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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5774 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 1 of 3 16 April 2009 at 12:20am | IP Logged |
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There are several names for Chinese (language) in China, the most common being putonghua, hanyu and hanguohua I believe. Are there any particular rules when to use each one?
How do overseas Chinese refer to Mandarin Chinese? For example if I wanted to ask the waiter in my local Chinese restaurant if he spoke Mandarin would I use one of the above terms or a different term altogether? Please use pinyin in your replies as my knowledge of Hanzi is still limited. Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5901 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 3 16 April 2009 at 2:08am | IP Logged |
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When asking the question in Mandarin, I generally use zhong1 guo2 hua4 as it’s a pretty neutral term. Chinese with roots in Taiwan, and those who left the mainland as a result of the revolution, can find the use of pu3 tong1 hua4 disturbing. Generally those persons prefer to use guo2 yu3.
Han4yu3 (漢語/汉语) refer to the Han. There are a lot of people from China who may look Han to most of us but are not. I generally avoid using terms specific to the Han. BTW, the question can be disturbing regardless of the wording. Some ethnic Chinese may get annoyed that you are not using the franca lingua of the realm. Some southern Chinese may get annoyed that Mandarin was used. An easier way to test the waters would probably be to naturally drop a few Mandarin words into your English and gage the response. Edited by Snowflake on 03 May 2009 at 10:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Turbo Tetraglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 5662 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, French, Mandarin Studies: Spanish, German, Japanese | Message 3 of 3 16 April 2009 at 10:19pm | IP Logged |
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Here in Hong Kong, up to until about, say, 15 years ago, the term Mandarin (guo2 yu3) was generally used. In fact, I hadn't even heard of the term Putonghua then. However, now it's the other way round and Putonghua is more current than Mandarin.
Hanyu is a somewhat more scholarly term. For example, the Chinese government might say it wants to promote the use of Hanyu overseas. The term is hardly ever used by the man in the street (at least in HK that's the case). Had you stopped me in the street and asked me if I could speak Hanyu, I'd have to think for a few moments before I understood what you're talking about. I have not heard of term Hanguohua. If you ask a Chinese if he speaks Hanguohua, he might think that you are asking him if he speaks Korean. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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