mandarin

Everyday

1. A mandarin is a small, sweet orange fruit that is easy to peel. tree →
2. Mandarin (with a capital M) is the main form of Chinese, the language spoken by the most people in the world as a first language. tree →
3. In history, a mandarin was an important official in old China. tree →

In the lessons

In everyday life mandarins are a popular lunchbox fruit; clementines and satsumas are kinds of mandarins. In language lessons, Mandarin Chinese uses tones and is written with characters. In history lessons mandarins were educated officials who ran the Chinese empire. Phrases: «peel a mandarin», «mandarin oranges», «speak Mandarin», «Mandarin Chinese».

Examples

• I have a mandarin in my lunchbox. tree →
• Mandarins are easy to peel. tree →
• She can speak Mandarin and English. tree →
• Mandarin is spoken by hundreds of millions of people. tree →
• A mandarin has about ten segments inside. tree →
• In ancient China, mandarins helped run the empire. tree →
• Satsumas are a type of mandarin. tree →
• We shared a bag of mandarins on the trip. tree →

Note

Lower case m for the fruit; capital M for the language. Mandarin is one kind of Chinese; others include Cantonese. Fruit maths: if a mandarin has 10 segments and 2 friends share it equally, each gets 5.