What kinds of Chinese are there?
You’ve probably heard that about 15.7% of the world population speaks Chinese, making it the most spoken language of the world, as well as the official language of as many places as China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, and Malaysia.
Have you ever had the thought that learning Chinese will allow you to achieve seamless communication with a good portion of Asia? If so, we’re here to shed some light on an issue that is less straightforward than many may assume. Take a look at this table:
These are just some common words one will likely use on a summer vacation. The main differences across the three columns are that:
- The Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese terms are spoken in the Mandarin dialect
- The Hong Kong terms are spoken in Cantonese dialect
- The Mainland Chinese terms are written in Simplified Chinese
- The Taiwanese and Hong Kong terms are written in Traditional Chinese
The spoken Mandarin and Cantonese dialects differ by the number of tones, as while the former contains four distinct ones, the latter has nine, making it quite the challenge for new learners to pick up. In regards to the difference in written Chinese, Traditional characters contain more strokes and take a longer time to write. In the row for Train, the Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong terms are in fact the same. As you can see, the first character “地” is identical in its two written forms; whereas the second character varies greatly between its Traditional “鐵” and Simplified “铁” forms.
Consider this hypothetical situation. If you were in Taiwan, could you be understood if you were to use the Hong Kong term for taxi, “的士”, by speaking it in its Mandarin dialect (“de-shi”)? From personal experience, the answer is a resounding no. You might find that strange. At the end of the day they’re all the same language, so even if a Chinese-speaking individual hasn’t heard of it before, wouldn’t it still be relatively easy for them to guess?
To answer that, let’s take a look at the row for Taxi and break down the three different terms. Mainland China uses “出租车”, formed of the components for “rental” and “car”. The literal meaning is “car for rent”, and that’s pretty much what a taxi is. The Taiwanese term is “計程車”. This one is comprised of three components, which are “meter”, “journey”, and “car”. Put together, the term is “journey tracking car”, and much like the previous term, it also illustrates the way a taxi functions. Lastly, we have the Hong Kong term, “的士”. That’s a transliteration of the English word.
Even with knowledge of Chinese, it’s not easy to equate culturally specific terms to the same object, because people in the three places have such different ways of perceiving a taxi. And this article doesn’t even account for the cultural differences in Macau, Singapore, or Malaysia! That paragraph’s example is just one of many. As much as the places are geographically distinct from one another, it’s also reflected in the way their locals speak their language — it’s all Chinese, yet they’re not quite the same. If you were to pick up Chinese, what specific place do you have in mind to use it for?