Singaporeans are mostly bilingual, typically with English as their common language and their mother-tongue as a second language taught in schools, in order to preserve each individual's ethnic identity and values. English is the most spoken language at home at 48.3% of the population; Mandarin is next, at 29.9% according to the 2020 census. Nearly half a million speak other varieties of Chinese, mainly Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese, as their home language, although the use of these is declining in favour of Mandarin or just English. Singapore Chinese characters are written using simplified Chinese characters.