Thread: Chinese Vs. Mandarin, Simplified Vs. Traditional

Originally Posted by mariacecilia

Is it difficult to learn Chinese? What do you think?

Well i teach english and chinese, it is difficult,weird for us pronunciation, tones,characters but is so challenging and at the end you enjoy it.
Try! you wonīt regret

if you know "Mandarin" you might get yourself understood in many places across China (specially in Beijing and Shangai), but thereīs about 52 dialects! And in many provinces people only speaks their own dialect and they donīt even know "Mandarin". Mandarin is the "official" language learned at school, but many people donīt even know about it and never use it.
People going to high school might speak the dialect at home or with their grandparents and Mandarin for "special occasions".
Itīs hard to learn, to me, pronunciation is really hard, since thereīs so many tones, if you just mispronounce something you end up saying a totally different thing!
I love it though, and I love Chinese people, Iīd say Chinese people are one of the most friendly peoples in the world.

Originally Posted by Hebe

I heard in India there are about 14 dialects. How amy dialects are there in the chinese Language ?

Many of the languages spoken in India aren't actually dialects, but completely separate languages, and in some cases they have entirely different writing systems. Some languages, like Hindi or Punjabi, are related and belong to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family, while others, like Tamil or Telugu, belong to the Dravidian language family. A lot of Indians use one language at home and a different one at work, or in other places where they might come into contact with speakers of other languages. In many cases speakers of different languages use either Hindi or English, both of which are official, to communicate. Hindi is the most widely-spoken, but I think it's still only spoken by about half the population (as either a native or second language), maybe even less.

Mandarin or simplfied Chinese is the offical languages used across mainland China, and tradtional Chinese is the languae used in Taiwan province, Hongkong, Macao and Chinese people lived in oversea, actually simlfied means simpled the writing of many Chinese words compare to tradtional Chinese since it is adopted by China government from January 1955.

Mandarin and Cantonese are two SPOKEN styles/dialects of Chinese language.


Mandarin is the official state language of China and is the lingua franca of the country. It is in many areas the primary spoken language, including Beijing and Shanghai, although many provinces still retain their own local dialect. Mandarin is also the main dialect in Taiwan and Singapore. On the other hand, Cantonese is a local dialect spoken by the people of Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong province, including Guangzhou (previously Canton in English). Many foreign Chinese communities, also speak Cantonese thanks to emigration from Guangdong.


So why didn't other Chinese dialects gain the same or similar importance in western world? Why don't we hear much of "Shanghainese", "Shandongnese" or "Sichuanese". This is because the Grangdong (Canton) province was the earliest in China to start its communication and economic exchange with the western world more than one hundred years ago (Hong Kong was then a small village lying on the south coast of Guangdong). Many Chinese people nowadays living in the United States are of Canton (Guangdong) origin, and their accent (Cantonese) is much more heard by western people than any other Chinese dialect was.

Originally Posted by leadtoasia

When considering English to Chinese Translation, the form of written and spoken Chinese, which should be used in communications. There are three types of Chinese in general:

1. Mandarin, written using short-form (Simplified Chinese) characters - Mainland China and Singapore

2. Mandarin, written using long-form (Traditional Chinese) characters - Taiwan

3. Cantonese, written using long-form characters - Hong Kong and overseas Chinese

Hi leadtoasia, there is some difference between Cantonese, also called Yue Chinese, with traditional long-form characters. Even though it uses long-form Chinese, it has some specific wording and characters that are not common in traditional Chinese.
Also, for the case of overseas Chinese, I would say that it is way more common using simplified one than Cantonese as there are much more Chinese all around the world.

Originally Posted by analaura

if you know "Mandarin" you might get yourself understood in many places across China (specially in Beijing and Shangai), but thereīs about 52 dialects! And in many provinces people only speaks their own dialect and they donīt even know "Mandarin". Mandarin is the "official" language learned at school, but many people donīt even know about it and never use it.
People going to high school might speak the dialect at home or with their grandparents and Mandarin for "special occasions".
Itīs hard to learn, to me, pronunciation is really hard, since thereīs so many tones, if you just mispronounce something you end up saying a totally different thing!
I love it though, and I love Chinese people, Iīd say Chinese people are one of the most friendly peoples in the world.

Hi analaura, in fact it is not that hard as you mentioned. There are only 4 basic tones and once you get use to it you will see that is quite simple.
Itīs really worth trying and if you need someone to practice with, count with me.

Originally Posted by bigpond

Mandarin or simplfied Chinese is the offical languages used across mainland China, and tradtional Chinese is the languae used in Taiwan province, Hongkong, Macao and Chinese people lived in oversea, actually simlfied means simpled the writing of many Chinese words compare to tradtional Chinese since it is adopted by China government from January 1955.

Just one little thing. It is quite common to mentione just Taiwan. We no longer say Taiwan province.

Originally Posted by Lateralus

Well i teach english and chinese, it is difficult,weird for us pronunciation, tones,characters but is so challenging and at the end you enjoy it.
Try! you wonīt regret

Agree there! I have read once that if you manage to understand Chinese or German, two hardest langagues in the world, you will be capable of learning practically all languages in the world as none of them is as hard as those two.

Originally Posted by mariacecilia

Is it difficult to learn Chinese? What do you think?

Hi Maria, it may be a little confussion at the beginning but eventually you will see that it is not that hard
The languange itself is really interesting and you definitely need to try the Chinese calligraphy using those little writing brushes. Itīs like art!