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Xinhua: 400m Chinese don’t speak Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6295 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 1 of 6 08 September 2013 at 1:44am | IP Logged | ||
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BBC report
Xinhua Report Breif news report in Mandarin Not exactly a news flash that "not everybody in China speaks Mandarin" but thought it was interesting to see it pop up in the news. Edited by jimbo on 08 September 2013 at 1:57am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Ford Groupie United States Joined 4744 days ago 65 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 2 of 6 08 September 2013 at 6:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting, and kind of surprising to get such a large (and presumably candid) number from the Chinese government. I had always heard that the Chinese government was prone to exaggerating the percentage of the population that spoke Mandarin.
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| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4702 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 6 08 September 2013 at 8:45am | IP Logged | ||
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It's not really news most people know that Mandarin is not really a native language to most Chinese people, yet there are plenty out there who would lambast for even daring to think that.
But it is a comforting thought to know that so few in China are actually native mandarin speakers, sure they started at a much younger age than you with hour upon hour of instruction and immersion but it is still not a native language. So if so many people can do it....well you know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4773 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 4 of 6 08 September 2013 at 10:44am | IP Logged | ||
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| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 5 of 6 08 September 2013 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Southwestern ''Mandarin'' and Putonghua are like Swedish and Standard German. Edited by Medulin on 08 September 2013 at 8:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4445 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 6 of 6 09 September 2013 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Westerners tend to assume since China has over 1B population and the official language is Mandarin,
therefore, everybody should be able to speak it. Throughout history there are few literate people. And due to the country being big, travelling from 1 part to the next was difficult. Historically the only thing the government was able to standardize was the writing system. Now the people who do not speak fluent Mandarin are mainly the older generation who gone through the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and into the early '70s without a lot of education. The younger generation who are in school or attended more recently will get some subjects taught in Mandarin so the fluency would be higher. Do statistics from China include the former Br. colony of Hong Kong and the Portuguese enclave of Macau? You are adding a few millions who are Cantonese-speakers but may not be fluent in Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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