Thread: Tell me about learning Languages

Edit: Thanks for all the replies folks!

Originally Posted by Carrot

Does Mandarin or Chinese makes a difference? I've read up that it actually meant the same thing.

I'd imagine that you, being Chinese, would know the answer to that.... but if you don't, the answer is no.

That's like saying "Isn't Canadian and English the same thing?" Well of course not, because Canada is a country... and both English and French are it's languages. Thus, "Chinese" is not a language as China is a country and Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese etc are it's languages. The other thing to note is that the "major" languages in China (Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese etc), as in Canada (English and French), are largely mutually unintelligible.

There is "Standard Chinese", which is Nation wide and based off of a single Dialect of Mandarin... but it mostly came to be to simplify political interactions and the like since there are so many languages (or variations of several languages) spoken in China.

Originally Posted by mindwanderer

I'd imagine that you, being Chinese, would know the answer to that.... but if you don't, the answer is no.

That's like saying "Isn't Canadian and English the same thing?" Well of course not, because Canada is a country... and both English and French are it's languages. Thus, "Chinese" is not a language as China is a country and Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese etc are it's languages. The other thing to note is that the "major" languages in China (Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese etc), as in Canada (English and French), are largely mutually unintelligible.

There is "Standard Chinese", which is Nation wide and based off of a single Dialect of Mandarin... but it mostly came to be to simplify political interactions and the like since there are so many languages (or variations of several languages) spoken in China.

I see the loophole in your explanation now. Canadian is a nationality whereas Chinese is a race not a nationality. If you were to put it that way, English would mean a race too. So how can English be both a language and a race at the same time? The same goes for Chinese. So theoretically using Chinese and Mandarin implies the same thing and it's only dependent on your sentence structure. Besides, Chinese is more understandable as compared to the usage of the word "Mandarin".

References:
Chinese | Define Chinese at Dictionary.com
Mandarin | Define Mandarin at Dictionary.com
English | Define English at Dictionary.com