So as many of you know, Chinese language or 普通话 is often referred to as Mandarin Chinese by most of the English speaking world. Personally I don't care for the moniker Mandarin. However, I won't bore you with the myriad reasons why. Instead in this post I'd like to discuss the various names for Chinese language and writing.
普通话 pǔtōnghuà Common Language (used in China to refer to Chinese Language)
国语 guóyǔ Country's Language (used in Taiwan to refer to Chinese Language)
汉语 hànyǔ Chinese Language (used in both areas to refer to Chinese,
commonly used abroad)
华语 huáyǔ Chinese Language (refers to an older name for China)
中文 zhōngwén Chinese writing (refers to Chinese writing as a whole)
汉字 hànzì Chinese Writing (used to refer to Chinese characters)
While there are others, these are the main ones, and tend to be used the most often. If you would like to tell someone that you can speak Chinese, there are a couple options.
我会说汉语。 wǒ huì shuō hànyǔ. I can speak Chinese.
or
我会讲中文。 wǒ huì jiǎng zhōngwén. I can speak Chinese.
If you would like to tell someone that you can only speak a little Chinese this is the best option.
我只会说一点儿中文。 wǒ zhǐ huì shuō yī diǎnr zhōngwén. I can only speak a little Chinese.
If you wanted to have a beginning conversation with someone, this is how it could go:
O：你好。 nǐ hǎo. Hello.
Y：你好。 nǐ hǎo. Hello.
O：你好吗？ nǐ hǎo ma? How are you?
Y：我很好，你呢？ wǒ hěn hǎo, nǐ ne? I'm doing well, how about you?
O： 我也很好。谢谢。 wǒ yě hěn hǎo. xiè xiè. I'm also doing well, thanks.
Y：再见。 zàijiàn. Goodbye.
O： 再见。 zàijiàn. Goodbye.
Okay, so that conversation was a bit stilted but it's just the beginning. Hopefully I'll be able to jump into some more interesting and tough topics soon. Thanks for reading!
