"Chinese" is a cover term for a group of 6-12 languages that are mutually unintelligible, but use the same writing system. Yue (also known as Cantonese), Min-nan (the language of Taiwan), and Xiang (the language of Hunan) are three of these languages (NOT "dialects"). These languages are about as closely related to one another as German, English, and Swedish. They all descended from the language known as Old Chinese. "Mandarin" (also called Putonghua) is the Chinese language with the most speakers and is the official language of China. Most people in China learn Mandarin as their second language if they speak something else. If you learn "Chinese" in the United States, you are usually being taught Mandarin.
2006-12-15 05:15:18
·
answer #1
·
answered by Taivo 7
·
1⤊
0⤋
Mandarin is the language Chinese people speak while Chinese is a race. Mandarn is NOT a dialect. Dialect are informal languages, whereas Mandarin is anything but. I know, I'm Chinese, quater anyways.
2006-12-15 02:56:17
·
answer #2
·
answered by Anonymous
·
2⤊
1⤋
Mandarin is the most common of Dialect of Chinese. When someone says Chinese, most often they are referring to Mandarin.
Chinese has a unified writing system, but different dialects will say the same word different ways.
2006-12-15 06:26:41
·
answer #3
·
answered by mike i 4
·
0⤊
1⤋
Mandarin is the most widely spoken dialect of the Chinese language
2006-12-15 02:59:54
·
answer #4
·
answered by tabithap 4
·
0⤊
1⤋
Mandarin is Chinese
2006-12-15 02:56:05
·
answer #5
·
answered by Anonymous
·
0⤊
2⤋
Chinese includes all the languages in China
Mandarin is one type of Chinese that is used most widely
but most people refer Chinese being the writen language, and mandarin the speaking one nowadays
hope this helps~!!! thankz for reading xx
2006-12-15 16:19:24
·
answer #6
·
answered by Anonymous
·
0⤊
1⤋
The difference you mean. No, there are none. Mandarin is Chinese, it's just a dialect you can say, just like Cantonese is still Chinese. But of course, Chinese can be referred as the person is Chinese. Of course, if you're still wondering about the simplified Chinese and tradtional Chinese thing, it's just two styles of writing Chinese. simplified Chinese is the simplified version of tradtional Chinese. A bit like cursive.
2006-12-15 09:06:58
·
answer #7
·
answered by Mysterious 3
·
0⤊
1⤋
Mandarin is one of several Chinese dialects.
2006-12-15 02:55:46
·
answer #8
·
answered by Erin W 2
·
3⤊
2⤋
Erin is correct, there are 100's dialects of chinese. Mandarin is just one of them.
2006-12-15 02:56:57
·
answer #9
·
answered by Jonny B 5
·
3⤊
1⤋
One is spelled mandarin and the other is spelled chinese.
2006-12-15 02:55:32
·
answer #10
·
answered by m c 5
·
1⤊
5⤋