can chinese people of different dialects understand each other?

Question

and how many dialects are there?

Answer 1

I see someone said all Chinese can understand the same writing, but that's not quite true. Most of them understand the traditional writing, but Red China has some simplified characters that many Chinese don't know. Some of my Chinese DVD's have captions in both traditional and simplified Chinese symbols. I don't know the total number of dialects, but some are much more common than others. Mandarin, a northern dialect, is the official one in both the Republic and People's Republic (Taiwan and Red China), so it's spoken by more people than any other. In Hong Kong and Kwantung province, Cantonese is spoken. The same is true of most Chinatowns of the world. There are four variations of Cantonese. Saam Yup (3rd dialect) is the one spoken in Hong Kong and major cities. I have a pal who speaks Sei Yup (4th dialect),a "hillbilly" dialect, he says. I speak Saam Yup, and I can understand little of what he says. I took 2.5 years of Cantonese at San Francisco City College. In one class a girl from Shanghai spoke some of her city's dialect. No one could understand her. A person who speaks one dialect may undersatnd a little of another dialect, but some words are too different for that. I once had a Hong Kong gal whose surname was Ng (Eng). I wrote in Chinese symbols about her to a pal in Houston from Taiwan. When i visited Housston, he asked, "How is Miss Woo?" I was surprised, for the only Miss Woo I knew was a teacher in one Cantonese class. I soon learned that he meant Miss Ng. Her surname is Ng in Cantonese or Woo in Mandarin. Another of my gals was Miss Lee in Mandarin or Miss Lei in Cantonese. Wang=Wong, Chen=Chun, etc. As you see, some words are similar, while others are totally different. People of different dialects may understand some words but not others. The situation is like an American speaking to an Englishman, a German and a Frenchman. They can understand some of what each other say but not all.

Answer 2

To tell you the truth, all my Chinese friends tell me that the dialects are not mutually intelligible. I know a guy from the south of mainland China whose dialect is completely different from the one spoken in Shanghai and they cannot understand each other at all.... when they speak in their home dialect. But most people can speak Mandarin on the mainland and that is the language used in conversations when people come from different areas. About the number of dialects, there are too many to count, but they are broken into sub dialects of which I think there are about 5 but you could check that on Wikipedia.

Answer 3

Some words are the same but the inflections are different. But Mandarin is vastly different from Cantonese in that Mandarin is mostly spoken monotone with a few inflections, whereas Cantonese and more so, Toisan(taisan) is all inflection. Toisan is considered the most melodic of all languages taking decades to master from non-native tongues. Toisan is the language you usually hear on early American TV and movies, because it was vastly different from European languages. Most Chinese actors during that time period were from Canton/Toisan province. Rough estimates are close to 2,500 distinct dialects in China since recorded history starting some 4700 years ago. Today there are at estimates 11 main groups of major dialects, but only Mandarin is the officially recongnized language.

Answer 4

The answer is, "it depends". There are many regions and dialects in China. Some dialects are closely related while some differ greatly.

As far as written language, that is shared pretty much all across China. A written character will mean the same thing to Mandarin speakers and Cantonese speakers, but they will pronounce it differently... sometimes WAY differently, sometimes recognizable to the other group.

Answer 5

Chinese has many different dialects SO Chinese people cannot always understand each other.

Answer 6

If they write they can. they use the same written language but the dialect makes the words sound different, therefore like a different language.

Answer 7

yes to the degree that the dialects are similar ( visualize a Scott speaking fast to a Southerner )

Answer 8

yes. can an American from new york understand an American form Texas if they both speak English? YES!
a Spaniard can communicate with a Mexican both speaking Spanish!

Answer 9

Most mandarin and Canton people understand each other for the most part, but not usually Korean and Japanese.

Answer 10

Can people from Texas understand people from Maine, yes they can!!!!