone and intonation in Chinese language

Many beginner Chinese learners are confused about the tones in Chinese.
Non-tonal languages use intonation (usually rise or fall), rhythm, and stress. But intonation is not used to distinguish words.
Chinese has the similar intonation system. The only difference is, Chinese has four tones, in which pitch variation does distinguish words, in addition to providing intonation.
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Tenses in Chinese language

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Chinese verbs do not conjugate like the verbs of most Indo-European languages such as English or Spanish. In English, for example, the verb "to eat" has many forms compared to its Chinese equivalent: "to eat" (infinitive), "eat, eats" (present), "ate", (simple past), "eaten" (past participle), "eating" (present participle), etc. Chinese only has one basic form, used for every person and tense; thus "chī" (吃) can equal all these forms. ("tā chī" 他吃: he eats, "nǐ chī" 你吃: you eat, etc.) In other words, Chinese does not express these differences through inflectional suffixes.

Expressing completed actions (past tense)

The simplest way of expressing past tense is to use adverbs such as "yesterday."
For example:
"zuótiān wǒ chī jī" 昨天我吃鸡, literally: yesterday I eat chicken is equal to saying "Yesterday I ate chicken".
我昨天在北京. I was in Beijing yesterday.
Another way of expressing past tense is to use the aspect particles "guò" (过) or "le" (了) , which cannot stand by themselves but can express completed actions when placed after verbs.
For example:
 我看見了三个人。- wǒ kànjiàn le sān ge rén le! - I saw three people!
Past tense in Chinese can also be emphasized by surrounding the verb and direct object with the words "shì-de" (是-的). Here the time is sufficient to express the past tense but the "shì-de" pattern emphasizes for purpose.
For example "wǒ shì zuótiān chī jī de" (我是昨天吃鸡的). This phrasing emphasizes the time in which the action took place more than the action itself.

Expressing actions in the near future (future tense)

When wanting to express actions in the near future, you can use the construct: 要(yào)/就(jiù)/快(kuài)...了(le), here the modal particle 了 appears at the end of the sentence. When using 快 you can't use a construct of time like the word "yesterday".
For example: 我要看見你了 - wǒ yào kànjiàn nĭ le! - I'm about to see you, I will soon see you.

Expressing continuous tense

The continuous tense, being performing the action right now, is expressable in chinese with 正在 (zhèngzài), or just 正 (zhèng) or 在 (zài), although this is optional. The particle 呢 (ne) however, is always placed at the end of the sentence:
我正在看你呢 (wǒ zhèngzài kàn nĭ ne) - I'm looking at you.

Change of tones in Chinese language

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The tone of a Chinese word sometimes changes when used in a sentence depending on the tone of the word that preceds or comes after it.

Rule 1:
If a 3rd tone is followed by a 3rd tone, the first 3rd tone becomes second tone.
e.g. 手表 古典 美好 理想

Rule 2:
If a 3rd tone is followed by any tone other than the 3rd tone (covered by rule 1) the 3rd tone changes to a "half 3rd tone." A "half 3rd tone" is one that falls, but does not rise.
e.g. 首先 祖国 广大 耳朵

Rule 3:
Rules concerning the word "不"
The word "不" is 4th tone, but when it is followed by another 4th tone, it becomes 2nd tone.
e.g. 不会 不但 不论 不必 不变 不是 不信 不料 不愧 不错
when 不 is between a verb and an adjective, it becomes neutral tone.
e.g. 好不好 行不行 看不清 打不开

Rule 4:
Rules concerning the word "一"
The word "一" is 1st tone when used as part of a number (一, 二, 三, ... 十一).
The word "一" is 4th tone when preceeding 1st, 2nd, or 3rd tones.
e.g. 一般 一端 一经 一边
一时 一群 一条 一团
一举 一早 一手 一体
The word "一" is 2nd tone when proceeding a 4th tone.
e.g. 一道 一次 一定 一致 一律 一晃 一动 一并 一刻 一路
The word "一" is neutral tone when it's between two reduplicated verbs.
e.g. 看一看 想一想 问一问 学一学

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