Script guide › East Asian
How to recognize Chinese (Mandarin)
Chinese (Mandarin) is one of 3 languages in Grafle's East Asian group. Here's what it looks like, where you'll see it on signs, and how to tell it apart from its lookalikes.
Spot it fast
- Only dense, square characters — no simple curvy letters mixed in anywhere.
What Chinese (Mandarin) looks like
人人生而自由，在尊严和权利上一律平等。
你好，很高兴认识你。
学而不思则罔，思而不学则殆。
East Asian scripts: Dense square characters (Chinese, Japanese kanji) or tidy syllable blocks built from circles and lines (Korean).
Where you'll see it on signs
- China
- Taiwan
- Singapore
Easy to confuse with
- Japanese — Pure dense characters = Chinese. Simple curvy kana (の, し, は) woven between characters = Japanese.
- Korean (Hangul) — Korean is built from circles and straight lines in tidy syllable blocks; Chinese characters are dense with no circles.