What's the difference between Chinese and Mandarin?
When someone mentions that they are learning Chinese, people often ask if they mean Mandarin. But what is actually the difference between the two? Are they the same thing? Let's get you up to speed so you have the perfect answer handy next time someone asks you.
What is Chinese?
"Chinese" is an umbrella term that covers several languages and dialects, like Mandarin, Min, Yue, Wu, and more. Among those, Mandarin Chinese, is the most widely spoken variety and it's what most people are referring to when they talk about "Chinese". So, in a nutshell, learning "Chinese" usually means learning Mandarin. But, there's more to it if we dig deeper.
What is Mandarin?
When people say "Chinese", they usually mean "Mandarin", but what they actually mean is the Mandarin variety "Standard Chinese". Standard Chinese became the official language of mainland China after the Republic of China was founded in 1912. Having a common language is crucial to uniting a country as big as China.
However, China is not only big but also ethnically very diverse, with 56 different ethnic groups, all with their own languages and dialects. All these languages belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family. Within this family, the languages spoken by most people are the Sinitic languages, commonly known as the "Chinese languages".
A subset of the Chinese languages, predominantly spoken in northern parts of China, is known as Mandarin Chinese. This dialect group has a specific pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, setting it apart from other Chinese languages like Cantonese (a Yue variety) or Hokkien (a Min variety). Speakers of one of these languages usually do not naturally understand any of the other Chinese languages. Going deeper, we find the branch of Beijing Mandarin, mostly spoken in areas of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Liaoning, and Inner Mongolia.
The relationship between Mandarin and Chinese.
The Beijing dialect of Beijing Mandarin (also called "Beijingese") is the one that adds the iconic -r to some words (e.g. 哪儿; nǎr) and, to the untrained ear, makes you sound like a pirate. The Beijing dialect was deemed the most prestigious ("correct") dialect and was thus used as the base for Standard Chinese.
There you have it: When somebody says they are learning Chinese, they most likely mean Mandarin, and even more specifically Standard Chinese. Easy, right?
Other Chinese languages
Although everyone in China nowadays has to learn Mandarin, there a still hundreds of millions of people who also speak their local Chinese language. Famous examples are Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Hokkien. If you want to know what different Chinese languages sound like, check out the following video:
Closing thoughts
Technically, there is not only one Chinese language. However, there is a Standard Chinese, often referred to as Mandarin. Most people inside and outside of Chinese speaking countries nowadays refer to it when they talk about the Chinese language. It's a beautiful mess, but you now have the knowledge to go into full geek mode the next time someone asks you what kind of Chinese you learn 🤓
Another common question is about the difference between simplified and traditional Chinese. If you always wanted to know what the deal is with these two, check out our blog post on simplified vs. traditional Chinese!
Happy learning, see you next time! 🌏📚
