One time someone asked me what languages I was studying and I replied Chinese.
To which they answered what kind of Chinese?
And I thought oh, I should indeed say Mandarin instead!!
I was always confused between Mandarin vs Chinese because somehow at university I was never taught the difference
To make it short and simple if you’re like me:
Mandarin is a dialect of Chinese. Chinese is a language (Mandarin is one of the dialects of Chinese alongside Shanghainese, Cantonese and many more).
I remembered there is actually an article explaining all of it in more details:
Interesting question!! Also makes me wonder whether 中文 has the same ambiguity and encompasses Mandarin/Cantonese/Hokkien etc
I almost always say I’m studying Chinese. The only exception was probably in Hong Kong where Cantonese is more prevalent, so I’d specifically say Mandarin.
Also once back home I said I was learning Chinese and someone asked me ‘Mando or Canto?’ - which has definitely become my new fav question to ask people
I usually say that I study Chinese, but it happened to me before that some people asked if I was studying Mandarin or Cantonese.
I recently discovered the reason why “mandarin” is called mandarin, which is very interesting!
Apparently the word “mandarin” traces back to the Portuguese word “mandarim” (which means “minister”) that was used to refer to Chinese officials during Qing and Ming dynasties.
