Chinese languages are spoken by approximately 1.3 billion people today, most of whom live in the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). In many countries, especially in Southeast Asia, there are larger Chinese-speaking minorities. The Chinese language with the largest number of speakers is Mandarin. The standard Chinese, which is also simply referred to as “the Chinese” or “Chinese”, is based on it. Zhōngwén (中文) is a general term for the Chinese language that is used for both spoken and written languages. Colloquially, however, Hànyǔ rather describes standard Chinese, for which there is a separate technical term, the Pǔtōnghuà (普通話 / 普通话). (wikipedia)