Abstract: One hundred and two Bouyei children’s (aging 3 to 6 years old) mandarin application ability from two kindergartens in Lubuge of Luoping, Yunnan Province was invesitgated from five dimensions: simple Chinese question and answer, Chinese vocabulary mastery, sentence comprehension, understanding action instructions, and preliminary sentence consciousness. The study found that the children’s mandarin ability has no obvious relationship with gender, but is positively correlated with the age. Obvious regional differences were found in Mandarin ability between township and village kindergartens, with that of kindergartens being superior to village kindergartens. The children’s mandarin ability can be effectively improved by the enhancment of the mandarin application ability and teaching ability of rural kindergarten teachers in ethnic minority areas, strengthen of the creation of language environment in kindergartens and set language courses rationally, cooperation betwen family and school, creation of a good environment for children's mandarin education, paying attention to the current situation of rural private kindergartens in ethnic minority areas and increase support efforts, and establishment and improvement of a system for evaluating children's mandarin proficiency.

Key words: Yunnan, Bouyei nationality, children development, language ability